Made Into Being, 2022

Felipe Baeza

Katarina Swanström is Head of Development, and she outlines how the collection is expanded through the American Friends of Moderna Museet foundation and the Young Americans Project.

Katarina Swanström: A beautiful young man looks straight at us. With a gesture, he seems to draw our attention to his body – a sinuous form whose skin appears to be covered in flames, or perhaps a crackling fur. The body does not end in a tail or feet, but in hands: two legs tipped with two hands in a walking motion. What kind of creature is this? A mystical dragon-like figure or a centaur? It is a body in transition, a fusion of the human and the non-human. Identity and metamorphosis.
 
The work Made Into Being from 2022 is by Felipe Baeza. Born in Mexico in 1987, he now lives and works in Brooklyn.
 
My name is Katarina Swanström and I am Head of Development here at Moderna Museet. My work centres on developing the museum’s collection through donations from foundations, as well as private individuals within our Swedish and American patron networks. I also work with exhibition support through partnerships and fundraising.
 
Since 2007 Moderna Museet has had an American foundation, The American Friends of Moderna Museet, which supports both donations and acquisitiona of artworks for the museum’s collection through various fundraising initiatives. One of these initiatives is The Young Americans Project, whose core idea is to identify and acquire works by young and promising artists at an early stage – just before their big break through. Through targeted acquisitions we reflect on our own time, which becomes tomorrow’s art history.
 
Each year, the American Friends board´ of directors donates funds to acquire one or two works. We invite a new external consultant annually, often an American museum director or a well-known curator, who provides a list of the most interesting young artists of the moment. The consultant who recommended Felipe Baeza was Cecilia Alemani, Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art in New York, and Artistic Director of the 2022 Venice Biennale.
 
The very first advisor was Francesco Bonami, who had just curated the 2011 Whitney Biennial. In a Japanese restaurant in SoHo, he spoke passionately about his candidates and wrote eight names on a napkin, which I kept. All of these artists went on to achieve major success, and four of them are now represented in the Moderna Museet collection. That is one way to build a cultural legacy.