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Rethinking the Relationship Between Museum and Society Since New Museology

박소현 1

1한국문화관광연구원

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The relationship between museum and society has been one of the most important subjects in the field of museology and art history. The new museology was an expression of such long concern but a critical approach to the established museology, which centered on the socio-ontological problems of museum rather than technical and methodological problems. ICOM’s newest slogan “social harmony” is also a product of such an socioontological turn triggered by the new museology. By the way, what is new museology? How the new museology changed the relationship between museum and society? The New Museology(1989) edited by Peter Vergo has been generally understood as the declamation of new museology, but the range of new museology is not limited to this one origin or practice but includes multiple and interdisciplinary thoughts and practices all around the world. So I intended to revisit the new museology with various approaches and practices that I interpreted with three kinds;first, museum as social metaphor characterized by the expansion of market principle,second, the ubiquity of museum power which penetrates everywhere through the sociopolitics of gaze, especially with Tony Bennett’s Foucauldian museum visitor studies and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s concept of museum effect from anthropological approach, third, new museology as a social movement that has been actively discussed in Latin America and created new community-based museum models. I think the recent ICOM’s slogan“ social harmony” is the mixed product of those different new museologies, and so it has no choice but to including conflicting and inconsistent issues within itself. Therefore, I think we have to scrutinize those complex new museological practices because we live in the age when the social engagement of museum is demanded more intensively than ever before and the raison d’être of museum will be located in the social relationship more and more. This literature is a kind of introduction for such a scrutinizing and needs a lot of follow-up studies, for example, the community-based new museologies that is more important contemporary issue than anything else, which will open up interdisciplinary areas between museology and art history.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.