The Independent covers the fruitful directorate of Malcolm Rogers at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The director's tenure is characterized not only by a $500 million capital campaign and a Norman Foster building in the very near future, but also by a controversial approach to curation and museum running.

There are many ways how to interpret his decisions in the MFA, here are some that seem intriguing to me:

His approach to curation seems to be reinterpreting not only the role of the museum in the 21st century, but also delivering a very non-traditional narrative of the 21st century itself. His shows draws the emphasis away from the traditional art-museum elite of Grand Masters, impressionists and modern artists and more towards the underrepresented, but also towards popular culture.

However, while I hoped to find a more democratic perspective of the world, at least based on articles that I read, Rogers seems to have replaced a narrative of colonial power with an appraisal of power and status in the 21st century. The exhibitions "Speed, style and beauty", "Things I Love" and "Dangerous Curves" display objects almost uniquely tied to the 21st century idea of prestige and power: Yachts, fast cars, guitars owned by rock stars. His flirtation with Las Vegas (he rented 21 Monet's in his collection out to a hotel and casino in the Sin City) seems to reinforce that - Rogers seems to have replaced a 19th century narrative of power (through colonialism, imperialism and a strict hierarchy of cultures) with a 21st century one, celebrating the culture of the wealthy and the popular.

If his narrative of the world seems elitist, his ideas for the museum are more ambiguous. On the one hand, he seems to have an interest in expanding on the underrepresented, as the new MFA building will reportedly include the largest gallery of American Art, including that of Central and South America. He underscores the importance of sharing between museums and the importance of innovation in research. However, his ideas on how to bring the museum closer to the people include "Winesdays" (regular wine tasting events) and College Days complete with Live DJ-s, partying and treasure hunts. I find myself asking, is it necessary to bend the museum to whatever the present fad in appealing to the masses seems to be? Is it that hard to find a non-traditional solution that doesn't constantly affirm the economically-oriented power relations of the 21st century?

And finally, a nail in the coffin is his suggestion that art museums should sell to get rid of the "junk", junk here being "all these Attic vases". This seems to suggest that the museum is not simply a repository of significant heritage and a center of education, but an explicitly elite repository of only what he considers to be the very best of heritage. Not quite the way to shake the reputation of a museum being the tool of reaffirming societal power relations, is it?