The new century has witnessed a transformation in the museum field. Museum attendance has increased exponentially since the 1990s. Projects for new museums have emerged as well as renovation and expansion of existing ones, particularly for those specializing in art. Notably, there has been a proliferation of private museums.
Further research should be done on private museums as a distinctive institutional model, addressing the problematic around these entities as stakeholders within the art market and legitimizing actors within the art world.
This essay will analyze how the private Museo Jumex in Mexico City, and the Colección Jumex before it, changed the infrastructure and behavior of the contemporary art scene at both the national and international levels. Jumex became a legitimizing body that creates value for Mexico from Mexico, projecting this value globally. This essay investigates to what extent Jumex’s commercial nature has played a role in Mexico’s current position within the international art world. It also explores the process through which this institution has fostered the local art scene under the leadership of the Mexican tycoon and collector Eugenio López and his advisors. An examination of the collection’s establishment, its interaction with the art world, its international visibility, and its constant negotiation with the symbolic and economic spheres reveals the distinctive features that have gained Jumex its stature in the local and global scene.
by Lassla Esquivel Durand
Art Museums of Latin America: Structuring Representation. Editors Michele Greet and Gina McDaniel Tarver. (Routledge Research in Art Museums and Exhibitions) Hardcover – 13 Mar 2018
All chapters' abstracts HERE
You can buy it in AMAZON or local Book Shop
