Research plan 2006-2009

• Introduction
• General Objectives and Strategies for Research
• Research in the Performance Contract for 2006-09
  - Strategic areas of interest and targets
  - Education
  - Research
  - Registration
  - Funding
• Staffing levels
  - KMS
  - KKS
  - KAS
  - PhD courses
  - UMTS-project: Danish art on the Internet

Introduction

Statens Museum for Kunst is a government institution under the Ministry of Culture. It is Denmark's main museum of fine arts. The Museum is run in accordance with the Museum law and its purpose is to present Danish and foreign art, primarily from the Western cultural sphere after the year 1300, through collection, registration, conservation and education. With respect to Danish art, the Museum must establish and maintain representative collections. The Museum must promote these collections and put them in perspective by participating in international collaboration. The Museum's collections form the basis for research and general educational activities.

The Museum's collections consist of more than 9,000 paintings and sculptures (of which a good 2,000 are out on permanent loan, 800 of these at royal castles), approx. 330,000 art works on paper (drawings, graphic art, photographs, gouaches etc.) as well as 3,659 plaster casts of sculptures from classical times, the middle age and the Renaissance.

Statens Museum for Kunst is governed by the law concerning research at archives, libraries, museums etc. (the so-called abm-law), and one of its primary purposes is to research in the Museum's collections. This research can relate to art-historical and aesthetic questions as well as conservation and education. According to the law, the Museum must draw up multiannual ¡Vfour-year, as a rule ¡V research plans within the framework of the main research areas. The research plan encompasses the institution's overall research activity, and thus not only that part of it that is carried out by staff members appointed to actual research posts. In the case of substantial alterations to the premises of the plan and its content within the four-year period, it may be necessary to draw up a revised research plan.

With the drawing-up of the four-year research plans, it is the duty of the Museum to ensure fulfilment of both the stipulations of the law and the objectives formulated by the Museum, partly in its overall vision for its future activities, partly more specifically in the plans for research strategy and action which are connected to the current performance contract. To ensure continuity between research plans and research resources, the aim is to make the four-year research plans follow the Museum's performance contract period as far as possible. The next four-year research plan thus covers the period 2006-09.

General Objectives and Strategies for Research

As the only museum for fine arts under the law concerning research at archives, libraries, museums etc., Statens Museum for Kunst occupies a natural and central position in Danish art-historical research.

The Museum has an important function as the basis for art-historical research in Demark, and internationally for research in Danish art. This is a position that the Museum wishes to maintain and strengthen in the coming years. This will be effected by an increased collaboration between Statens Museum for Kunst and both Danish and foreign research milieus, and by extending the work of registration and improving access to information about the Museum¡¦s collections, both in the shape of complete catalogues of the collections and catalogues raisonnes, as well as by exploiting the possibilities offered by the latest information technology.

It is characteristic of research at Statens Museum for Kunst that it stems from the Museum's collections or treats questions and themes that are relevant for them: this will also be the objective in the future. As far as research in Danish art is concerned, one of the most important objectives when choosing an area of research must be that the individual projects can contribute to placing Danish art in an international perspective and/or making topical some less visible but still important areas of Danish art history.

The Museum wishes in the coming years to maintain both the quantity and the quality of research generated by the Collections and Research Department, but the ambition is also to develop and strengthen research within the areas of education and conservation. This ambition is to be directly realised in a number of new research projects, several of which involve international collaboration. The choice of research projects is, as before, mainly divided between major projects relating to research based exhibitions, catalogues raisonnes or PhD projects, and lesser projects/subjects, which have their point of departure in the individual researcher¡¦s area of responsibility and typically result in an article in a catalogue or periodical, as well as conference papers.

Research projects at Statens Museum for Kunst must always lead to presentation, visibility, in some shape or form. This may be as exhibitions and exhibition catalogues, catalogues raisonnes, articles, talks, teaching, a new hanging or new arrangement, an acquisition or something else which is visible and accessible for the public.

Through adequate staffing, the Museum¡¦s objective is that its own researchers must be able, as far as possible, to cover the main areas of the collections. So as to take care of special areas for attention and exploit the possibilities that can arise through external funding, the Museum will always be open to both attaching external researchers to specific research projects and also to funding its own researchers to carry out major research projects.

In recent years, the Museum has been able to finance several research projects by means of grants and privately sponsored funds; The Centre for Advanced Studies of Master Drawings is the finest example.

The Museum's objective here is to be able to maintain and hopefully expand the present volume of research by continually attracting external resources to fund special areas of research.

To be able to live up to these objectives, a number of targets for research and registration are set forth in the Performance Contract 2006-09; these will be presented below.

Research in the Performance Contract for 2006-09

- Strategic areas of interest and targets

There will be special focus on the user group in the Performance Contract period. In the coming four years, the Museum will direct special attention to:

• a high level of scholarship
• more visitors

The Museum's expectation is that a high level of scholarship focused on increasing the public's experience can contribute to a greater knowledge of the Museum and in turn contribute to an increased number of visitors.

The Museum's research efforts have an immediate effect on the public¡¦s experience. The Museum's first area of interest is therefore a greater concentration on education and supported research in education.

The quality of the Museum's education ¡V and consequently the public's experience ¡Vis dependent on research in the Museum's collections. Thus the second target area of the Museum is research. Both the public's access to the collections in the Museum and the Museum's research activities are dependent on the works in the collections being registered and documented. The Museum's third area of attention is therefore registration of the collection.

Concrete targets for the Museum's activities are laid out in the following section for each of the three target areas.

Education
The Museum must expand its educational aspects and commence actual research into the dissemination of the Museum's collections. Up to now, the Museum has only carried out research in education to a very limited extent, and in the contract period there must be a definite increase in this research for the benefit of the Museum¡¦s guests. This researchis to be carried out in collaboration with other leading competence centres here and abroad. In the contract period, at least one development project related to research must be carried out with external partners. This new knowledge must be made available to the public. It is a clear objective that the Museum shall be in the forefront in Denmark as regards imparting knowledge about art.

Over and above all this, the Museum must generally strengthen education. Resources must be allocated to improving education about the collections and the special exhibitions so that visitors gain an easier access to the many works in the Museum and knowledge about them.

The Museum must maintain and develop its profile as a centre of art-historical research. Consequently the objective in the contract period is that 8 research projects be carried out, 1 research seminar be held and 1 research journal be published.

The Museum wishes to strengthen research through collaboration with researchers outside the Museum. It is the Museum's aim that these collaborative projects shall be carried out in 2007 and 2009.

In being a part of and by balancing and qualifying the on-going discussion about a Danish painterly canon, the Museum will take up the question of how fine arts contributes to creating and supporting concepts regarding identity.

The latest international research evaluation made the point that the Museum could well do more for its large collection of sculptures, and in the contract period, the Museum will concentrate on making the large Royal Cast Collection more topical. This will be part of the Museum¡¦s efforts to present its collection of sculptures.

The Museum will collaborate with the Ministry of Culture and carry out an international evaluation of research in the period following the former evaluation (2002). The evaluation will be effected in 2007. The Museum¡¦s Centre for Advanced Studies of Master Drawings willcontinue. During its lifetime, the Centre has produced 3 catalogues raisonnes of the Museum's collection of engravings. The Centre contributes with invaluable knowledge about the oldest drawings in the Museum, whereas knowledge was hitherto often desultory and scanty. It is the Museum's objective that in the period 2007-09, the Centre should obtain part private financing of its activities.

Research
The Museum must maintain and develop its profile as a centre of art-historical research. Consequently the objective in the contract period is that 8 research projects be carried out, 1 research seminar be held and 1 research journal be published.

The Museum wishes to strengthen research through collaboration with researchers outside the Museum. It is the Museum’s aim that these collaborative projects shall be carried out in 2007 and 2009.

In being a part of and by balancing and qualifying the on-going discussion about a Danish painterly canon, the Museum will take up the question of how fine arts contributes to creating and supporting concepts regarding identity.

The latest international research evaluation made the point that the Museum could well do more for its large collection of sculptures, and in the contract period, the Museum will concentrate on making the large Royal Cast Collection more topical. This will be part of the Museum’s efforts to present its collection of sculptures.

The Museum will collaborate with the Ministry of Culture and carry out an international evaluation of research in the period following the former evaluation (2002). The evaluation will be effected in 2007. The Museum’s Centre for Advanced Studies of Master Drawings willcontinue. During its lifetime, the Centre has produced 3 catalogues raisonnés of the Museum’s collection of engravings. The Centre contributes with invaluable knowledge about the oldest drawings in the Museum, whereas knowledge was hitherto often desultory and scanty. It is the Museum’s objective that in the period 2007-09, the Centre should obtain part private financing of its activities.

Registration
The Museum has a serious registration backlog which has arisen over the past many years. In recent years the special UMTS appropriations (extra funding arising from the State¡¦s revenues from the sale of UMTS licences for mobile telephony) has meant that electronic registration has been greatly accelerated. In the contract period, there will be an annual electronic registration of at least 1,500 works in the Museum's database, and at least 600 documentation photographs will be registered on the homepage.

The Museum shall ensure the continued development of electronic registration of the works in the Department of Drawings and Prints: it is the Museum¡¦s objective that all the Museum's drawings (approx. 30,000) shall be registered by 2015 at the latest. The Museum shall also carry out an actual audit of the collection in this department. The audit of drawings in the department shall be completed in 2006 and an audit of the whole Department of Drawings and Prints shall be completed in 2007.

The Museum will similarly carry out an audit of the other collections ¡Vthe Collection of Paintings and the Royal Cast Collection. The audit of the latter shall be completed in 2008 and the audit of the Collection of Paintings in 2009.

Funding
The fall in the budget for collections in 2006 is due to the fact that the cost of part of the fire precautions in the Museum's old building should be covered by the general grant to the Museum's running costs, and this amount had to be met by the allocation to collections.

Staffing levels

KMS (The Royal Collection of Painting and Sculptures)
In 2003, a decision was made regarding staffing levels of researchers attached to the Department of Paintings and Sculpture. This decision means that as far as possible, one senior researcher shall be attached to each of the four main areas: older European art (before 1800), older Danish and Scandinavian art (before 1900), Danish and international art 1900-60, and Danish and international art after 1960. To fulfil this objective, there will be a senior researcher assessment of Marianne Torp, who has the daily responsibility for contemporary art. There will also still be two researchers in temporary appointments attached to the collection and financed by performance contract funds. They were responsible for research in the period 2003-06 in both Rembrandt and Dutch painting in the 17th century and art in Denmark in the 18th century. In the period 2006-09, these two appointments will in part relate to older Danish art with special focus on the canon question and in part upgrade research in sculpture by correlating work in the Royal Cast Collection and the collection of original sculpture (see below under KAS).

KKS (The Royal Collection of Graphic Art)
The staffing level of the Department of Prints and Drawings has operated with three senior researchers for a number of years. The most recent international research evaluation recommended that staffing should be maintained at this level as a minimum and could very profitably be augmented in the interests of research in the voluminous and very diverse material in the collections of the Department of Prints and Drawings. The daily work on making inventories, registration, revising and researching in the ever-expanding collection demands specialised knowledge, which accretes as a result of uninterrupted occupation with art on paper.

The retirement of two senior researchers ¡VJan Wurtz Frandsen in 2005 and Jan Garff in 2006 ¡Vhas given occasion to renewed discussion of staffing. This discussion has resulted in the objective of still having three permanent members of staff at senior researcher level attached to KKS to ensure continuity and the on-going qualified management of both care of the collections and research in the area of the Department of Prints and Drawings. Wurtz Frandsen¡¦s post was advertised in 2005 and has been filled by senior researcher Thomas Lederballe, MA. Jan Garff¡¦s post was occupied in June 2006 by senior researcher Hanne Kolind Poulsen MA.

KAS (The Royal Collection of Plaster Casts)
Thanks to a special grant from the Ministry of Culture in 2004 (the so-called UMTS appropriation), it was possible to employ a researcher in a three-year appointment at the Royal Cast Collection (KAS). To ensure the continued management of care of the collection and promotion of the Royal Cast Collection, an appointment was created in the Performance Contract for 2006-09 as Inspector of Sculpture with the Royal Cast Collection as special area of interest.

PhD courses
Statens Museum for Kunst will also be the host institution in the coming years for several PhD-students. Having PhD students attached has a high priority both with respect to the fruitful scholarly interaction and the research which accrues, and also because in this way the Museum ensures a wider, better qualified and sector relevant basis for recruitment. Apart from the two projects that were initiated in 2004 ¡Vone (contemporary art) was jointly financed by the Georg Brandes School of the University of Copenhagen, the other (older drawing) financed by the so-called UMTS appropriation ¡Vit has been possible in 2006 to allocate two more PhD students: one to the Department of Conservation, financed by EU funds, and the other in the Department of Education, jointly financed by the Ministry of Culture. Both appointments are described in SMK ¡VResearch Projects August 2007.

UMTS-project: Danish art on the Internet
In 2005, the government elected to set aside another grant to research taken from the so-called UMTS appropriation. The grant was primarily aimed at making material which is relevant for research both visible and accessible. Statens Museum for Kunst drew up a project costing 12 million DKK, which partly focused on making its collections and present research available for research on the Internet, and partly on producing more research in an underexposed area of the Museum's collections. Hereafter, the Museum was awarded a three-year grant of in all 3 million DKK; a project description is being drawn up, which will attempt to follow the original intentions as far as possible.

Peter Nørgaard Larsen, Head of Research
26 August 2006