An important factor in the success of museums today is its relevance—or lack thereof—to the “public.” With the rise of the museum has come the rise of the notion of democratic institutions, spaces that are both by and for the people, spaces that allow them to confront, debate and experiment with the world. Yet, the imperial beginnings of the modern museum, the private princely collections, the branding, and the espousing of essentialist universal narratives present crucial tensions within this relationship between the museum and its public by exposing the lack of communication museums as an institution have with the so-called “public.”

In order for the museum to act as a democratic public institution and promote a space for public discourse, it must first be able to acknowledge its imperialist, universalist beginnings. However, one can look at the British Museum and its response to repatriation efforts and see how it does not allow for a constructive and reflective dialogue to take place with the communities that are directly affected by it. Museums, Jennifer Barrett argues, are a site for and of the public sphere, and thus their practices also represent their relationship to this public (Barrett 9). In response to repatriation claims by the Greek Government for the Parthenon Marbles, the International Council of Museums issued a “Declaration on the Value and Importance of Universal Museums,” which gave light to the ways in which these museums see themselves in regards to their roles within society. The museum’s role thus becomes that of an educator, specifically an educator in the Euro-American vision of universality that actually showcases the centrality of these objects to British national identity. The statement emphasizes the relevance of this narrative for the “international public,” a term that Neil Curtis argues includes only “ a restricted community whose shared values include an interest in the products of classical Greece and other ancient civilizations” but don’t include the parts of the world that don’t share these values (Curtis 121). The communities on the other side of this debate have already taken steps towards crafting a counterargument—the New Acropolis Museum. Located at the base of the Parthenon itself, this minimalist museum houses the remaining artifacts as well as showcasing an ongoing excavation right below its entrance. This is an example of what Michael Wise calls an “architectural argument,” an argument that the community is making for the return of these artifacts through the equal representation of what was stolen as well as what remains. What the argument against repatriation showcases is the didactic role that the museum had taken on, a role that does not allow for a constructive dialogue on how to deal with these issues.

There are recent examples that showcase museums actively trying to deal with these histories and to do so by engaging with its communities. The Musee du Quai Branly is an example of this mode of reflexive museology taking a downward turn, at least at first. What came as a response to the lack of representation of non-Western cultures in the Louvre would be this separate museum located at the base of the Eifel Tower, in the same place as the World Expo in 1889, where colonial collections were displayed. This museum was an effort to deal with Paris’ non-European collections, and yet the product turned out to reinforce the intimidating “other” by shrouding the interior in dark colors and dim lighting and trying to emulate the spaces of the cultures it represents. Although these efforts have highlighted a neo-primitivist outcome where the museum is using its supposed “neutrality” to perpetuate the narrative of primitivist hierarchy, the museum has been actively trying to work with its communities and artists in order to remedy the situation. This is an example of the museum as a “contact zone,” a term that James Clifford gives in order to highlight the importance of the “public” in relation to the museum. He emphasizes the interactive-ness between the objects in the museum and the people, as well as the importance of recognizing that though it is a space of cross-cultural encounter, these are hierarchical encounters due to the superior authoritative position of the museum. What people should do, he states, is to redefine those places as spaces of exchange where those in lesser power can assert agency (Clifford 452). Clifford calls the Musee du Quai Branly a museum in progress and points to the work that it has done in regards to new initiatives for dealing with these primitivist histories as well as working directly with the communities and with artists and allowing them to actively engage with the collections in the hopes of inspiring new methods of representation.

Another way in which these tensions between the museums and their “publics” have manifested is through modes of branding and the importance placed into the image of a museum. Through the example of the Tate Modern, one can see the commodified environment that the museum has become through various methods of branding as a means of assuring a consistent success rate. As a result of this, the public are seen as consumers of art without being given the opportunities to engage with the space. Julian Stallabrass discusses this phenomenon and shows that the “branded collection of experiences” is a tagline that will assure a consistent success rate (Stallabrass 150). Yet, this chasing after a consistent branded experience becomes dangerous when the museum comes into contact with publicity. As Stallabrass explains, “Tate runs a very effective publicity machine, which places regular positive stories in the press, and also has the ability to kill hostile stories” (Stallabrass 153). This manipulation of public image is on par with a corporatized, capitalized machine, an institution that is directly disabling any chances of interacting with it in the mode of criticality and self-critique that would inspire even more people to feel welcome within the space. Instead, what the museum does is treat as a commodified product of entertainment the very works that criticize the foundations of institutions such as itself.

There are a few challenges that museums today face as sites of democratic public space. One of them is how not to reinforce this essentialist notion of the “universal” museum which further reproduces the hierarchical representation of “great” civilizations whilst labeling others as “primitive.” Thus comes the question regarding how we can work towards not reproducing what we know has not worked in the past, towards enacting a more global and socially just approach to art history within the museum space. An attempt towards truly democratizing the museum, as Barrett puts it, would be by “advocating multiple ways of interpreting the world and its history, and by emphasizing the importance of consultation with communities, in particular in devising exhibits” (Barrett 3). We see the Musee du Quai Branly beginning to do this by actively engaging with diverse communities and artists to provide differing views on their exhibitionary practices. Another challenge is how they must face the reality that the museum is not a neutral space, that everyone from the curator to the individual experiencing the work is bringing their own meanings forward. The imperial histories behind the museum and its objects must not be hidden away or ignored, but actively drawn out and understood to allow a broader public to engage with it. As Mark O’Neill puts it, “They would accept and take responsibility for the facts that there are elements of barbarism in their histories, that there is an unavoidable political dimension to all museum communication, that they live with the tensions of being torn between empathy and possession - and they would recognize that the safe space of the museum is ideally suited to explore these issues” (O’Neill 200). This is a crucial aspect of how to deal with these histories of imperial collecting and display, a history that is demanding recognition in the countless repatriation claims that are still being ignored. Another important challenge is the level of accessibility and inclusion that these museums project to their communities, a factor that serves to alienate marginalized groups who do not feel they are being heard or even considered within the museums’ ideas of their “audience.” This further instills within these communities a “sense of alienation from the museum, particularly in terms of how audiences are addressed and assumptions made by curators about the knowledge and experience audiences bring to the museum” (Barrett 13). What we can learn from these examples are that there are previously established narratives of the museum and art history that come from imperialist ideologies and thus have no grounds in today’s society, much less within its museums. Museums must face these histories as a means towards providing a more transparent representation of its collections which doesn’t try to espouse a certain narrative, but that instead allows the public for whom it is presented to bring in their own meanings without feeling alienated in doing so. By listening to and working with the diverse communities around them, museums can open up new avenues towards making Clifford’s “contact zone” a possibility.