Faire crier les pierres : les musées contemporains face au défi de la culture

Abstract

Contemporary museums continue to play a vital role in articulating powerful statements of national and cultural identity for broad and diverse audiences. Focusing on a range of global case studies – from recently instituted displays at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC and from the British Museum in London to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne – the author will consider some of the key challenges facing contemporary museums in their efforts to incorporate new insights and approaches to presenting art and culture in contemporary contexts. With a particular emphasis on the presentation of Indigeneity in museums, the article will explore the tensions as well as the possibilities involved in the museum’s mandate to present Indigenous culture as vital, diverse, constantly changing and yet at the same time grounded in traditional understandings of identity and history. Although museums of anthropology/natural history have been defined historically by very different traditions of collecting and display they have nonetheless in recent years derived much of their relevance and innovativeness from incorporating ideas and approaches to display and interpretation found initially in public art museums. Conversely public art museums have also been equally attentive to recent developments in museum display so that the contemporary field of museums and public art galleries more generally is now more rich and diverse than ever before.