Democracy Of Spectacle Analysis

One article called “Democracy of Spectacle” by Karsten Schubert, talks about the museum in its current form and how it had changed over time into what would seem to be a new being overall. These “new museums” have characteristics unlike any before it such as trendy, flashy, and in a way amusement park-ish. These museums according to Schubert are more about the a big display to impress the spectators and bring in revenue, unlike the “older” museums that are about giving the public a form of seeing and understanding art and its meaning. A section from the article states that, “Museums have forgotten their revolutionary origins and their extraordinary history” (Schubert 158), meaning that museums are no longer looking to enrich the minds of those …show more content…
Being able to show people pieces only people of wealth were able to see was the whole point of it to being with. But being that the times have changed and the motive of the museums has changed to a greedier side, there are also things to consider such as what is being put into the museum then today? The article by Bogumil Jewsiewicki called “Museum of the People?” goes deeper into what is in these museums and what the museums are also doing to the pieces inside. Jewsiewicki explains that these scared powerful artifacts that are being taken away from their context within a culture, is actually taking away all the power it represents (Jewsiewicki 94). These museums that are trying to “preserve” culture are actually destroying it one artifact at a time. This being said it is suggested by this reading that rather than taking these pieces from where they came from and destroying their meaning, society should be highlighting the importance of the culture in other ways, such as showing it to the public in the form in which it was meant to be used in the first place. On page 98 the article explains how the museum saved the people of the land but also giving the people a place to practice their culture henceforth preserving it. This showing a way that museums should readapt overall to accommodate the culture and people that they are starting to be trying to save by preserving their culture’s one artifact at at …show more content…
According to Winnie Wong in an article called “Arresting Development”, she talks about how there have been almost 15,000 museums built within the last thirteen years (Wong 1). Wong says that pretty much anyone who has the funds to do so and because there are so many being built without the proper structure, they are suffering as soon as they begin. The ones who are succeeding financially are the ones that are called private and say to have things that no other museum has, making it so that people are paying for the special VIP tours, which is where they are capitalizing on making their money (Wong 2). What is driving this explosion of museums is mainly just like the other two articles have states, money. Money and power are what is driving these museums to begin but for most, end. Though China says it is to make china a cultural epicenter, the main reason to be such a prominent being is to be able to bring in all the money that is said to come along with these new contemporary museums. These museums reflect the same concept that Schubert talks about in her writing that was discussed about the concept of these ‘new museums’. Overall these museums all have the same theme in common, which is changing from having a heart for art to an eye for