Open AccessYou van be a museum or you can be modern, but you can't be both
Author(s) -
Chris Dercon
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
nordisk museologi
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2002-0503
pISSN - 1103-8152
DOI - 10.5617/nm.3810
Subject(s) - sculpture , painting , earthworks , art , public art , institution , rage (emotion) , art history , visual arts , modern art , aesthetics , sociology , performance art , engineering , psychology , social science , social psychology , geotechnical engineering
In 1974 David Rubin, the then director ofthe Museum of Modern Art in New York, admitted in an interview that «The Museum concept is not infinitely expandable». He ascribed this to the rupture between the traditional aesthetic categories of painting and sculpture and the earthworks and conceptual art that were all the rage in those days. According to Rubin, this latter group called for an entirely different museum environment and, he added, perhaps a different public too. In saying: «The Museum concept is not infinitely expandable», Rubin was, in my opinion, implicitly referring to the problem of the museum as a public institution.