Public art, participatory art and the museum as heterotopia

Over the last two or three decades, most of contemporary public and participatory art attempts to recover a social function and to regain cultural relevance came through the programmatic rejection of museums. From this point of view, several parties requested and claimed an “openµ, “participatedµ and “widespreadµ museum. Basing on of Fou- cault’s concept of heterotopia, the author attempts to reconsider the function and status of contemporary museum as a different place, able to “represent, contest and invertµ cultural and ordinary places.