After the Beaubourg: Between the Iconic Set and the Flow of Stories. Notes About an Event Economy

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical approach to some of transformations of the museum institution that are inseparable from what has been called economy of the event. From a «historical» perspective, a possible starting point is suggested that establishes the Georges Pompidou Center, whose innovations help us to contextualize the rise of a set of formats and trends –in which the iconic set and the flow of stories intersect– that incorporate a marked emphasis on the temporal dimension. These trends are inscribed in the complexity of a conjuncture that transcends the limits of the museum and its crossed by a cultural logic inseparable from the increase of mobility and the erosion of all continuity. A process of systemic scope that is also evident in the urban organization itself, because the city of today is the privileged territory through wich a multitude of events circulate. All this, to try to think about the implications of a scenario in wich the dimension of the place and history would be reformulated.