Faced with waning state support, declining revenue, and forced entrepreneurialism, museums have become a threatened public space. Simultaneously they have assumed the role of institutional arbiter in issues of social justice and accountability. The canon of Institutional Critique has responded to the social embeddedness of art institutions by looking at their inner workings. In After Institutions, Karen Archey addresses contemporary art’s sociopolitical entanglements by expanding the definition of Institutional Critique, looking beyond what cultural institutions were to what they are and what they might become.

Karen Archey is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She has written numerous catalogue essays and is a contributor to several art publications, including Artforum and Frieze.

Paperback, pocket book format, published in 2022, 116 pages