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Museums: Managers of Consciousness
A discussion of corporate influence on museums that focuses on how museums channel and produce consciousness. Haacke is determined to persuade the reader that museums, and the art world in general, are an industry and their product is consciousness.
"Whether museums contend with governments, power-trips of individuals, or the corporate steamroller, they are in the business of molding and channeling consciousness. Even though they may not agree with the system of beliefs dominant at the time, their options not to subscribe to them and instead to promote an alternative consciousness are limited. The survival of the institution and personal careers are often at stake. But in non-dictatorial societies, the means of the production of consciousness are not all in one hand. The sophistication required to promote a particular interpretation of the work is potentially also available to question that interpretation and to offer other versions. As the need to spend enormous sums for public relations and government propaganda indicates, things are not frozen. Political constellations shift and unincorporated zones exist in sufficient numbers to disturb the mainstream."
"Whether museums contend with governments, power-trips of individuals, or the corporate steamroller, they are in the business of molding and channeling consciousness. Even though they may not agree with the system of beliefs dominant at the time, their options not to subscribe to them and instead to promote an alternative consciousness are limited. The survival of the institution and personal careers are often at stake. But in non-dictatorial societies, the means of the production of consciousness are not all in one hand. The sophistication required to promote a particular interpretation of the work is potentially also available to question that interpretation and to offer other versions. As the need to spend enormous sums for public relations and government propaganda indicates, things are not frozen. Political constellations shift and unincorporated zones exist in sufficient numbers to disturb the mainstream."
13 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 1984
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