Hertzelia Museum of Art , 13.1.2017
Rethinking the Museum
Book Launch seminar
About the book:
There are many who claim that the museum, as an institution whose purpose is the collection and exhibition of cultural and historical treasures, is no longer relevant in the present era. Rethinking the Museum examines the transformations characterising contemporary museums in order to enable maintaining their relevancy. Referring to the museum as a hybrid space, in which the real and virtual are inextricably converged, this book proposes to see these transformations as an expression of paradigmatic changes influenced largely by the impact of the digital revolution. The changes that museums undergo are examined in relation to central “envelope concepts” from the field of museology: space-time relationships, representation, the museal object, collection and the archive, the narrative, sight and vision, and the concepts of experience, body and presence. The book proposes to see these processes as an opportunity for social reflection and for a renewed definition of communal identity, in the age of globalization and cultural automation.
The appendix of this book deals with the renewal processes of the two big museums in Israel, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Museum.