Permanent collection displays in museums presuppose that artworks can be and should be placed in a new context of meaning that is the museum. Many museologists have written about the resulting "museum effect"...

In museological terms, art museums typically favor two distinct approaches to display - the aesthetic and the contextual. The aesthetic mode focuses on the unique qualities of the individual artwork while the contextual mode treats the work more as a historical or art-historical object.

SHOW IMAGES OF SAME OBJECT IN THREE CONTEXTS (Suger chalice from National Gallery?)

..history of the white cube

gallery design

poetics and politics of museum display