The Problem of Public Participation in Art Museums
The Problem of Public Participation in Art Museums

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the shifting role of visitors to contemporary museums and critically explores the idea of public participation in art museums. Different forms of public involvement in museum practice, including crowd-sourcing, story-sharing and exchange with amateurs, are quite common in advanced history museums and science centres. It seems to be more problematic with art museums as the production and perception of art require more expertise and specialist knowledge. Leaving aside both enthusiastic and sceptical interpretations of participation within the context of contemporary democracy, the paper relates the participatory ethos to the history of museum institutions and their background in the culture of curiosity. Such a reading allows us to re-consider the forms of public participation in art museums as a different form of the construction of knowledge based on transgression, affect and subjectivity rather than modern disciplinarity, logical persuasion and false objectivity.

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