Redesigning the museum. Epistemic Challenges and Aesthetic Remedies

Abstract

The museum is in crisis. Contrary to their self-image as preservers of cultural heritage, museums seem to be losing cultural and social relevance precisely because of their historical legacy: Their collection histories, epistemological foundations, personnel policies, and not least their architectural settings and displays are deeply rooted in nineteenth century ‘power knowledge’ (Michel Foucault). However, the clear-cut division of exhibits into art and non-art, modern and pre-modern, or ‘the West and the Rest’ (Stuart Hall) is becoming increasingly incompatible with everyday experiences in a post-migrant, globally entangled world. However, this crisis cannot be solved discursively or conceptually alone, but also needs to be reflected on an aesthetic level. A contemporary exhibition design has to invent new perceptual ‘affordances’ - ones that subvert the cognitivist bias, linear historiography, and identificatory logic of Western museology. Both Theodor W. Adorno's concept of ‘constellation’ and Edouard Glissant's ‘poetics of relation’ could serve as guiding principles.