In the last decade, museums all around the world have been reinventing themselves. They are now much more than scholarly, cultural archives. A remit to reach out to a broader public, the increasing politicization of the ownership and curation of objects, the architectural expectations of new buildings, the requirements of the "event exhibit"…all have changed the way any new museum is built, operates and serves its public purpose. Museums now reflect global economics and local politics. New museums now shape our public culture.

Illustrated with a very wide range of museums and museum spaces - from MOMA in New York to the reconstruction of Ground Zero, from the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC to the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, from the planned renewal of the Crystal Palace site in London to the Sendai Mediatheque in Japan - the book reveals how the new museum is evolving as a cross-disciplinary, self-consciously political, and often avowedly self-reflexive institution.

About the author

Kylie Message is ARC Special Research Centre Research Fellow and Convener of the Museums and Collections graduate program at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, the Australian National University.

Contents

Introduction: Shifting Organisations, Knowledges and Effects
1. Theorising New Museums, Language and Politics
2. The Shock of the New: Unity and the Modern Museum
3. History in the Making: Spectacles of Empire, Currencies of Newness, Consumption and Citizenship
4. Culture in the Making: Public Spheres and Political Urgency
5. Contested Sites of Identity and the Cult of the New
6. Diversity and Changing Models: From New Museum to Cultural Centre
Conclusion: Cultural Reconstruction