Modernism and the Museum Revisited

Abstract

Museum as Mass Medium When the Museum of Modern Art in New York was promoting its recent $800 million capital campaign, MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry argued that the once-rarified institution of the art museum had become a mass cultural phe nomenon. Once seen as elite, these institutions enjoy broad, popular appeal, he claimed.1 Walker Art Center in Minneapolis was just as emphatic in promoting its $80 million expansion. The metaphor for the museum is no longer a church or temple, Walker director Kathy Halbreich wrote in a public statement, but a lively forum or town square.2 In fact, her institution offers striking evidence for a radical change in the social character of art museums. For years, the Walker's After Hours series turned its gallery spaces into a hot spot for singles until late on Friday night. next day, couples unloaded kids for children's programming and lined up to play miniature golf in the sculpture garden, after navigating the mirrored labyrinth along the way. What would a time-traveling modernist make of this scene? It recalls the amuse ment parks they loved, not the museum they loathed. That institution was a