Museums are now at the epicenter of America's culture wars.
Once fierce public debates focused on provocative work by upstart artists, but now public scrutiny has expanded to mainstream cultural institutions and the ideas they present. In the past they glorified wealth and validated authority. Today, however, they frequently represent new interests, and pressure groups mobilize either to force their own perspective upon museum walls, or to prevent opposing opinions from being expressed. Some of these exhibitions challenged standard narratives, while others were faulted for failing to do so. It's no exaggeration to claim that history and revisionism are central motifs of the 1990s, on both personal and social levels.