[en] The history of the art museum is built on the mythology of the revolution and its eagerness to
make available to the people those sacred objects that had previously been in the hands of
the authoritarian monarchy. Under the emblem of the common good, the museum laid the
foundations of an ideological programme aimed at strengthening the identity of the nascent
nation states.
In opposition to the desire to erase the private origin of the collections of the fine arts
museums, the 20th century established in the origins of the modern museum a similar
mythology of the revolution, but this time based in the individual and private character
through the exaltation of philanthropists, collectors, architects, and artists who encouraged
their foundation.
Although their ideological programmes were founded on the establishment of civic
institutions capable of abolishing the old museum, personalism gained more and more
ground and is used in the 21st century as a basic value for the repositioning of western
modern art museums. In the age of influencers, the figure of the collector-philanthropist who
realised his dream would seem to be the perfect insight to connect with audiences.
Following this hypothesis, we studied the cases of Malba, Moma, Tate Modern, and Centre
Pompidou by concentrating on the storytelling presented on their websites and social media
(Instagram, YouTube and Spotify) and on the intermediary architectural discourses
(Traversa, 2017), i.e. the esplanade and the entrance hall. We focus mainly on the following
points: the origin of its collections, the history of its founders, the construction of its buildings.
The aim of our work is to observe how these mythologies contribute to the construction of
bounds with visitors, to the configuration of local identity and to the positioning not only of
museums but also of the cities in which they are located.
