Brussels' sprout

At the age of thirty-three, Vanderlinden has already curated (or produced) a wide variety of projects: From 1991 to 1993, she worked on the contemporary art program for Antwerp '93, Cultural Capital of Europe, where she cocurated (with Bart Cassiman) "New Sculptures for Middelheim" and organized "The Sublime Void" and "On taking a normal situation . . ." (a phrase borrowed from Gordon Matta-Clark). Since the founding of Roomade in 1996, she has launched projects in collaboration with Matt Mullican, Marie JosE Burki, Tobias Rehberger, Anne Daems, Ilya Kabakov, and Jan Fabre. Under the rubric "On the desperate and long-neglected need for small events," she has organized artistic projects in deserted buildings in Brussels. This summer she curated (for the Universal Exhibition in Lisbon) the contemporary-art section of the exhibition "Fascinating Faces of Flanders" - "58/98: Two Hours Wide, Two Hours Long" - and cocurated (with Maria Lind and Robert Reck) Manifesta 2 in Luxembourg.

HANS-ULRICH OBRIST: How would you describe your curatorial approach? What do you think the curator's role is?

BARBARA VANDERLINDEN: An important part of the recent history of art has developed by means of major institutional exhibitions conceived as a momentum, reflecting the tensions and developments within contemporary art. But I think most of the significant shows in recent years were the work of individuals rather than institutions. Arnold Bode, Harald Szeemann, Kasper Konig, and Pontus Hulten, for example, have asked - through the shows they have mounted - important questions about the role of the curator. Much of their work has been done outside the traditional museum, and it has stirred discussion about what an exhibition is or can be. I don't believe curators create exhibitions by following in anyone else's footsteps - I know I don't. Right now I would say the curator's task is to rethink the "exhibition as a momentum."

HUO: You founded Roomade as a "structure of production." It has no fixed exhibition space, but is something like a production office - film production, video production, whatever - that uses different spaces as needed. Could you tell me about the founding of Roomade and what your motivations were in doing so? Also, were there any precedents that influenced you?

BV: We founded Roomade two years ago as an attempt to plug certain "gaps" in the way that art is shown, to go beyond the traditional format, which tends to cause exhibitions to fall into a conventional pattern. For example, when we produced a series of hypnosis performances with Matt Mullican, we had to find a new location for each one, since his dialogue between artist and hypnotist was set in a specific domestic setting and simply wouldn't have come across if it were done in a conventional museum space. So we held each performance in a different private home.

The form we have given to Roomade is not a museum or a conventional art center, but an "office for contemporary art." We are trying to bypass the conventional system without wishing to oust it. The aim, from the beginning, was to probe anew the limits of creativity and to propagate original and risky projects with artists. The challenge is to generate insights without falling into navel-gazing or " l'art pour l'art."

The idea to put together a small, flexible organization came to me while I was researching the history of an antimuseum or antigallery in Antwerp - a self-proclaimed "corporation of free men" - called A 37 90 89. Kasper Konig founded it in 1969-and it was active for six months. The artists' projects of A 37 90 89 were as varied as a soccer match by Jorg Immendorff's fictitious "LIDL Academy," a bar called Amadeus, which was run by Addi Kepcke and Tomas Schmit, a balloon flight by Panamarenko, Marcel Broodthaers' Musee d'Art Moderne Departement des Aigles, Section XVIIe siecle, and antiracist actions (in one case, they published a list of every local bar and cafe that posted "no foreigners allowed" signs).

It was obvious that the scale, energy, spontaneity, and directness were the main characteristics of this so-called noninstitute. Without referring to the ideological context of the '60s, we were interested in reinventing such a working environment and production situations. Of course, Roomade is not the only example of this approach today. There are a number of similar associations around the world, like Artangel in London.

HUO: When did you start to organize exhibitions? Was there some event - a discussion with an artist, say, or a sudden burst of inspiration - that triggered your first curatorial activities? Tell me about your background, from your earliest projects up to the '90s.

BV: I guess I just started working with artist friends on different projects. In 1991, I was hired as the contemporary art coordinator for Antwerp '93, Cultural Capital of Europe, where I had the occasion to develop many artists projects within the framework of the various exhibitions we organized ("The Sublime Void," "New Sculptures for Middelheim," and "On taking a normal situation . . ."). These projects ranged from outdoor sculptures by Per Kirkeby, Matt Mullican, and Isa Genzken to site-specific works by Mark Dion in the Antwerp zoo. We worked with Andrea Fraser, who hung posters throughout the city, and produced a film by Bethan Huws. During those three years I was active as a producer, let's say, of more than thirty major works, including projects by Renee Green, Maria Eichhorn, Eugenio Dittborn, and Jimmie Durham. It was clear from then on that I wanted to create a situation where the key questions involve the problem of production and the place of art itself, and that "situation" could be an individual art project or an exhibition. To me, the "problem of production" is not merely to solve practical problems but to find new situations for art to develop in, whether in the form of a book, a television program, or a radio play, and so on. My job is to invent structures, to create or re-create a place that can provide greater clarity in our readings of contemporary art and bring out new possibilities in it.