Chris Dercon, Director of the Fondation Cartier, on the future of contemporary art institutions.
What should tomorrow’s museum look like? What role can a private foundation play in redefining cultural institutions ?
For more than three decades, Chris Dercon has worked at the forefront of these debates. From the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam to Tate Modern in London, from Haus der Kunst in Munich to the Grand Palais in Paris, he has led institutions through structural change and redefinition.
Since 2023, as Director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, he is overseeing its transition into a new building designed by Jean Nouvel, an architectural and institutional shift.
This conversation explores how museums might move beyond fixed categories, becoming platforms where disciplines intersect and where architecture, art and society are brought into active exchange, and what this shift could mean for the institutions of the future.
speaker
Chris Dercon is a museum director, curator and art historian who has spent his career overseeing refurbishment and extension projects for major cultural institutions, notably the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and the Grand Palais in Paris, Tate Modern in London, Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.
Since 2023, as General Director of the Fondation Cartier, he has overseen the construction of its new building designed by Jean Nouvel. From 2019 to 2023, he served as President of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais, leading the renovation of the nave and galleries. He previously headed the Volksbühne in Berlin (2017–2018), led Tate Modern’s extension (2011–2016), directed Haus der Kunst (2003–2011), the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (1996–2003), the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (1990–1995), and was programme director at MoMA PS1 (1988–1990).
Dercon has published widely, including on Rem Koolhaas and Oscar Niemeyer, with several texts examining the museum of the future.
moderator
Anne Pontégnie is a curator based in Brussels. She runs AP Office, which she founded in 2018. She co-founded Wiels with Dirk Snauwaert and also co-directed Le Consortium in Dijon. Since 2011, she has been in charge of the Cranford Collection in London.
She has curated numerous major exhibitions, including Mike Kelley: Educational Complex Onwards: 1995–2008, the Lyon Biennale in 2003, Printemps de Septembre in 2011, and more recently Christopher Wool: See Stop Run (New York – Marfa).
In April, she is opening the exhibition Thomas Houseago: Sculptures in the gardens of the Banca March (Madrid), followed in June by the 10th edition of the Painting Biennial at the Dhondt-Dhaenens Museum in Deurle.
