Desecrating the Museum

Overview of the MASP

Desecrating versus consecrating. A museum where artworks are not exhibited as distant, inaccessible icons, radiating such an aura that they are not supposed to be enjoyed by visitors, but merely revered in silence, according to guidelines that weere predetermined by those who know, understand, administrate, curate, and who have nothing but contempt for the unlearned visitor, barely worthy of seeing the art from up close. A museum that is not a temple, far from the elitist tradition that imposes its rule in France and elsewhere –the prerogative of narrow-minded conservators and so-called defenders of cultural heritage that are allergic to any kind of modernity, of democratization (it is no surprise that the catalogue mentions how Michel Laclotte, then director of the Louvre, hated the museum; although I don’t know what to think of the fact that Elizabeth II liked it a lot).