Participatory Space and the Spectatorship in the Museum. A Problem and an Answer about the Use of Today’s Exhibition Space

Abstract

Space is not just a place where things and acts are deposited but an autonomous socially constructed entity. Art creates spaces where it develops with the determination to foment the emergence of relationships in them. This paper is based on the idea of a reconsidered artistic space and its importance in the development of aesthetic and social relationships to see how the museum can apply this idea in the renovation of its exhibition space. Keeping in mind the theoretical perspectives on the social construction of space and relating the spatial construction of certain participatory artistic experiences of the early twentieth century with some realizations presented in the last edition of documenta, the spatial articulations of these experiences with their form of exposition is researched. How to move from a museum representational space that is built on a historicist, linear, nationalist and exclusive way, to a participatory exhibition space of a shared authorship that represents a changing society, is the central issue.