This Is Not a Museum: Portable and Lurking

‘Esto no es un museo’ documents and explores the process of artists who develop devices intended to make art ‘portable.’

The quest to subvert the logic of the museum through the construction of mobile devices has a long tradition. Since Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise (1941), many artists have tried to move the field of aesthetic experience beyond the limits of the museum. In recent years, museums have co-opted this strategy with devices intended to make art “portable.”

Esto no es un museo… (This is Not a Museum…) seeks to catalogue and reflect on mobile artifacts that traverse the public space and collide with the conventional museum exhibition. Instead of extending the lineal space on the museum’s walls, these artifacts reformulate the functions of the exhibition to a nomadic form, providing opportunities for direct and self-guided participation. The project expands the development of the social research and educational experience conceptualized as “a museum” or rather, provides an alternative to it.

This Is Not a Museum: Portable and Lurking (Esto no es un museo. Artefactos móviles al acecho) showcases more than 50 of these projects from various cities around the globe. Curated by Martí Peran, the exhibition has been presented in Barcelona (ACVic, 2011), Ljubljana (Slovene Ethnographic Museum, 2012), Washington D.C. (Corcoran Gallery of Art), Ciudad de Mexico (Centro Cultural de España en México) and Santiago de Chile (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC Quinta Normal).

Opening Reception on January 16 at 8 pm. Free and open to the public.