Collecting Forever? On Acquiring a Tino Sehgal

In 2012, during my tenure as chief curator at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM), I initiated the acquisition of a work by the artist Tino Sehgal that brought about a discussion within the museum itself on the issue of the permanence of the collection. For the museum, founded on preservation and inalienability, what are the implications of acquiring a living artwork whose radical immateriality resists its own conservation? Sehgal’s work problematizes the idea of permanence, and in that sense, it undermines the modern and Western conception of the museum: to preserve the past in order to build the future.

(2007) is a “constructed situation,” as Sehgal calls most of his works, and it brings together six intellectuals to engage in a philosophical discussion. It is composed of a hundred or more quotations from philosophy, sociology, economics and history, merged into a choreography of gestures, some of which can be identified with art historical icons or themes. The action plays out in a continuous loop. The six bodies move into the space and interact among themselves and the audience in the same space. They are absorbed in their interaction, and from time to time they address the audience directly, asking: is entirely spoken. It is a living artwork. In terms of collection, because of its essential oral form, the work can only continue to exist over time through its own presentation. The act of collecting thus participates in the radical immateriality of the work by expanding it into the historical question of permanence.