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The thesis examines challenges museum curators face when outsourced performers – whose role it is to embody the work of other artists – are included in exhibition projects. The research questions are: What are the practical, juridical and ethical challenges that come with situating outsourced performance labour in the museum setting? What does the inclusion of live performance in exhibition projects mean for the role of the museum curator? Two exhibition cases in Stockholm are studied in the thesis: Marina Abramović – The Cleaner (2017) at Moderna Museet and Dora García, I Always Tell the Truth at Bonniers Konsthall (2018–19). The material consists of digital surveys that were sent out to employed performers from each exhibition case as well as interviews that were conducted with both performers and curatorial staff. The material was examined using theories on affective labour and the theoretical notion of de-skilling and re-skilling of acquired competences. The thesis shows that the practical challenges include the architectural conditions of museum buildings, insufficient prior knowledge on what working with performers entail, short project timespans and limited exhibition budgets. The juridical challenges include a lack of union recommendations for performance in museums and the difficulty of situating reperformances of historical works that in its form and duration may go against national labour regulations. The ethical challenges include commodification of performers’ subjectivity through instances of affective labour and mechanisms of objectification. In turn, both the outsourced performer and the museum curator turned performance curator inhabits a precarious working situation. The role of the performance curator is highly administrational and organisationally tedious in its positioning between curatorship, performing arts production and human resource management. Additionally, it entails a prodigious amount of affective labour in the reproductive mode – of

This dissertation presents a number of previously-forgotten practices and ‘expected opportunities’ which surrounded film at the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts (Nationalmuseum), between 1945 and 1950. The dissertation is structured around three projects and each project has its own chapter. The three projects are: (1) the educational film production entitled Möte med konsten which took place in connection with the exhibition entitled God konst i hem och samlingslokaler; the exhibition entitled Viking Eggeling 1880–1925 which included (2) showings of Viking Eggeling’s abstract film called Diagonalsymfonin (Diagonal Symphony) in the exhibition and (3) the related film series called 30 år experimentfilm (30 years of experimental film) which included films by Maya Deren, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, Jean Cocteau, Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling. The purpose of this dissertation is primarily to investigate the areas of use and ‘expected opportunities’ associated with film in these film projects as well as the prerequisites and implementation of working with film at the museum. Because media technologies are closely interwoven with human life, a number of individuals have been identified as important figures with respect to the curation and exhibition of film at Nationalmuseum between 1945 and 1950. The analysis of these figures’ speculations, their administration, and ‘expected opportunities’ has resulted in the creation of new knowledge with respect to the museum’s operations in post-war Sweden. In summary, the present dissertation highlights the medium of film’s role and importance for those individuals inside Nationalmuseum who, in response to contemporary needs (but also with an eye to the future) worked towards developing the museum. Film was seen as an answer to the question of how an art museum such as Nationalmuseum might be able to revitalise its operations and remain relevant to a new generation’s tastes and habits with respect to the consumption of art- and c