There is a powerful trend in museums today of asking visitors to participate in the exhibitions, co‐create content, and to be active and engage with one another in the museum space. While welcoming the participatory agenda as an initiative of democratizing art museums, we argue in this paper that the rise of the participatory agenda also redefines the purpose of the art museum in a way that risks overlooking the kinds of experiences people undergo in art museums. Based on qualitative and phenomenologically inspired interviews with museum visitors, we present a sketch of a class of aesthetic experiences that ought to be taken into consideration in curatorial practices. Developing a picture of the phenomenology of aesthetic experience, we argue that such experiences should be taken into account when considering the question of the purpose of the art museum.
Resumé
På museer står deltagelse i dag helt centralt. Brugerne inviteres til at være aktive, indgå i aktiviteter, tale sammen og skabe sammen. Selvom vi hilser denne deltagelsesagenda velkommen som et initiativ, der demokratiserer kunstmuseerne og gør dem relevante for flere mennesker, så argumenterer vi i denne artikel for, at deltagelse også påvirker kunstoplevelsen på en måde, der risikerer at overse en væsentligt dimension ved at opleve kunst. Baseret på kvalitative og fænomenologisk inspirerede interviews med museumsbesøgende præsenterer vi en skitse af denne form for æstetisk oplevelse. Vi diskuterer hvordan der bør tages hensyn til disse oplevelser, både i kurateringspraksis, formidlingen og i diskussionen af formålet med kunstmuseet i dag.
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