The New Age of Museum Curators

In the article “The New Guard of Curators Steps Up” by Carol Vogel of the New York Times, the new age of museums and curators are explored. In the article, Vogel uses examples of how a new age of young museum curators has come to dominate the museum profession. Vogel infers that because of the decline in the job market, many young people are taking up jobs in museums which, Vogel points out, “the stability of a museum job is attractive.” Although Vogel may be generalizing, museum jobs have been inhibited by younger people. As the article indicates, all nine professionals who are examined are all under the age of forty. This is particularly striking because audiences of older generations are the ones who tend to frequent museums often, may come into conflict with a museum agenda manufactured by a young curator. As the article explains, the result of young curators is that many museums are attracting larger populations of young adults. This can be the result of similar cultural backgrounds, but Vogel believes that this is a result of the technological age.

The second main point to this article is the fact that out of these nine professionals, only one has a degree which pertains to the museum world directly. This is absolutely amazing considering it shows that these professionals are able to be museum curators without the basic knowledge of museums, which we have been learning. Even more interesting is the fact that Rajendra Roy, whom the article is mainly about, does not have a graduate degree at all. This is shocking because I assumed that with almost any professional job in today’s economy, an applicant would have to obtain a graduate degree to even be considered for the position. This is a prime example of how experience is particularly valuable to the museum world and is basically a necessity.

As I continued to read, another interesting fact stood out. This article does not include any other types of museums aside from museums of the arts. Literally, all the museums discussed in the article are museums relating to art, theater, pottery, and film. The author fails to incorporate any professional curators who don’t work in a museum of the arts, which makes this piece biased. That being said, the piece would be more believable if the author incorporated young curators of various categories of museums rather than just one category type.

Overall, the article was very interesting in showing how young people are gaining positions of power at a younger age than their predecessors within the museum field. It is particularly interesting in showing how younger ages of people are attracted to various museums as a result of young curators. The piece is good at giving various examples of professionals working in the museum field and how they got into the museum business. However as aforementioned, the piece lacks the variety in terms of museums used as examples. The writer fails to apply her thesis to other types of museums such as the Smithsonian or the National Air and Space Museum, which causes Vogel to fall short in showing how young curators have spread across all museums.