Thinking Inside and Outside of 'The Square': Barriers, audience engagement, and contemporary art in Ruben Östlund’s film 'The Square'

Abstract: It is easy to see that not everyone belongs in the same social circle as those who regularly engage with art and who visit contemporary art museums. I take this as intuitive. In 2017, Ruben Östlund’s film, The Square, garnered tremendous critical acclaim for satirizing the problems in high-end contemporary art culture. In my research, I take these issues seriously, using The Square as a point from which to inspect contemporary art world. A wealth of research is dedicated to exploring the museum’s role in society. In this thesis, I claim that the museum bars meaningful engagement by some members of society. In other words, the contemporary art museum distinguishes two classes of citizen: the uneducated, disinterested, culturally unaware and the educated, engaged, culturally aware. As museums have evolved, so have art and the social institutions that support art at large. Art and museums necessarily share a symbiotic relationship. Despite that engagement with art is seriously challenged by various aspects of art, the museum, and contemporary culture more broadly, museums and galleries multiply at a breakneck pace. Why? Relying on research from Foucault, Bourdieu, Debord, Duncan and Danto among others. I try to understand all these developments in relationship with one another. I take The Square as a good exemplar for various problems in the museum and in the art community. Approaching this area of study without preconceived notions, without agenda, and without expert knowledge, I deploy a phenomenological approach in order to try to authentically investigate these issues through points of interest and resonance.