Art museums teach us what to see when we look at art. As the guardians of
the world’s artistic treasures, they provide opportunities to see things that might
otherwise be lost or forgotten; they encourage public appreciation of art, preserve
essential scholarly skills, and foster historical research. But museums create
as well as conserve. They establish the explanatory frames within which
individual objects can be understood; they a·rm artistic signiμcance—indeed,
they help us to decide what is and is not art. As the conservators and creators
of artistic value, museums are also expressions of power—the political and
economic power of those who build them, the professional power of those
who deμne their mission and shape their collections, and the social power of
those upon whom they depend for sustenance and support. Museums everywhere
have certain things in common, but they are also shaped by their historical
settings; they have, in other words, histories of their own besides the
manifest narrative that their collections are organized to impart.1