Framing “contemporaneity” in public museums of art and visual culture in the 21st Century : A study of the impact of acquisition policies of the Moderna Museet and M+ through the lens of actor-network theories

In the 21st century, public museums who are collecting contemporary art has simultaneously begun to reframe the role of museums in society. Two museums – the Moderna Museet of Stockholm and M+ of Hong Kong that have completely different historic and geographic backgrounds, as well as operating models are now working closely with their acquisitions and collections to draw audience of old and new closer to them. These two museums that are located in the center of two well-defined cultures – geographically representing the west and the east, play vital roles in their respected social and cultural spheres. In view of how these two museums are responding to the present time by deploying art that are seemingly different in terms of theme and discipline, the immediate distinction that this study aims to frame is how the Moderna Museet, established in the 20th century and still prevailing in the present differ from M+ that comes from a younger generation of museums who proclaims itself as a museum of visual culture, and not art. Instead of analyzing their exhibitions, this study focuses on their policies of acquisitions, thus offering a perspective including many varying actors and networks. Hence Bruno Latour’s actor-network theories have been introduced to unfold the highly entangled networks of these two museums. Two important actants, the so-called acquisition policy and the institutional curators are taken into consideration in order to outline what constitute as acquisition policies of these two museums and investigate if the benchmarking of contemporary art, and in addition, if the notion of contemporaneity can be identified from written documents. Furthermore, this study is based on interviews with curators employed at the two museums to find out how the professionals have understood these policies and used them accordingly to justify their practices while fulfilling the museums’ missions. This study has found out there are many crucial relationships between these actants and that they are constantly interacting with each other. The strength and interaction of these relationships fostered the positioning for these two museums today and also determined how the knowledge of art can be shaped and dispensed to the public. Looking from the point of view of the history of museums, practices of donation and acquisition, late- capitalism, cultural differences between the west and east, this study provides a pragmatic explanation of how collections may transform the landscape of a museum, and in turn how a museum may perhaps alter the meaning of art.