When the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York reopened last year it could happily claim to be one of the world's biggest art museums, at 58,527sq metres.
And one of the most beautiful thanks to its multi-billion dollar collection and handsome new $425m Yoshio Taniguchi building. Certainly its supporters are among the most bountiful: the trustees alone raising $500m towards an $858m capital campaign. But is it one of the best, justifying its $20 entrance fee?
No, I suspect, in the opinion of Robert Janes and Gerald Conaty, who in an entertaining opening essay to their book blame environmental destruction, postmodernism, capitalism and the baby-boomer generation for many of society's ills.
Far from failing to mirror modern society, they argue that too many museums reflect these cursed qualities in their obsessions with visitor figures, fundraising and architectural peeing competitions. While the editors don't exactly spell out MoMA, the Guggenheim, Getty et al, there is little doubt in which direction their fingers are pointing.
They do, however, quote one US director, saying: 'If you want to stay competitive in the cultural arena, you can only do it by investing large sums. That means you have to spend $200-$300m just to keep up with the next guy.'
The constant desire to expand, to pour money into continual, physical renewal, to constantly increase visitor numbers, drive revenue and promote the brand is, according to the authors, symptomatic of capitalism gone mad - 'a form of cultural Darwinism… grounded in size, power and money'.
If this all sounds a bit North American to European readers - the book is after all based on a Canadian Museums Association conference - the editors' remarks about the 'emotional narcissism' of the baby-boomers may well strike a chord.
This is the generation that heads North American museums, and most of their prestigious European equivalents. (It is also the generation, the editors wryly note, to which most of the contributors to this book belong.)
'It is not this generation's creative intelligence that is at issue, but rather its tendency towards extreme individualism,' they write. 'It... is not only about the overvaluing of self and one's abilities, but is also the undervaluing of others and their contributions... Because the influence of this birthright on the organisational behaviour of museums is neither recognised nor debated, it invites speculation.'
In other words, what is the effect of the Just-Call-Me-God style of museum leadership - an entertaining prospect that most of the contributors' case studies, by their nature, sadly don't explore.
Meanwhile postmodernism 'is the culture of no resistance... perilous, especially in the light of our relentless materialism'. In other words, it is not good enough, in the effort to banish horrors such as racism, sexism and nationalism from interpretation, to bend so far backwards that any old meaning is equal or valid.
Now we know who the bad guys are, what about the good? A socially responsible museum, the authors assert, doesn't throw aside the traditional museum goals of education and entertainment. But socially responsible museums also exhibit 'idealism, intimacy, depth and interconnectedness', they build - in that other fashionable concept - social as opposed to market capital.
To give us an idea, and to refute allegations of airy-fairy new agey-ness (which the editors themselves rather engagingly acknowledge is a risk in some of their arguments), the book includes practical essays on the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York; the Nitsitapiisinni exhibition at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; and the McMullen Art Gallery at the University of Alberta Hospital, among others.
The authors are - given the warm glow that usually surrounds 'successful' museums in this field -mostly honest about the pitfalls as well as achievements. Susan Pointe in Alberta admits to the fact that 'I do not have miraculous stories to prove that invoking the creative spirit will save lives'. But certainly staff and patients are more involved in the activities of the art gallery than they were before she started.
After ten years of books, lectures, government papers - and indeed articles in Museums Journal - on social inclusion (some even covering these museums), some readers will feel a sense of deja vu with this collection of case studies; interesting, well-argued and edited as many of them are. (Unfortunately, even the otherwise excellent efforts of the editors have failed to enliven Joanne DiCosimo's dull, step-by-step article on organisation change at the Canadian Museum of Nature.)
The more interesting suggestions in this book are not about the good practice that has already happened, but about how far they can possibly go.
In their essay Negotiating A Sustainable Path: Museums and Societal Therapy, Glenn Sutter and Douglas Worts argue that social responsibility is about more than appealing to non-traditional visitors but must address the unsustainable devouring of natural resources by an ever-increasing global population - which raises issues of capitalism, environmentalism, and international and inter-generational justice.
How far exhibitions like this will appeal to visitors remains to be seen (the authors admit that the messages were toned down in a display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in order to 'reduce anxiety').
It is an issue that needs to be resolved if the message that we need to curb our love of cars, holidays abroad and unsustainable food production merely serves to send us fleeing to the tranquil and beautiful arms of all those lovely, expensive, American art galleries.
Jane Morris is a freelance journalist
And one of the most beautiful thanks to its multi-billion dollar collection and handsome new $425m Yoshio Taniguchi building. Certainly its supporters are among the most bountiful: the trustees alone raising $500m towards an $858m capital campaign. But is it one of the best, justifying its $20 entrance fee?
No, I suspect, in the opinion of Robert Janes and Gerald Conaty, who in an entertaining opening essay to their book blame environmental destruction, postmodernism, capitalism and the baby-boomer generation for many of society's ills.
Far from failing to mirror modern society, they argue that too many museums reflect these cursed qualities in their obsessions with visitor figures, fundraising and architectural peeing competitions. While the editors don't exactly spell out MoMA, the Guggenheim, Getty et al, there is little doubt in which direction their fingers are pointing.
They do, however, quote one US director, saying: 'If you want to stay competitive in the cultural arena, you can only do it by investing large sums. That means you have to spend $200-$300m just to keep up with the next guy.'
The constant desire to expand, to pour money into continual, physical renewal, to constantly increase visitor numbers, drive revenue and promote the brand is, according to the authors, symptomatic of capitalism gone mad - 'a form of cultural Darwinism… grounded in size, power and money'.
If this all sounds a bit North American to European readers - the book is after all based on a Canadian Museums Association conference - the editors' remarks about the 'emotional narcissism' of the baby-boomers may well strike a chord.
This is the generation that heads North American museums, and most of their prestigious European equivalents. (It is also the generation, the editors wryly note, to which most of the contributors to this book belong.)
'It is not this generation's creative intelligence that is at issue, but rather its tendency towards extreme individualism,' they write. 'It... is not only about the overvaluing of self and one's abilities, but is also the undervaluing of others and their contributions... Because the influence of this birthright on the organisational behaviour of museums is neither recognised nor debated, it invites speculation.'
In other words, what is the effect of the Just-Call-Me-God style of museum leadership - an entertaining prospect that most of the contributors' case studies, by their nature, sadly don't explore.
Meanwhile postmodernism 'is the culture of no resistance... perilous, especially in the light of our relentless materialism'. In other words, it is not good enough, in the effort to banish horrors such as racism, sexism and nationalism from interpretation, to bend so far backwards that any old meaning is equal or valid.
Now we know who the bad guys are, what about the good? A socially responsible museum, the authors assert, doesn't throw aside the traditional museum goals of education and entertainment. But socially responsible museums also exhibit 'idealism, intimacy, depth and interconnectedness', they build - in that other fashionable concept - social as opposed to market capital.
To give us an idea, and to refute allegations of airy-fairy new agey-ness (which the editors themselves rather engagingly acknowledge is a risk in some of their arguments), the book includes practical essays on the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York; the Nitsitapiisinni exhibition at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; and the McMullen Art Gallery at the University of Alberta Hospital, among others.
The authors are - given the warm glow that usually surrounds 'successful' museums in this field -mostly honest about the pitfalls as well as achievements. Susan Pointe in Alberta admits to the fact that 'I do not have miraculous stories to prove that invoking the creative spirit will save lives'. But certainly staff and patients are more involved in the activities of the art gallery than they were before she started.
After ten years of books, lectures, government papers - and indeed articles in Museums Journal - on social inclusion (some even covering these museums), some readers will feel a sense of deja vu with this collection of case studies; interesting, well-argued and edited as many of them are. (Unfortunately, even the otherwise excellent efforts of the editors have failed to enliven Joanne DiCosimo's dull, step-by-step article on organisation change at the Canadian Museum of Nature.)
The more interesting suggestions in this book are not about the good practice that has already happened, but about how far they can possibly go.
In their essay Negotiating A Sustainable Path: Museums and Societal Therapy, Glenn Sutter and Douglas Worts argue that social responsibility is about more than appealing to non-traditional visitors but must address the unsustainable devouring of natural resources by an ever-increasing global population - which raises issues of capitalism, environmentalism, and international and inter-generational justice.
How far exhibitions like this will appeal to visitors remains to be seen (the authors admit that the messages were toned down in a display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in order to 'reduce anxiety').
It is an issue that needs to be resolved if the message that we need to curb our love of cars, holidays abroad and unsustainable food production merely serves to send us fleeing to the tranquil and beautiful arms of all those lovely, expensive, American art galleries.
Jane Morris is a freelance journalist
