The Private Museum of the Future

The current panoply of private initiatives

Private museums like the Menil Collection in Houston, the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence, or the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek have existed for a long time. Over the past decade, many more private museums have been founded all over the world, especially museums of contemporary art. In Athens, Jakarta, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Milan, and Paris major collectors have built or are planning to build large new museums. These projects are often greeted as generous initiatives that combine the presentation of an individual collection with innovative architecture, and offer contemporary art great visibility. Sometimes they are also seen as competitors for the beleaguered public institutions, as both structures vie for funding and to attract visitors. Given this current panorama of growing private initiatives, “The Private Museum of the Future,” following up on the successful publication “Museum of the Future” by the same editors, tackles this central issue in museology and contemporary society.

Made possible thanks to the contribution of international museum founders and art collectors, the book maps the diversity of the field and of approaches in terms of scale, contents, goals, and structures. Furthermore, it addresses questions such as what inspires private collectors to build a museum? How do they view their relationship with other institutions? What plans they have for the future of their museums? In what forms private museums can contribute to innovative ways of dealing with contemporary art? What can they do that other institutions cannot? And how can they establish an ongoing relation with the public and society?

Interviewees and contributors include Ziba Ardalan, Christian Boros, Eli Broad, Gil Bronner, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Jens Faurschou, Soichiro Fukutake, Ingvild Goetz, Dakis Joannou, Grazyna Kulczyk, Savina Lee, Eugenio López, Philippe Méaille, Leonid Mikhelson, Judith Neilson, Bernardo Paz, Lekha Poddar, Nadia Samdani, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Mario Saradar, Bernar Venet, Lu Xun, Anita Zabludowicz, and Jochen Zeitz. Essays by the editors and Chris Dercon, previous Director of Tate Modern, London (2011–2016), explore the topic and the relationship between public and private institutions and museums worldwide.

The book is part of the Documents series, co-published with Les presses du réel and dedicated to critical writing.