Changing Societies, Changing Art, Changing Museums?

Abstract

This analysis presents an overview of the history of museums. Museums have become part of human civilization. This means that museums are not just ports of call for a globalized tourism industry but also accepted places of cultural education in which art, in its different temporal, ideological, political, social, and economic contexts, cannot just be tapped by cognitive means but can also be experienced emotionally through “spontaneous sensualism.” This means that museums can become places where the goal is not to see as many artworks as possible but to be introduced to a few artworks and their background and impact in a very intensive and comprehensive way. When museums want to keep today’s art alive for future generations, then they will have to find new forms of conservation, storage, and presentation for twenty-first-century art. New technologies, but also innovative forms, based on social interaction, of passing on artistic activities have to be developed and implemented. Museums—similar to schools and universities—have to be prepared for a new definition of the notion of “labor” resulting from the ongoing far-reaching technological revolution.