Adaptive Institutional Change: Managing Digital Works at the Museum of Modern Art

Authors

  • Vivian van Saaze Maastricht University
  • Glenn Wharton New York University
  • Leah Reisman Princeton University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v16i2.2774

Keywords:

collection management, digital art, institutional change

Abstract

From digital video to software-driven installations, digital art is now present in museums around the world. Museum systems designed for object-based collections like paintings and sculpture do not address the collections management and conservation requirements for these new technologies and their associated hardware. In this article the authors investigate processes through which digital art becomes embedded in museums. Based on original research conducted at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, we argue that the introduction of digital art to MoMA did not lead, as recent literature suggests, to disruptive or radical changes of existing institutional practices. Instead, the result has been organizational subunit proliferation and adjustments to established practices and procedures. Through our study of managing digital art at MoMA, we engage Science and Technology Studies and the institutional analysis tradition in the sociology of organizations to advance the understanding of processes of change in art museums. 

Author Biographies

Vivian van Saaze, Maastricht University

Vivian van Saaze is Assistant Professor at the Department of Literature and Art at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Maastricht University. She specialises in the study of museum practices of curating and conservation, focusing on the challenges arising from digitalisation and new artistic genres such as installation art, digital art, and performance art by integrating theories and methods from ethnography, museum studies, and STS. Van Saaze is co-founder and managing director of the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH) and co-authored several collaborative research projects such as Collecting the Performative, a research network between Tate and Maastricht University. 

Glenn Wharton, New York University

Glenn Wharton is a Clinical Professor in Museum Studies at New York University. From 2007-2013 he served as Media Conservator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he established the time-based media conservation program for video, performance, and software-based collections. His current research engages contemporary debates around intellectual property, authorship, and authenticity in the management and display of contemporary art. He received his PhD in Art Conservation from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and his MA from the Art Conservation Program at the Buffalo State University of New York.

Leah Reisman, Princeton University

Leah Reisman is a PhD candidate in the department of sociology at Princeton University. Her work focuses on nonprofit organizations and philanthropy in the United States and Mexico, with a particular interest in the arts and culture. Leah is broadly interested in relationships between nonprofit organizations and funders, evaluation of nonprofit work, and arts and cultural organizational forms and processes. Her mixed-methods dissertation investigates the role and processes of strategy and evaluation consultants in the United States nonprofit sector.

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

30.07.2018

How to Cite

Saaze, V. van, Wharton, G., & Reisman, L. (2018). Adaptive Institutional Change: Managing Digital Works at the Museum of Modern Art. Museum & Society, 16(2), 220–239. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v16i2.2774

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 2 (2018): Methodologies for Researching the Museum as Organization

Section

Articles

License

Copyright remains with the author(s) of the article. This article can be re-used according to the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0  licence.