Museums and Entrepreneurship: The Effects of Capitalising on Culture in the 21st Century

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Eve Kalyva (University of Kent, United States) Iro Katsaridou (Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece)

Museums and Entrepreneurship

The Effects of Capitalising on Culture in the 21st Century

Eve Kalyva (University of Kent, United States), Iro Katsaridou (Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece), Pamela Bianchi (École Supérieure d'Art et Design Toulon)

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English

Routledge
26 December 2025

Museums & museology; Humanities; Cultural studies

Museums and Entrepreneurship: The Effects of Capitalising on Culture in the 21st Century addresses the largely under-examined impact that different entrepreneurial endeavours have on museum practices today.

It identifies an entrepreneurial turn in today’s neoliberal context and critically evaluates how this turn redefines museums in organisational, conceptual and empirical terms. It assesses the challenges that different types of museums face, examining how they are conceptualised, managed and experienced in order to remain financially viable while also remaining relevant to the communities they should serve. It brings to the fore the dynamic relationships formed across corporate sponsors, private collectors, cultural administrators and local communities that shape today’s museum practices in a global context. Evidence-based in its approach and with case studies from Europe, the United States, South America and China, this volume engages with entrepreneurship across theory and practice and combines perspectives from museum studies, curating, exhibition design, business and management.

Shedding new light on discussions around cultural branding, sponsorship, the politics of display and experience economy, and highlighting the importance of resilience, decolonisation and social responsibility, Museums and Entrepreneurship is essential reading for students and researchers in museum and heritage studies, curatorial studies, arts and heritage management and business.

Edited by: Eve Kalyva (University of Kent United States), Iro Katsaridou (Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece), Pamela Bianchi (École Supérieure d'Art et Design Toulon)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032463759
ISBN 10: 1032463759
Pages: 182
Publication Date: 26 December 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

1. Introducing the Entrepreneurial Turn; 2. Sponsoring National Art: Funding Construction and Securing Dedications; 3. MAXXI Rome: When a Museum Displays Politics; 4. Consequences of Sponsorship: European Museums and Corporations—The Case of Volkswagen; 5. Away with the Basics? Exhibition Design, Experience Economy and Polyphony; 6. René Magritte’s Diasporic Doubles: Staging the Filipino Security Guards at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; 7. Elite Philanthropy and China’s Museums: Individual Passions and Innovative Models; 8. The Value of Community: Case Studies of Real and Symbolic Economy in South American Museums; 9. Postscript: Where Do We Go from Here?

Eve Kalyva is Lecturer of Art History at the University of Kent and a museum educator. Her interdisciplinary research spans conceptual and contemporary art, image and text relations, social semiotics, activism, exhibition design, decolonial practices and the Global South, with a regional focus on South America. At Kent, she leads the research project Decolonial Practices in Art and Culture. Iro Katsaridou is currently Director of the MOMus-Thessaloniki Museum of Photography. She was previously a curator at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki. Iro has taught art history and museum studies in several universities in Greece, participated in international conferences and published contributions in journals, collective volumes and exhibition catalogues. Her research interests focus on photography (historical and contemporary), art and politics and socially engaged art history as implemented in museum practices. Pamela Bianchi is a lecturer in art history and exhibition design at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville (Paris), specialising in the relationship between art and architecture.