[TiM Recap] “Inquiring and Caring with the Act of Commissioning” – Trine Friis Sørensen (UU)

by Jhor van der Horst

Figure 1: Diagram of the commission. Source: Trine Friis Sørensen, “A Precarious Construct: The Commission As A Curatorial Mode Of Inquiry,” The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 25, no. 51 (51 2016)

Trine Friis Sørensen presented a lecture on her PhD research, “We Can (Not) Work It Out: A Curatorial Inquiry into the Danish Radio Archive” (2015). While Sørensen intended to use this TiM lecture as an excuse for new research, a lack of time prevented her from doing so. Her admission was met with an understanding chuckle from the room.

The lecture lasted approximately 40 minutes. It was followed by a 50 minute Q&A. The lecture covered Sørensen’s PhD research, new reflections, and connections to the TiM theme. It also included accounts of the two artworks commissioned as part of the PhD research: Kajsa Dahlberg’s “Fifty Minutes in Half an Hour” (2013) and Olof Olsson’s “DR P3 1963-2013. 50 years of Danish State Authorized Pop Radio” (2013).

First, Sørensen outlined her research, speaking frankly about the practical difficulties of commissioning artists to work within existing archives as part of developing academic research. In particular, Sørensen spoke to the different approaches which her two commissioned artist took to “the archive.” Moreover, she outlined the methodological peculiarities of working with artists who needed clearance to access archival materials. As a result, the research demanded contracts to be signed on the basis of trust rather than detailed project proposals.

Second, to articulate ‘the commissioner,’ Sørensen cited Oxford English Dictionary definitions which include a duty or task, an entrusted authority, and an instruction or command. Sørensen turned to dictionary definitions because little scholarship exists. One of the most prominent sources, Pasternak and Peltason’s Creative Time, holds an outdated understanding of the commission which prioritizes artists’ desire over commissioners’ needs. Rather, Sørensen argues, a contemporary account of commissioning ought at least to be aware of curatorial demands. The needs of a commission may include “garnering public interest,” “attracting tourism,” “reinvigorating a collection,” or “complying with legal requirements for public insitutions to commission public art.” The piece-de-resistance of the lecture, as evidence by ample Q&A comments, was the “diagram of the commission” (see Figure 1) (Sørensen 2016, 88). While previously published in a journal article, the presentation diagram included added comments (see Figure 2). Sørensen identified the various actors involved in her commisioning endeavor at the Danish Radio Archives. Notably, she explored the diagram of the commission in three modalities: “on paper,” “in practice,” and “as an inquiry.”

Third, connecting to the TiM theme “Matters of Care,” Sørensen introduced archives as “perpetual matters of concern.” In recent decades, however, interpretations of archives have shifted. Concern for museum objects themselves has given way to concern for their social embeddedness. The commissioner, Sørensen attests, plays a role in identifying relevant criticalities of archives. The focus is places on an assembly of interlocutors, relationality, and intervention. In making this connection, the lecture explicitly cited Bruno latour (2004; 2005), Jacques Derrida (1998), Gayatri Spivak (2016), Mieke Bal (2002), Maaike Bleeker (2023), and Michel Foucault (1996).

Finally, the Q&A included questions about the involvement of the Danish Radio Archive, the impact of the curatorial/commissioning role on methodology, considerations of the materiality of the archive, the status of the Danish Radio Archive as a state archive, historical inflections of curatorial practice, the potential to use commissioning practices in teaching, and the archival need which Sørensen herself identified.

Figure 2: The Commission – as an inquiry. Source: Photo by Jhor van der Horst, at Trine Friis Sørensen, “Inquiring and Caring with the Act of Commissioning” (Lecture, February 21, 2024).

References

Bal, Mieke. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 2002.

Bleeker, Maaike. Doing Dramaturgy: Thinking through Practice. New Dramaturgies. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

Dahlberg, Kajsa. Fifty Minutes in Half an Hour. 2013. https://www.kajsadahlberg.com/work/fifty-minutes-in-half-an-hour/.

Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Paperback edition. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Religion and Postmodernism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Foucault, Michel. The Masked Philosopher. Edited by Sylv`ere Lotringer. Translated by Lysa Hochroth and John Johnston. In Foucault Live: Interviews, 1961 – 1984, 302–307. Semiotext[e] Double Agents Series. New York, NY: Semiotexte, 1996.

Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30, no. 2 (2004): 225–248.

Latour, Bruno, and Peter Weibel, eds. Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

Olsson, Olof. DR P3 1963-2013, 50 Years of Danish State Controlled Pop Radio. 2013. http://www.olof.cc/.

Pasternak, Anne, and Ruth A. Peltason. Creative Time: The Book : 33 Years of Public Art in New York City. 1st ed. Edited by Michael Brenson. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007. Accessed March 5, 2024. http: //catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip073/2006033983.html.

Sørensen, Trine Friis. “A Precarious Construct: The Commission As A Curatorial Mode Of Inquiry.” The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 25, no. 51 (51 2016). https://tidsskrift.dk/nja/article/ view/25620. 10.7146/nja.v25i51.25620.

“Inquiring and Caring with the Act of Commissioning.” Lecture, February 21, 2024.

“We Can (Not) Work It Out: A Curatorial Inquiry into the Danish Radio Archive.” PhD diss., University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, DK, 2015. https://humanities.ku.dk/calendar/2015/june/we_can_not_ work_it_out/.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Translator’s Preface. Edited by Judith Butler. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. In Of Grammatology, by Jacques Derrida, Fortieth anniversary edition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.