Museum Shop As One of Commercial Strategies in Modern Museums of Art

Over time, museums have changed their status from an “old” institution or a relic of a previous age to the subject of consumer culture. Nowadays they ought to combine some traditional elements with the ideas of consumer populism, drawing on, whilst transforming, cultural modernity. However, this leads to discussions in the professional community and among the visitors about the commercialization of a museum and about the possibility of using commercial practices in museums. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the characteristics of the commercialization in art museums, explore the motivation, context and strategies of placing gift shops in art museums. This work analyses the cases of gift shops in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (in the Gallery and in the Main Building) and suggests that over time, museums have come to understand the advantage of applying business-derived strategic planning and marketing; this coincides with the need to attract audience and increase income without compromising missions and professionalism. This paper has also outlined the development of shops as one of the commercial practices at art museums and highlighted the fact that such areas have always acted as important points of intersection between visitors and institutions. Museum shops should not be seen as an added “extra” to the museum but should be regarded as an integral part of the complex object-identity work that museums perform.