The Musealization of Contemporary Art as a Discursive and Reflexive Process of Museum Reinvention

This article concisely presents a study about museums of contemporary art. Specifically, it examines the “musealization” of contemporary art as a process of updating, accessing, rupturing, affirming, and reorienting institutional discourses and practices. Building a theoretical framework, it explores how institutions apply paradigms, discussions, and functions that justify and support them, as well as the transformations that occur during the process of musealization of contemporary art. Essentially, it enters the debate regarding the identity of museums, while searching for a critical understanding and reflection on current and implicit ideas of what constitutes a contemporary art museum when institutions manifest themselves as such.