ABSTRACT
This chapter compares Tate Britain, the Walker Art Gallery, the Van Abbemuseum and the Schwules Museum across country and institution type in order to better clarify the differences and similarities to their approaches and understandings of what it means to queer the museum. I identify characteristics of what I call the queer utopic museum and highlight other possibilities for a queer museum as well. These characteristics include a museum’s commitment to institutional critique, the institution’s understanding and use of queerness, their engagement with queer community work and how queer narratives and bodies are included in the museum space. The chapter reiterates some key aspects of queer theory (particularly utopia, futurity and failure) that I have identified as approaches to understanding how to queer the museum and specifically how these ideas work across my case study institutions on both practical and theoretical levels.
