Radical Museology: Or What's ‘Contemporary' in Museums of Contemporary Art? by Claire Bishop

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What does contemporary mean?
How one theorizes on contemporary art?
How a contemporary art museum, often depending on a few philanthropists, exhibits uncomfortable (e.g. political) art beyond tastes, views, or even private collections of its multimillionaire trustees?
How does a contemporary art museum survives and accounts to the public in a place outside few biggest world metropolises with no thriving art market surrounding it?
Should art institutions be built on values? Whose values then?
All of these topics are explored through particular case studies. From MoMA to Tate, the book presents public contemporary art museums in a context of fifty shades of white privilege; from Eindhoven to Ljubljana the author explores contemporary as a method of critical reflection, rather than a point in the chronology.
And though this book is highly informative and makes one think beyond the architecture of the newest contemporary art museum, it should not be taken as an objective research, but rather as a highly political manifesto, full of [leftist] ideology and personal views of the author.

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