Is the museum a memory?

On proofing a concept

Abstract

During the last few decades libraries, archives and museums have been called cultural memory or parts of a collective memory. The text departs from the situation in the Austrian county museums (Landesmuseen) which – concerning the memory-concept – are following a general trend, but doing so are confronted with specific problems. Starting from the question whether museums function as memory, the epistemic value of concepts of memory-history will be investigated. These concepts relay – mostly uncritically – on Maurice Halbwachs. Therefore his ideas about the collective memory will be confronted with objections concerning the construction of the collective, as well as the backwardness and overestimation of the past. Furthermore it will be discussed if memory-history reinstalls the conventional history of ideas. Finally the author formulates the thesis that the slogan of the museum as cultural memory blocks out object-based research and points out that while museums undergo an exhibition boom, collecting and researching – likewise central tasks of museums – have been in default for a long time.