The Future Of The Art Gallery: Democratization

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Over the last century the art gallery’s role and importance in society has been changing. New media and the digital image have irrevocably changed the nature of visual art and how it connects with society. The proliferation of visual culture through film, television, video and DVD diminished the power that art galleries have to arbitrate what is or is not visual art.

Visual art is no longer exclusive to the museum or art gallery. Communication innovation like the Internet are eroding hierarchal structures and democratizing the very foundations of the art world. On line images are able to inform, enlighten and entertain a great number of people.

As obsolete power structures decline, art galleries are finding a new purpose within society. The art gallery in the 21st century must survive the onslaught of a visual culture outside its authority. Galleries are becoming transparent and permeable, allowing a relationship to flow between the visual culture on the inside of the gallery walls and that on the outside.

To survive as an authority in interpreting and defining visual culture, do art galleries need to alter their essential purpose, divest of an elitist history and allow access to artists working outside of the traditional box?