The art museum facing the memory challenge

Museums have emerged as a representative synthesis of a reality, so a question rises about the preservation of the memories inherent to the functional and symbolic objects. In the particular case of art museums, the goal was to build a heritage repository which would contribute to the creation of a cultural identity. So, the objects were mainly evaluated in terms of aesthetic excellence of its parameters, to the detriment of other meanings. On the other hand, also the historiography of art favored formal aspects, establishing authorities and styles. These circumstances determined the decontextualization of the object in the museum. In return, from mid-twentieth century onwards, the studies of the public, as a plural and diversified entity, and the theoretical debates around the meaning of the object, contributed to a redefinition of the museological speech. The museum had to offset losses due to the musealisation through a set of procedures and tools that recontextualize the meanings of the object in their multiple valences. Between the two vectors, decontextualization and recontextualization, the museum challenges our personal and collective memory.