Temporary Museum Exhibitions as Tools for Cultural Innovation

Abstract

In the current communication era where priority is given to the temporary over the permanent, museums are increasingly developing temporary exhibitions and through them the museum is being transformed. These are used as strategic devices offering diverse opportunities: from acting as powerful marketing tools, triggering visits, and generating income, to experimenting with new display approaches and creating prestige for the museum. At the same time, they raise challenges, including in keeping balance with other key museum functions. Against the background of a critical overview of their significance in museum literature, and of a set of themes characterizing the phenomenon in Greek archaeological museums over the last decade, the paper focuses on a temporary exhibition realized though a partnership between a public national museum and a private cultural foundation. Its analysis, based mainly on interviews with curators and organizers, will suggest that this unique initiative between two Greek partners has a much broader relevance. Examining it in the context of national exhibition policies, European initiatives and guidelines and international experience, allows it to be argued, in the last part of the paper, that the joining in partnership of private and public bodies in the context of temporary museum exhibitions can emerge as a tool for cultural innovation and contribute to new and imaginative ways of using museum collections. At the same time, it can extend business support for museums well beyond the traditional forms of funding and sponsorship.