ABSTRACT
This section introduces the subject of the book – museums and centers of contemporary art in central Europe – and situates these in the theoretical context of museum studies, cultural policy, and geography. This is where the geographical and conceptual foci are explained: Central Europe is narrowed to four Visegrad Group member states - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia; and the contemporary turn in museums arrived there in the 1990s. Further, a brief overview of post-1989 cultural policy in Central Europe is presented. Last, the methodology of the research is discussed. The main hypothesis of the book is that almost all museums and art centers dealing with modern and contemporary art created since the 1990s in Central Europe (seen as peripheries) are an imitation of formulae emerging in the center (Western, mainstream culture). Collective historical experiences render the circumstances of formation, structure, and function of the museums and centers of contemporary art similar, although the local interpretation of the Western models rarely produces new solutions.
