Backstage presence

ArtForum, Feb, 1998 by Daniel Birnbaum

In the contemporary French art world, one finds plenty of believers in elaborate theoretical discourses but just as many disciples of the Eternal Poetic. Page seems to lean toward the latter, but in her case the instinct for poetry is combined with rare administrative gifts. Since 1988, when she took over as director, the museum has staged a number of successful and influential exhibitions, including one-person shows by Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, and Fabrice Hybert as well as ambitious theme shows, of which the most recent are "Passions Privees" (a display of holdings from private French collections) and "Annees 30 en Europe," an attempt to grasp the artistic milieu of the '30s in all its grotesque complexity. The critical consensus was 'that the latter show set new standards for its sophisticated presentation of the relationships between art and politics.

Page is also one of the few directors of large museums in Europe who have been successful in their goal of revitalizing the institution through staging a continuous dialogue between contemporary and historical art. Since 1988, the museum has systematically juxtaposed cutting-edge contemporary art and modern classics, such as the work of Glacometti, Arnold Schonberg, El Lissitzky, and the German Expressionists. This sort of synthesis is clearly the ambition as well of the current three-part exhibition of Nordic art, "Visions du Nord," which consists of a historical section focusing on five major artists from the turn of the century; a group selection of thirty-odd contemporary artists (from Finnish video artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila to Swedish composer and installation artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff); and a one-person show of work by Danish painter Per Kirkeby.

Among museum people Suzanne Page is of course a well-known figure, but to the broader audience for art she is virtually invisible. She seldom grants interviews and generally refuses to be photographed. Indeed, during my repeated attempts to track her down, first in Paris and then in a succession of legendary European hotels, I became convinced that we would never meet face to face. Finally, in Berlin's plush Hotel Kempinski, I found proof of her actual existence, and not just "behind the scenes," but through the dim spotlight of the hotel bar.

- DB

DANIEL BIRNBAUM: You have been working in the same institution. the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, for a very long time now. How did it all start?

SUZANNE PAGE: In 1973 I was appointed the director of Animation, Research, and Confrontation [I'ARC], an institution that was founded in 1967 to open the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris to contemporary art and to involve the audience in more active ways. The idea behind I'ARC was very typical of the spirit of '68. The sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu about the thresholds of culture and society were important for our work, and we wanted to invite new audiences, to have people who normally would not even think about crossing that cultural threshold enter the museum. I am a product of those times.

DB: So what did you do before that?

SP: Well, in 1968 I hardly knew anything about contemporary art. I studied Latin and Greek at university and was pursuing an academic career in classics. I then took art history at the Sorbonne and the Ecole du Louvre and specialized in the seventeenth century. After that I attended the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, with Pierre Francastel on Brueghel. At that point I saw Picasso at the Galerie Leiris, and it had a profound effect on me. But it is very important to me to have this classical background, since I believe it's a good thing to feel at home in a world that seems different from that of contemporary art. In fact, I think all art is for each of us contemporary to our experience. I always go see shows of classical art, even if I'm not professionally involved, and I am always stimulated by them. Actually, most of the people I admire in contemporary art have many other fields on the side.

DB: For many years your curatorial staff was almost exclusively female. Was this a political choice on your part?

SP: Well, a certain feminist ambition on my part cannot be denied. But the real reason the staff has consisted of women is economic: only women have accepted the lousy salaries our museum has been able to pay. The financial struggle has been constant, and I don't think the future will be any easier. We're facing difficult years.

DB: In your own generation there haven't been many women in top positions in the museum world. That is slowly changing. Do you think your museum has played a role in this development?

SP: I don't know, but I would hope so. I think that women can contribute a lot as curators, with a more "rhizomatic" position, in the Deleuzian sense.

DB: Who has been your most important source of inspiration as a curator?

SP: Artists have always been my prime source of inspiration. But if you mean other museum people, I must mention Jean Cassou, Pierre Gaudibert, Harald Szeemann, and of course Pontus Hulten.