Should Art Museums Be More Ideological? After Pushback, a Museum Summit Decides to Put Off Making a Decision

Museum
directors and professionals from more than 100 countries have
decided to postpone a decision whether to adopt a radical
redefinition of the role of museums. After a week of debate in
Kyoto, and pushback ahead of the International Council for
Museums’ annual conference in the historic Japanese city, delegates
voted overwhelmingly against a contentious new definition that its
critics argue is “too ideological.”  

The president of Paris-based
ICOM, Suay Aksoy, stressed that the vote did not mean
an end of the debate, rather a “new chapter” of the
discussion about what a 21st-century museum should be.

In the
vote at the global museum group’s 2019 general conference, 70
percent voted in favor of postponing the vote, with 28 percent
against the motion. 

Aksoy
stressed that ICOM was committed to updating its definition. “This
is just another beginning in this process of redefinition,” Aksoy
said in a statement, adding that the committee working on a new
definition will continue to meet. She said that new ideas “will
probably appear in the new definition that will be an amendment of
the proposed one.” 

Work
on updating ICOM’s museum definition began after its 2016
conference in Milan. The committee charged with coming up with a
new wording that reflects contemporary challenges and environmental
concerns was led by the Danish former museum director Jette
Sandahl. The new
definition, which emphasizes championing democratic values,
social justice, and human dignity, was announced in July, causing
consternation among more traditional members. 

It was
due to be put to the vote at ICOM’s Kyoto conference, where 4,500
professionals from 120 countries met last week. Traditionalists
were alarmed by the new definition, which declares that museums are
“democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic spaces for critical
dialogue about the pasts and the futures.” The new definition also
stressed championing “human dignity and social justice, global
equality, and planetary well being.” 

Ahead of the Kyoto conference,
24 national branches of ICOM, including France, Italy, Spain, and
Germany, objected to the new definition, with some critics arguing
it was “too ideological”. Others worried that downplaying education
in particular might have an unintended impact on public funding for
institutions in some countries.

Rather than vote for or against
the definition, the Kyoto conference voted to defer the
decision. I looks as if until ICOM meets again in three years time,
the definition of a museum remains as it has been since 2007, with
the stress on institutions acquiring, conserving, and communicating
cultural heritage “for the purposes of education, study, and
enjoyment.”

Speaking at the Kyoto conference, Sandahl, said
that ICOM received a total of 269 proposals from 69 countries
submitted in 25 languages. Ahead of the conference,
she said that being silent on
issues of the environment and in denial of the legacies of
inequality and asymmetry of power and wealth will no longer be
sustainable for museums, if they want to stay relevant in the
21st. Some professionals in Kyoto questioned the decision to
hold the delaying vote.   

After
the vote, Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian, warned in
a tweet: “We have to make sure that museums play a role in shaping
a more inclusive future,” and not held captive by
tradition.  

The president of the American Alliance of Museums, Laura Lott,
tweeted in support of further debate. She warned that “it was easy
for us in the US to say the global definition should change,” but
its impact for museum in other countries “has not been sufficiently
studied.”

Seema Rao, the author of Self Care for Museum
Workers, who works at the Akron Art Museum, was
underwhelmed. She tweeted that the “whole [ICOM] definition thing
feels farcical.” She suggested that instead of having “arcane, esoteric conversations
that just miss the point. They should have asked visitors across
the world what is a museum.”

The post Should Art Museums Be More Ideological? After
Pushback, a Museum Summit Decides to Put Off Making a Decision
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