Perspective (graphical)

Sociology

Ideology

Social science

Performance art

Politics

Operating system

Literature

Aesthetics

Agency (philosophy)

Visual arts

Political science

Programming language

Theme (computing)

Computer science

Art history

Anecdote

Contemporary art

Museology

Visitor pattern

General partnership

Studies in Art Education

Critical museological perspectives have in recent years opened up new conceptual spaces for emerging forms of art museum practice. This article addresses the theme of changing ideologies and methodologies in art museums by offering an anecdote shaped by art museum practices, then theorizing potential responses from object-based, visitor-centered, and socially responsive philosophical perspectives. I summarize key points in contemporary museological theory and outline post-critical museologies (PCM), an emerging perspective that offers insights into the complex subjectivities and agency of museum visitors in global, technology-informed contexts; changing patterns of collecting and engagement by art museum staffs; and new models of partnership and practice for academic researchers and art museum professionals in "distributed museums." Theory is then reassembled into practice with a profile of a mid-sized art museum in the Midwestern United States that may be said to embody the tenets of PCM.

Toward Post-Critical Museologies in U.S. Art Museums