Argentina's first museum was created in the capital city of Buenos Aires in 1827 by decree of Bernardino Rivadavia, Minister of Government of the Buenos Aires Province. Rivadavia conceived a national institution that would focus on history, natural history and art. Today the first museum of Argentina is known as the Museum of Natural History.
The great idea of creating museums in Argentina was introduced by the "Generacion del 80 (Eighties Generation.) These were men educated in Europe to be lawyers, writers, artists and scientists who dominated the political and intellectual life of Argentina of the end of the nineteenth century. They saw museums as places where the patrimony of the country was preserved and they were instrumental in establishing the first anthropological and archaeological museum in 1872, the National Museum of History in 1889, and in 1896, the National Museum of Fine Arts. The first university and school museums were created at the beginning of the twentieth century. By the 1930s museums reflecting a variety of disciplines flourished throughout the country.
Today there are over seven hundred museums throughout the country. It is estimated that every city and town in Argentina has a local museum.
The government of Argentina has a long tradition of encouraging and supporting cultural initiatives. Ninety percent of the country's museums are state supported; these are located at the national, provincial and municipal levels. Argentina also has private museums that receive no government support. Economic problems beginning in the 1950s have had serious effects on the financial state of museums, causing most to operate with greatly reduced budgets. During the mid-1970s some museums established Associations of Friends of Museums to help support cultural programming. These associations are non-profit organizations that play no role in governing the museum but support them by raising funds for publications, temporary exhibitions, restoration and conservation activities.
Most museums were not conceived as educational facilities in which the participation of the community is essential, but rather as keepers of the country's heritage. Consequently, there has been a long tradition of considering museums as places where old things are stored and shown. Nevertheless, some museums are changing these attitudes by more actively engaging visitors with new exhibits and programming. An illustration of this is the Museum Pillahuinco, known as the Anti-museum, in Coronel Pringles (Province of Buenos Aires). The collection of this museum consists of broken musical instruments, artifacts destroyed by human hands, a trimmed historic tree and deteriorated objects of art. The message is that this is what will happen if care is not taken with the national patrimony. They are all exhibited in a gallery under a banner proclaiming that there is no reason for museums to acquire more objects if those already in museums are not cared for.
The government's Ministry of Education and Culture, which oversees state supported museums, is also undergoing change. A new bureau, the Direccion General de Museos, dedicated to revitalizing the poor state of museums, was created in 1983. The bureau, staffed by museum professionals, conducted a national museums needs assessment, organized annual meetings and developed a document describing the positions and the functional areas of museums.
Museums in Argentina can benefit from the recent development of new non-profit organizations dedicated to the humanities. Few museum staff have experience writing grants or developing income sources since most museums have traditionally depended on government allocations. New support organizations, such as the Fundacion Antorchas, are now available to advise museums on ways to raise revenues and become more solvent.
Generating income and privatizing museums are the major issues that the museum community and the government are discussing currently. The privatization project is still in its initial phase. The main idea is that the government will continue to own the patrimony (museum collections and actual buildings) but will no longer support and administrate them. Privatization suggests that a board of trustees is created, formed either by provate citizens or business firms. The board would take care of the museum finances and would have governing authority. A close relationship would still exist with the government but there would no longer be a bureaucratic chain through which, currently, projects must travel before implementation. It is still uncertain what role the Association of Friends of Museums will play under a new and different administration. The privatization project is welcome among the museum community since it is believed that this effort will not only provide museums with a more effective administration but also will bring independence from government politics.
Even though the economic crisis in Argentina continues and major changes still need to happen, the advent of political stability is a positive sign for museums.
(Magdalena Mieri is the Project Assistant for the Museum Studies Theses Database project of the Office of Museum Programs. Prior to this position, Ms. Mieri was Assistant Curator, Museum of Hispano-American Art "Isaac Fernandez Blanco," Buenos Aires, Argentina.)
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