a place or temple dedicated to the muses

August 11, 2020 3:30 AM

Define "museum". As shown by the turmoil that recently engulfed the International Council of Museums, this is easier said than done.

In the aftermath of its 2016 general conference in Milan, the International Council of Museums' executive board decided that its existing definition of the museum, which had only seen minor adjustments over the past few decades - A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. - did not "reflect or express adequately the complexities of the 21st century and the current responsibilities and commitments of museums, nor their challenges and visions for the future", and thus that it was time to rethink and revise it.

A standing study committee was appointed, to work towards creating a new, more current one. 269 proposals of definitions from among its international membership were collected.

From these the committee, together with the executive board, settled on one in July 2019 to put to a vote in the September general conference in Kyoto. After strong pushback (from Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, Canada, Iran, Israel, Brazil, Peru and Argentina), the decision adopted was to postpone the vote on the revised definition and revert to its previous existing one.

Multiple opinions were internationally aired, rountables were held, and resignations both from the committee and from the board ensued.

As the rich debate continues unabated, the IOCM's new president promises that "in the coming years we will positively highlight what unites us in a new definition."

posted by progosk (17 comments total)

It’s hard to maintain an organization in which half the people want to highlight social progress and the other half need to hang on to the looted artifacts of other cultures.
posted by rikschell at 5:31 AM on August 11, 2020 [9 favorites]

I generally agree with the criticisms in the Hyperallergic article (the link under the word "strong" in OP), which say that a definition should be a concise sentence characterizing an object, that this definition is too vague, and that the definition doesn't include a mention of an educational mission.

When I think of museums, I think of not just big art and artifact collections, but also small, single-topic institutions: in Chicagoland there's the Toby Jug museum, which solely displays drinking jugs that depict character faces. In Minnesota there's the Spam museum, which is a corporate museum extolling the virtues of processed meat product.

Using those two as an example:

Are they inclusive or polyphonic? No, they're hyperfocused on a single topic and either have no views to showcase or have a specific perspective they view the topic through.

Are they spaces for critical dialogue? Hardly, they're not covering especially pressing topics.

Do they acknowledge and address the conflicts and challenges of the present? Maybe the Spam museum discusses the issues of supply line, I'm not sure.

And so forth - I don't know if they're the type of museum that participates in ICOM, but they're still museums!
posted by LSK at 6:51 AM on August 11, 2020 [9 favorites]

That any members of the ICOM could claim with a straight face that museums are not, or should not be, political is about all you need to know to understand the conflict over a new definition. Fascinating post! Thank you for all the great links.
posted by pjsky at 6:53 AM on August 11, 2020 [5 favorites]

The SPAM Museum would be excluded from any ICOM definition because it is not organized as a non-profit. The Toby Jug Museum would qualify.

Echoing the praise for a comprehensive post about a complicated and interesting topic!
posted by Miko at 7:44 AM on August 11, 2020 [6 favorites]

Are Mission Statements not a thing anymore? Because much of the proposed text seems aspirational not definitional. Prefect for a mission statement or a values statement.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:44 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]

I suspect this is supposed to be an aspirational definition, more like a mission statement than a dictionary definition, and that’s always going to be contentious, because museums, like libraries, have a large contingent which resists change (for reasons good and bad reasons). It also seems that ICOM Consists mostly of large art, history, natural history, and similar institutions rather than the small and hyper-focused institutions described by LSK.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:09 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

To my reading of the proposed definition, museums based around existing individual collections, such as Sir John Soane's in London and the Frick in New York would no longer qualify as museums, since they don't work "in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research..."

Further, since the proposed definition states that museums "guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people", museums that have discounts on admission for certain sub groups of people would not be considered museums under the proposed definition. This would include the Met, the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre.
posted by Superilla at 8:22 AM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

museums that have discounts on admission for certain sub groups of people would not be considered museums under the proposed definition. This would include the Met, the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre

Actually, taken literally, it would include all museums that charge any admission to anyone.
posted by Miko at 8:34 AM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

There's no reason a place like the Frick can't work with diverse local communities for programming or interpretation or anything else. Just because they have an existing collection doesn't mean there's not new stories or points of view out there about that collection.
posted by heurtebise at 8:35 AM on August 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

As someone who works in the museum field, a lot of the arguments about the definition are about what we need museums to become, how they need to adapt to fit the world we have and the world we need to create. It's definitely an aspirational definition, and nitpicking about Well, Is This Even a Museum Now? feels beside the point. It's not what museums are now -- it's what are we all going to be in the future? Even small, focused museums still have local communities they can work with. They still have new viewpoints that can be brought into the museum, through programming, collecting, etc. They still have things they could do better. That's the point of this discussion -- looking towards what we need to be, not what we are now.
posted by heurtebise at 8:39 AM on August 11, 2020 [6 favorites]

As another museum professional who's been tracking this since the draft stage, this is exactly what I don't like about the definition. It's not a definition, it's unequivocally an aspiration. I wholeheartedly agree that it describes what we need museums to be, but I am starting to come down on the side that it belongs in another statement, not in a definition that is intended to govern which organizations would and would not identify themselves for membership and representation in ICOM. To me it works on an aspirational level, but fails on a functional level.

I also dislike (as a specialist in interpretation) how inaccessible the language is.

Round 2 is going to be interesting.
posted by Miko at 8:43 AM on August 11, 2020 [16 favorites]

I have even asked why we need a definition - pragmatically, it's because definitions need to interact with entities like governments and the UN, and used to include/exclude orgs from access to grants, program participation, etc. The proposed definition wouldn't do that well. It doesn't work as a test.
posted by Miko at 8:45 AM on August 11, 2020 [10 favorites]

Miko, that's a really good point (and as another interpretation specialist, it would be a terrible, terrible, terrible label), and I hadn't thought about that part of why there even needs to be a technical definition.
posted by heurtebise at 9:04 AM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Are Mission Statements not a thing anymore?

They are somewhat falling out of favor actually. I’ve worked at three nonprofits that went through some flavor of rebranding exercise and we were encouraged to just drop that concept because it was unnecessary cruft.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:12 AM on August 11, 2020

Miko's comment regarding the definition working as a test is important to more than whether an organization is allowed to join ICOM. To pick an example I'm familiar with, many countries have specific exceptions in their Copyright legislation for functions performed by Libraries, Archives, and Museums. They may or may not define Library, Archive or Museum, so a court interpreting whether the exception applies may have to look at outside definitions. Choosing an aspirational rather than a technical definition makes it harder for institutions to assert those rights.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:15 AM on August 11, 2020 [12 favorites]

I think I'm still too full of feelings about the museum sector to really comment in any kind of useful, helpful way, but I wanted to note that I enormously appreciate both this post and discussion. I had not expected this out of ICOM, and the context and general discussion are wonderful. Thank you.
posted by kalimac at 9:27 AM on August 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

Relevant comedy bit by James Acaster.


I will selfishly agree with any definition that allows the Weltmuseum Wien to continue offering free admission to Mexicans. They have the cleanest bathrooms in the area, and the cafe in the Hall of Columns is a nice quiet place to read a book. The quetzalāpanecayōtl itself is completely underwhelming.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:49 AM on August 12, 2020