Atlases of Modernity Reshaping museum collections through constellations in the XXI century

Abstract

Since the end of the XX century, the attempts to re-read museum collections have been declined in some cases through non-linear, crossover narratives that do not respect the traditional art historical categories. The article intends to investigate the causes of this global trend from the cultural, socio-political and theoretical point of view. These practices, that approached the museum collections as a form of archive, have been developed in the last thirty years by several contemporary art institutions all over the world by reshaping their collection displays and institutional roles. Through the analysis of three case studies, the Centre Pompidou in Paris with the exhibition Modernites plurielles (2013 - 2015), the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven with The Making of Modern Art (2017 - 2021) and the Museum Sztuki in Łodź with Atlas of Modernity (2014 - present), the article explores the institutional need of contemporary museums to re-read and rewrite the history of “modernity” and of their collections in the XXI century through the use of dialectical narratives. The relationship between the institution, its display and narrative will be investigated as a distinguished character of the museum identity and mission.