"Wir drohen das Gespür für die Gemeinschaft zu verlieren"
Christophe Cherix, the new director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, discusses his first months in the role, emphasizing museums as "safe social places" in an era of anxiety and screen-induced isolation. He advocates for collective vision-building with staff and defends the MoMA's independence against political pressure in Trump-era America. Separately, critic Paco Barragán argues in The Observer that biennials are in a structural crisis of repetition, tracing their history from instruments of national soft power to a "Global Neo-Liberal Biennial" system that co-opts diversity without changing its core logic. He introduces the concept of the "vibe-ennial," where discourse is replaced by atmosphere and critique by affect. Meanwhile, longtime Bonn museum director Stephan Berg critiques the boom in immersive art experiences like "Van Gogh – The Immersive Experience," calling them a "surrogate reality" tailored to the Instagram age that destroys the integrity of original works. Artforum reconstructs late-1960s debates on art criticism, focusing on Barbara Rose's challenge to formalists like Clement Greenberg and Rosalind Krauss, arguing that art must engage with societal conflicts such as Black Power and war resistance.
These discussions matter because they reflect deep, ongoing tensions in the contemporary art world: between institutional authority and political pressure, between critical discourse and market-driven spectacle, and between the social role of museums and the isolating effects of digital culture. Cherix's vision for the MoMA as an inclusive, independent space comes at a politically charged moment in the U.S. Barragán's critique questions whether biennials can ever be truly transformative or are doomed to reproduce existing power structures. Berg's attack on immersive shows highlights a growing divide between accessible, viral art experiences and the preservation of artistic integrity. The Artforum piece revisits foundational debates about art's social responsibility, which remain urgent today as artists and critics navigate polarized cultural landscapes.