Who are the visitors of the art museums. Who are the visitors of the art museums. Particularities of the publics of the weekends at the Art Museum of Tigre (Argentina)

Abstract

Knowing who its visitors are is one of the main tasks of museums today, as they fluctuate between conforming to the impositions of the capitalist system and becoming democratic and participatory institutions. However, this aspect is even more difficult in the arts museums because of the particular attributes of their structure and its diverse actors. The present work has as main object to bring near some criteria that may allow to know who are the visitors of the art museums in Argentina since the beginning of the new millennium. Given the extent of the challenge, we’ll try, focusing in a particular case, draw some guidelines sustained in the theorical-critical approaches applied to museology and studies of the publics. In terms of methodology, a visitor study was carried out at the Tigre Art Museum in 2017, using both quantitative and qualitative guidelines, focusing on weekend audiences. It is considered that, when we question the singularities of this entity, there are some indications that a general and specific profile of visitors to art museums can begin to be identified.