HoMu, The Homeless Museum of Art

photo via inhabitat by Daniel Isengart

HoMu,the Homeless Museum of Art, is an ongoing conceptual project founded by Belgian artist Filip Noterdaeme in 2002. HoMu has been stationed under New York City’s High Line unauthorized for three years and has recently been asked to bring the project on the High Line. HoMu’s performance The Director Is In will take place on the High Line (just north of the 23rd Street Lawn) between 5 PM to 9:30 PM for consecutive Tuesdays in July 2012.

What is the Homeless Museum of Art?

The Homeless Museum of Art (HoMu) is an art project that presents itself as a legitimate cultural institution to articulate a dual critique of the cultural institution as enterprise and the cult of the artist as shaman. Created in 2002 by New York-based artist Filip Noterdaeme, it was inspired by the artist’s increasing identification with the homeless as individuals who have fallen through the cracks of a very loosely knit, Darwinian society. Blending absurdity with sincerity, HoMu challenges the integrity of major cultural institutions that have succumbed to the lure of real estate business and commerce. The deliberately ambiguous name of the project, Homeless Museum of Art, points to the artist’s perception of urban real estate monopoly as a threat to both human dignity and urban culture.

HoMu is NOT an anthropological museum about homelessness or the homeless.

via High Line Blog and inhabitat