Aesthetics, Ethics, Identity–Museum of the 21st Century

This publication summarizes the results of the 40th-Anniversary Symposium of the Austrian Ludwig Foundation, which was dedicated to examining current and future perspectives of museum collections. Considering the growing awareness―on an aesthetic as well as an institutional level―of the need to pursue a more inclusive approach to collection practices, the lectures and discussions addressed important key concepts that are marked by controversy, such as transculturalism, diversity, and cultural heritage, and their complicated relationship to processes of globalization. Artists Tania Bruguera and Florian Pumhösl as well as museum directors and curators Brigitte Franzen, Max Hollein, Christian Kravagna, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, and Susanne Titz, who have all been fundamental in advancing a historically critical reconceptualization of collection agendas over recent years, contributed to the symposium and this publication.