The Second Museum of Our Wishes.

The Second Museum of Our Wishes. Edited by John Peter Nilsson. Texts by Lars Nittve, Griselda Pollock and the Moderna Museet’s curators. Moderna Museet Sweden and Steidl publishers, 2010. 140pp., illustrated throughout, 17x23,5cm.

"On 18 April, 2006, Moderna Museet launched its vision of The Second Museum of our Wishes, initially with a debate article by director of Moderna Museet Lars Nittve, under the heading 'Routine preference given to male artists'.

The article was an appeal to the government for a one-off allocation of SEK 50 million to adjust the gender balance in the Moderna Museet collection. The entire sum would be used to purchase works by women artists from the first half of the 20th century. This would entail a genuine opportunity to give women artists a more fair place in history."

After the successful accomplishment of this goal the Moderna Museet collection has now been "enhanced with a total of 24 works by 13 artists.

The majority of these works have been exhibited in the permanent exhibition since they were acquired and have thus not only markedly changed the statistic gender balance in the collection that meets visitors to the museum, but also the art histories that the museum conveys.

The title [of this vision and the book documenting it] refers to an exhibition at Moderna Museet in 1963, when former Director Pontus Hultén managed to pursuade the government to allocate, what was at the time, a considerable sum for purchasing many of the works that are now key works in the collection by male artists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso.

Artists now represented with important works in the collection thanks to The Second Museum of our Wishes are: Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Susan Hiller, Tora Vega Holmström, Anna-Chaja Abelevna Kagan, Hilma af Klint (through a deposit agreement), Mary Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Lee Lozano, Alice Neel, Lioubov Popova, Carolee Schneemann, Monica Sjöö and Dorothea Tanning."


First quote from here ; second quote from here.