This presentation sought to sketch a diagrammatic picture of the politics and institutional idiosyncracies that affected photography’s institutionalisation as an independent art in British art and media museums in the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when museums themselves were also undergoing significant structural changes.

The presentation formed part of the session: Photography and the Museum: Processes of and Chances for Institutionalizing the Medium

Long regarded as a “middle-brow” art, at the turn of the twentieth century, photography emerged as a well-established and popular contemporary art medium. The session explores the institutions, processes, and discourses that were instrumental in the institutionalization of photography as an independent contemporary art, and specifically the impact of its belated accommodation in the art museum. Focusing on different case studies from the UK, Greece, and Croatia, this event seeks to shed light on the perplexities behind photography’s institutionalization in these respective countries and the developments that led to the establishment of institutions addressing photography in different ways. It also seeks to reflect on photography’s possible institutional futures.