Changing museums

From The New Criterion: "Writing nearly 20 years ago on 'the ongoing transformation of the American museum,' the late theorist Stephen E. Weil identified how museums were moving from 'being about something to being for somebody.' This is a phrase that has been taken up by critics of contemporary museum culture, but for Weil it signaled a positive change, a momentous redirection he traced back to the cultural revolts of the 1960s. The museum of the past, he said, was content to care for the 'oldfashioned satisfaction' … its permanent collection. … The museum of tomorrow must come to see itself not as the steward of a collection of objects but as 'an instrument for social change.'"