This article explores private art museums’ role for elite legitimization processes. Based on interviews with founders, directors, and curators of Germany-based private museums, Kolbe explores the discourses participants invoke to legitimize museum founders as actors in the artworld and as elites generally. Kolbe draws out a two-pronged legitimation strategy. First, respondents posit private museums’ increasingly important role for today’s art ecosystem, implying logics of discursive innovation and organizational flexibility vis-a-vis public museums. Second, interviewees construct intra-group status hierarchies via notions of the autonomous and ethical collector founder versus other ostentatious private collectors and unethical wealth elites more widely. Together, these narratives effectively conflate seemingly opposite
discourses of private entrepreneurialism and authenticity, allowing interviewees to signal legitimacy for founders over both public and other private actors. This elite legitimation work is performed by both founders and those institutionally connected to them, showing how legitimization can be a complex and institutionally mediated process.

Onderwerpen: 2020-heden beeldende kunst-wereld museumwereld ondernemerschap

Auteur: dr. Kristina Kolbe