Céline Coubray: What surprised you most when you arrived at the Mudam in April 2022?

: I knew that I came into a museum that has an exceptional reputation, that is adventurous and known for really well researched, good exhibitions. The architecture surprised me because it has a very human scale but it’s built on a fortress. It surprised me how engaged the audience is, especially when it comes to performances and live events in the museum, as in many other cities you don’t have that. And I realised from the beginning that we have a very active and curious audience here. This was a very positive surprise because often contemporary art is also considered being difficult and I never had this feeling here.

Did you receive a roadmap from the board of directors?

It’s rather an ongoing discussion. The government wants to have a lighthouse and that the Mudam is used to present the Luxembourgish art scene on an international level. This is what I really got as a roadmap. So we built up a museum that shows the best of the Luxembourgish art scene in the context of an international art world. We do it on an exceptional level, so Luxembourg is on the map for culture and becomes a serious player in the international art scene. The Luxembourgish Pavillon in Venice and Les Rencontres d’Arles are also very important for this. Luxembourg is doing an exceptional job in promoting its artists and getting recognised on an international level. I think Mudam is a very important player.

What is the image of Luxembourg when you’re talking to your international colleagues?

There’s a lot of curiosity because people recognise that Luxembourg is a cosmopolitan country, where many languages are spoken. This is a very unique place to show contemporary art, even very unique in Europe. And on the other hand, Luxembourg is really taking care of its people and its art scene. They also recognise that Mudam is a place where we can take risks, but also do basic art historical work.

Museums are more recognised on the outside than on the inside.

Bettina Steinbrügge, director, Mudam

For example, I got a lot of feedback about the because this is a new discovery, or on our exhibition on technology pioneers because this is the first time an exhibition is dedicated only to women in technology between 1960 and ’91. This is how you make a name for a museum. On the other side, you have to create shows that are also for a wider audience, as we’ve done with . And people see that from the outside.

Does the local audience also have this kind of perception of the Mudam?

In all countries all over the world, museums are more recognised on the outside than on the inside. The local audience is much more critical than the international audience. But last year, we had a raise in audience numbers of 12.2%. That is not so bad. We also have had a raise in the participation of workshops, subscriptions for Mudam’s newsletter, on mudam.com. Our Instagram has had a raise of interest of almost 16%. So we have more global interest and we have far more young people coming to the museum.

With Schawinsky or Radical Software, you mentioned more historical exhibitions. How do you balance modern and contemporary art?

We really balance the programme and will balance it even more in the future. I want to have more historical exhibitions because it is a way to explain more what we do. We can’t just be an avant-garde museum that shows the latest trends. We must also give a broader perspective. I want the Luxembourgish to be proud of the Mudam. We are working on it and we try to attract as many people as possible.

There are now around 840 art works in the collection. How did you approach this collection?

I love collections. What is really important about collections is that we build something for the future. What we buy now from contemporary artists is what future generations of Luxembourg will see of our time and it’s still the arts and culture that define the time. I always find this interesting when I look at art history. When we look at the Mudam’s collection, on one hand we want to form a signature collection for Luxembourgish art scene, collect what is relevant for Luxembourg, with its international perspective. On the other hand, the collection should reflect our contemporary time, what is discussed in society at the moment, what reflects it, so we serve also as a source of inspiration for future generations. And the collection is always judged by its significant artworks.

But buying art, and especially significant art works, can be very expensive…

Yes, but we really try to buy significant works that could be future loans for many other international museums. It is also how you build up recognition. So sometimes we bet on the future and buy art by young artists, sometimes we buy significant works that enhance the reputation of the collection. You have to look at it from different angles and try to understand the whole ecosystem around it. The collection has now a significant size, so we can really work with it, in dedicated exhibitions or among group shows.

What artistic direction would you like to give to the collection?

Collection can never be a personal taste. Collection has to be a mix of everything. We have a very good international selection committee. So we are not doing it alone, which is important because we spend taxpayers’ money. We have to be very serious about what we buy. One person from the board of directors is also joining our meetings and discussing our selection. Then we discuss it in the board of directors. We have a broader foundation on the decision making and on how we acquire works. This is necessary in order to be respected and also responsible.

What budget is available for acquisitions?

We have about €640,000, but we have also the contribution from the Cercle des Collectionneurs [museum patrons association], and we get donations. I think it’s solid. It can always be more and we can’t compete with the international art market and all its collectors, but this is the reality for all museums at the moment except private museums, like we see in Paris at the moment. But we have the advantage that many artists want their works in public museums. So we can also negotiate differently than other collections.

Do you ask artists to make a donation?

We usually don’t ask for a donation from the artist. If an artist does it, that is lovely and beautiful. But artists also need to make money. It’s a whole ecosystem. In the future, we want to do more productions and propose them for acquisition, as we can reduce the budget of the production on the acquisition price. So at the end, we can get artwork cheaper than on the free market. And because it was produced for the Mudam, it is also very unique.

What is the interaction between the Mudam and private collectors?

The Cercle des Collectionneurs was started under Susan Cotter’s direction. After the covid slowdown, we really came into it. We have a very engaged group of people who can take part of art trips, events at the museum, meet interesting people… They are really interested in enhancing the collection of the Mudam. We also have discussions of what they find interesting. We listen to them and we feel very much supported by them. A museum is a joint institution, it’s not the taste of one person. Without friends, supporters, you can’t run a museum today anymore. So we have to understand the local society and our members are part of the Luxembourgish society. They’re very interested in culture. So it is an exchange.

The collection has now a significant size, so we can really work with it.

Bettina Steinbrügge, director, Mudam

Previous directors have already begun to develop donations and legacies to enrich the collection. With the donation of Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann in 2023, I imagine that this is also your plan.

Yes, it is. The donation of 20 works from international collectors Wilhelm and Gaby Schürmann will shape the collection in a different way, because most of these works are from women artists, and like in all collections in the world, Mudam doesn’t have enough art by women. So we are very happy about this and we got crucial works from the early 2000 and late 1990s that were missing a bit in the collection. This is a major step for the museum.

Did you bring the Schürmanns to Mudam?

I knew them before being in Luxembourg, but this donation was also made thanks to several different people from Luxembourg. It was a joint effort.

Mudam also works with corporates. Could you tell us more about this connection?

Patronage forms are the basis of a museum and the bridge to society. We created in 2023 a ‘resource development’ department, by bringing together the sponsorship and partnerships, boutique, reception and ticketing departments. We really try to develop our resources on many different levels. We have corporate partnerships, with pluriannual contracts. This money comes to the museum in an unconditional way. We also offer these companies something they can use as premises for a lower rate or guided tours, for example. We build real exchanges and these partnerships are very stable. The department really has close ties with all these companies. We are all partners in a game and we all believe that culture is important.

Mudam also has corporate partnerships based on donations.

Yes, one is with A&O Shearman who is interested in moving image. We have a very productive partnership with them: they finance a research curator who proposes works among which A&O Shearman will acquire one for the Mudam’s collection. They can also show it in their building when they want to, as during Private Art Kirchberg. What I really like with this partnership is that we have deep discussions about the content.

The other one is Baloise. They are acquiring for us, with an international jury, a work by an emerging artist during Art Basel. So this is a way of including fresh voices to the collection. In return, we organise a presentation of this artist in Mudam. This year it was Sin Wai Kin and in 2023 it was Tourmaline. This artist is a queer activist from New York. Suddenly we got more people from the queer community in Mudam, with discussions on this topic and a collaboration with Centre Pompidou in Metz, so a cross-border project. It is interesting to see what develop around those different cooperations.

Collaborations with other institutions are also very important, aren’t they?

Yes, of course. The Mudam has already close connections to different institutions and is still building up its network, in Luxembourg, in the bordering regions, with our neighbours but also international institutions.

How do you want to enlarge Mudam’s audience?

In our contemporary society, we have many different groups and it seems like many people are searching for their own identity, especially in a in a country like Luxembourg where you have so many people coming from different countries. We are living in a society that is quite globalised, but on the other side people are searching for belonging more than ever. So what is the common denominator? It is very hard to find now. Museums have an important function in our society of bringing people together, even very diverse people. During the Dayanita Singh exhibition, who is a photographer from India, suddenly the Indian community felt involved and came to Mudam, often for the first time.

We see that with contemporary art--and this is not only in Luxembourg--people ask themselves ‘what does it have to do with me?’. That’s the role of the museum; to make the people interested in what we are doing, to make them feel comfortable in a museum. And this is really a difficult topic. If you are very avant-garde, then the traditional audience doesn’t like it anymore. If you are not avant-garde, then the young people are not coming. How can we bridge this? What we see in the museum is also a kaleidoscope of what has happened in society. My vision is really to bring all the different interests and people together in one place, especially if they don’t talk to each other anymore outside.

Within A Model exhibition, you re-examined the role of the museum institution today. What conclusion did you draw?

There’s no real conclusion because we mainly pose questions. We look at what it means if we work with our collection and invite people from outside to work with different works of the collection. What happens if we disrupt this building, in a way that we invite an artist that disrupts what this building supposably is? This is what we did with Jason Dodge. What does it mean if we tackle all the different questions like identity, politics, sustainability, museum?

Without friends, supporters, you can’t run a museum today anymore.

Bettina Steinbrügge, director, Mudam

Worldwide all people are discussing museums at the moment. As there is a profound change in society, there is a profound change in all the institutions. They try to rethink themselves and this is not something you can solve with a project, but over many years, with audiences. We got so much feedback, positive and negative, about this project. This feedback became part of our weekly team discussions. From now, there is a much bigger awareness among curators, me, public-facing departments, on how we want to develop the programme, by having modern art and very young artists, substantial shows and discoveries, a mix of playfulness and seriousness, and also taking the Luxembourgish art scene seriously and giving it an important space in this museum.

The number of performances has very much increased lately. Why?

Susan Cotter started this and I continue it. This is exciting and the audience here is so much engaged! We just got a European Union grant to support our performance programme. So we are working with partners like CAC in Lithuania, Bozar in Brussels, Triennale Milano and other institutions together to build up a performance programme for the next three years. Performance is an immersive event, people love that. And the architecture of this museum somehow seems to have been made for performances. You can do so many amazing things here. I think performance is the most contemporary art form we have now.

One of major questions that museums must ask themselves today is sustainable development, both in the daily management of the institution and in the handling of the collection. How does the Mudam position itself on this subject?

The building was built in the optimistic 1990s, when we didn’t care about energy cost, climate crises… It has a lot of glass and that comes with a cost. At the same time, it is a beautiful, wonderful, marvellous building. But all museums must think how to reduce energy costs and there are many ways of doing it. For example, on a curatorial level, the international community of museums agreed to reduce the air conditioning conditions.

Another example: we have to think twice about what kind of artists we show in the spaces that are maybe heating up in summer. If we think differently about how to curate shows and what to curate, then it’s an interesting question and we find solutions. Regarding water and energy saving, we already have some successes: we already saved 30% of water and reduce energy costs by 15%. And there are many subject to work on, as transportation, wrapping material… It’s an interesting process, engaging both new sustainable materials, new behaviour and new technology. We are very aware of it and the whole art world is talking about it. We learn from other museums and are in constant exchange about it.

In the 2023 activity report, it is stated that 77% of Mudam’s expenses are operating costs and only 23% are programming and collection related. Isn’t that disproportionate?

Anyone would say yes, but we have to live with the facts and I’m a very pragmatic person. We have to pay our people and for this building. What we are trying now is to fund raise more, so we can support our exhibition and programming budget. I’m very happy that the government of Luxembourg recognises the importance of culture and is really putting lot of energy and dedication in it. But it’s also our responsibility to support this effort and to even do more. So we look at all the different aspects of this museum, where we can be more cost efficient, on all the different tiny problems that add up in a very specific budget. There are ways of solving problems and I’m very optimistic about all of this. We have good people here to bring museum to the future.

Is Luxembourg Art Week an important moment for you?

Yes, of course, because an art scene consists of different players and all the players have to be strong. Luxembourg Art Week brings different people to Luxembourg, with a good energy. For me it is a promising opportunity for the continued evolution of the contemporary art world in Luxembourg, both in terms of discourse and market development. Luxembourg is situated in the heart of Europe, has a unique position to attract emerging trends through its diverse and internationally minded population, and to showcase them to a discerning group of collectors. The development of Luxembourg Art Week is like the development of the Luxembourgish art scene: it is a gradual and sustainable process that has the potential to contribute to the advancement of the scene over time. It is developing year after year and I think it will have a good curve.

Is there any project you really want to achieve before the end of your mandate in Mudam?

I’m not a project curator. I’m an institutional person. I want this institution to be solid and stable, with a very interesting programme. And I think this bridge between modern and contemporary art is something I want to establish because I find it extremely important. I would like to foster research around the Mudam because we have now a real good collection. From my point of view, it is an obligation for museums to contribute to the international art historical development. And I want to establish an open museum, a place where people like to be, where they hang out and feel welcome.

This article was originally published in the  magazine, published on 20 November. The content of the magazine is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the website to contribute to the complete Paperjam archive. .

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