ABSTRACT This article analyses the establishment of the Palais de Tokyo art centre in Paris as a pivotal moment for contemporary art in France. It explores the motivations behind the creation of a space dedicated to young artists in response to the institutional gaps in the Parisian art scene of the late 1990s. The study discusses the political, cultural, and economic contexts that shaped the vision of the Palais de Tokyo, highlighting the influence of international models like PS1 in New York. It also examines the internal debates and decisions within the Ministry of Culture that led to the formation of this experimental space, aiming to challenge traditional museum frameworks and foster innovative, interdisciplinary practices. Ultimately, the article reflects on whether the Palais de Tokyo was born from a genuine artistic vision or if it was a political move to redefine Paris’s role in contemporary art.

ABSTRACT The development of university museums in China has undergone an accelerated pace since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the period from 2012 to 2022 witnessing unprecedented growth, marked by a significant leap in the scale of new museum construction. However, the sharp upward momentum has noticeably weakened since 2023. Based on field investigations and data analysis of dozens of Chinese university museums, this study presents, for the first time, a relatively accurate count of Chinese university museums and documents their fundamental characteristics. On this basis, this paper proposes and substantiates the concept of the ‘Golden Decade’ as a high-speed development period of university museums in China from 2012 to 2022. Through extensive case studies and data analysis, the paper analyses this rapid development and explores significant issues that emerged during this period, providing a comprehensive exposition of the concept and the developmental landscape of the Golden Decade.

ABSTRACT Registrars are relative newcomers to the UK museum sector, only emerging as a distinct vocation with its own identity within the last fifty years. This article charts the initial years of the profession, characterised by the tentative efforts of the first British registrars to assemble networks of practical support. Their work in developing systematic collections management strategies attracted the notice of cultural bodies, who reported their growing exploits to the wider museum world. The registrars themselves also raised their profile by participating in occupational conferences and publications. Much of this early development was inspired by the advanced state of the profession in North America, whose representative groups the UK registrar network emulated and engaged with as it gained in strength. The paper concludes by drawing comparisons with the current state of the registrar profession and thereby reflecting on the significance of these early beginnings for its ongoing development.

ABSTRACT For nearly three decades, from 1933 to 1962, Hong Kong was deprived of a proper museum. This article explores the prolonged absence of public museum services in the colony and their arduous restoration. It investigates the reasons behind this extended hiatus and scrutinises the efforts made by the Hong Kong colonial government and the local community to reintroduce public museum services. The article argues that the resurgence of museums in Hong Kong was primarily propelled by community initiatives. While the colonial administration displayed indifference towards museum provision, Hong Kong's civil society considered it essential for enhancing the colony's reputation and cultural landscape. Through a public campaign for cultural democratisation, they compelled the government to establish a new museum. Their lobbying and preparatory efforts showcased the significant determination and agency of the local community in shaping the cultural outlook of the colony despite their limited political representation.

ABSTRACT The history of art museums is commonly considered to be a history of collections intertwining institutional history and the biographies of diverse museum actors. In China, museums of art and history followed a historical trajectory from the former Soviet model to the current one dedicated to ancient art and cultural relics. This art museum model, in practice, adopts several derivatives, varying between the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, art history, and history. Rather than foregrounding the historical-archaeological significance of artefacts or reinforcing state-centric nationalist narratives, this article presents a comprehensive perspective that elucidates the evolving exhibitionary culture in China’s official museums since the end of 1980s, and illustrates how museum narratives are generally devoted to the renewing of traditional local culture in a global-local dialectic. The work, of a qualitative nature, examines the Suzhou Museum (Suzhou), one of the most iconic Chinese museums of art and history where the traditional and the cosmopolitan coexist, as an empirical case study. The article argues that the transforming museum narratives of the Suzhou Museum over time carries trifold connotations: abstract aesthetics remain important through ideological shifts; shifts in political power are embodied in the exhibitionary complex; and visitors form a continuous point of engagement.

ABSTRACT How do contingencies between a museum’s historical legacies and its present-day organisational identity impact the museum’s conduct, values, and core narratives? What may be the tensions between historical legacies and present-day conditions in the twenty-first century? And why are some historical trajectories maintained by the institution, even when they collide with present-day paradigms within or beyond the museum? The paper explores these questions through its case study, the New Carlsberg Glyptotek, a collector’s museum founded in 1897. Tracing the museum’s core narratives and present-day organisational identity back to the founder’s trajectories, the paper documents how past sets of values may come to be regarded as given premises of the museum and its modalities of practice. The paper integrates critical museology with conceptual tools from organisational theory, psychology, and sociology. This eclectic analytical lens exposes not only the problems but also the benefits connected to the museum’s historical core narratives.

ABSTRACT This paper uses Gorichanaz and Latham’s document phenomenology as a method for understanding early museum documentation, specifically, the collection or museum lists of William Knight of the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen. It seeks to provide an examination of the historical context of the production of these documents, the temporal and social contexts of their interpretation in the contemporary period as archival sources, and to develop scholarly interpretation and discourse regarding museum documentation history, theory and practice. In the museological literature, documents are typically relegated to being containers of data for objects, but this paper demonstrates that documents are instead an exemplary case of what Bennett terms ‘vibrant matter’; they are temporal, contingent, febrile, and evocative.

ABSTRACT This article’s aim is to analyse why Poland’s socialist authorities decided to transform Wawel Castle into a historic house museum and how they took advantage of its new role in order to bolster their political legitimacy during their rule’s initial period. My argument is that Wawel Castle’s transformation into a historic house museum was motivated by the building’s status as the ultimate national symbol and its specific geopolitical situation. Situated in Cracow, far from the capital city, it could have played only a marginal role as an official residence in Poland’s highly centralised political life. Therefore, the socialist state ventured to exploit this heritage’s symbolic potential differently. The establishment of the historic castle museum demonstrated the regime’s attachment to national heritage, serving also to adapt the castle to its socialist vision. The castle’s musealization could legitimize the regime in the eyes of non-socialists without sacrificing its ideological agenda.

ABSTRACT The Bowes Museum, a public art museum constructed for the inhabitants of Barnard Castle, County Durham, which opened in 1892, started life as the private collection of John Bowes (1811–1885) and Joséphine Bowes (1825–1874). The collection’s transfer from the private spaces of their homes to the public space of the museum was marked by an increasing awareness of and adherence to the structures that governed Europe’s first public art institutions, such as the taxonomic division of collections, the employment of professional curators and the use of appropriate display furniture. This article considers the strategies employed by the Boweses as their museum project developed from the 1850s until the 1880s. The domestic furniture, exemplified by new cabinets supplied by the French firm Monbro aîné to suit various domestic decorative schemes, is contrasted with display cases repurposed from those provided by the firm Haret for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878.