Regional museums of contemporary art in France: the main stages of cultural decentralization

Abstract

Although France was the birthplace for many new trends of the modernism era, innovative art was not included in the collections of state museums for a long time. Besides, contemporary art only captured the interest of a narrow circle of the "enlightened" public, who were keen on art and widely read. As a consequence, museums of modern art in France would only reach their true golden age in the latter half of the 20th century. At this time changes in society led to democratization in the arts and cultural sphere, a trend which was interpreted as broad public access to monuments of artistic legacy and modern works of art. Later on, these processes gave rise to the idea of cultural decentralization and its establishment as one of the values of contemporary French society. As a result, regional museums representing contemporary and actual art underwent further development and the Centre Pompidou in Paris broadened the geographical scope of its activities.

This pattern of evolution has been repeatedly chosen as subject of reflection by French researchers, and it is now of particular interest to Russian art experts studying the experience of regional cultural development. In this article, issues concerning the construction of museums are tied to the state cultural policy of France in the latter half of the 20th century and early 21st century. We will analyze the potential interplays between the regional cultural heritage of the past and institutions dedicated to the actual creative process. We will define the main stages in the development of art museums under modernism and postmodernism, starting with monographic collections of masterpieces created by outstanding individual artists and leading on to ample collections of international contemporary art. Special emphasis is afforded to topical issues that have been developed by these museums in recent years.