Change and continuity : art museums and the reproduction of art-museumness

The proliferation and diversification of museums in the past few decades have led museum theorists to reject the abstract notion of "the museum" (in the singular) in favor of a pluralist perspective which emphasizes the rich diversity and specificity of actually existing museums (in the plural). As Sharon Macdonald (1996, 4) puts it, "the museum does not exist." Similarly, Andrew McClellan (2003, 40) argues that: "Increasingly different in themselves, museums serve different purposes, for different people; and of course they also serve different purposes for the same people." Tony Bennett (Chapter 1 in this volume) also endorses a perspective in which "the museum" as such disappears as a possible object of analysis: "What any particular museum is, what it does, what it is possible for it to do, who it can act on, how it can do so: these are not matters that are given by some invariant form of the museum." The malleability of museums is, for McClellan at least, precisely a reason for declaring their longevity as a type of institution: "It is the diversity and flexibility of art museums" their ability to give various publics a variety of experiences across a broad museological landscape" that will ensure their survival in the long run" (McClellan 2003, 40).