El medio es el mensaje. Museología y pinkwashing en la era digital

Abstract

This article addresses the inclusion of gender-affective diversity in museum exhibitions and permanent collections. We have taken as a case study the exhibition on the Italian artist Guido Reni (1575-1642) at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid (March-July 2023). For this purpose, in addition to visiting the exhibition, we analyze the nine essays published in the extensive exhibition catalog, as well as the dissemination of the exhibition content through social media, podcasts and other means. In this sense, we focus on how some strategies of inclusion can also function as strategies of exclusion and invisibilization. These strategies can also be reduced to a policy of pinkwashing, consisting of political and marketing strategies that manage to attract LGBTIQ+ tourism in the context of Pride festivities, and that museums like the Prado are seen as institutions sympathetic to the civil rights of LGBTIQ+ people, and therefore progressive, modern and tolerant institutions.

Keywords

• museums – gender and identity
• museums – representation aspects
• LGBTIQ+
• Museo Nacional del Prado
• Guido Reni