ABSTRACT

The new century has witnessed a transformation in the museum field. Museum attendance has increased exponentially since the 1990s, and plans for new museums have emerged as well as renovation and expansion projects, particularly for those institutions specializing in art. Notably, there has been a proliferation of private museums around the world. Private museums can be seen as a distinctive institutional model, confronting head on the issue of art museums as stakeholders in the art market and legitimizing new actors in the art world. This chapter analyzes how the private Museo Jumex in Mexico City, and the Colección Jumex before it, changed the infrastructure and behavior of the contemporary art scene at both the national and international level. Jumex became a legitimizing body that creates value for Mexico from Mexico and projects this value globally. Jumex’s commercial nature also played a role in Mexico’s current position within the international art world. This chapter explores how, under the leadership of the Mexican tycoon and collector Eugenio López and his advisers, this institution fostered the local art scene. An examination of the collection’s establishment, its interaction with the art world, its international visibility, and its constant negotiation with symbolic and economic spheres reveals the distinctive features that have gained Jumex its stature in the local and global scene.