ABSTRACT
This chapter explores several ideas of a 'public': from the public as a set of visitors that exist outside of the institution, to the notion of an internal public space that could be for, or of, the public. It discusses the potentials of those spaces for private experiences of conversion, devotion, or education. The complex historical apparatus of the museum as both elitist and democratic has been well documented in the last thirty years or so. The concept of ambience, as Matthew Engelke has theorized it, is a useful one for the particular kind of space under discussion – the art gallery; this is a space that has operated in different ways at different historical moments in time. The word 'ambience' has its root in the French word 'ambiant' which literally means 'surroundings'. The specific surroundings in question here – the art gallery – is a space designed to contain two things: art works and people.
