'As the central element of power in the cultural economy of modernism, the museum has become the artists' subject of reflection and a target of their criticism. In response to the "death of the museum" (representing an old world and a bastion against the progressive and new), which was proclaimed well into the 1970's, the museum itself showed an unfamiliar liveliness. The picture of current art institutions is no longer typified by resistance to developments in society but rather by their adaptability to contemporary ideas of marketing and competition, to inter-city competition and the desires of corporate sponsoring. Most museums and cultural institutions have long since been renewed to such an extent that they no longer pose a fundamental opposition to the "avant-gardes" of economics, the entertainments industry and even artistic production. Contemporary artists analyse processes of the production of meaning and value, mechanisms of exclusion and the clash of interests, and pay particular attention to the structural and functional changes of these increasingly dynamic cultural institutions. They point out characteristic inter-dependence of institutions, sponsors and art producers and demonstrate that the transition from the once conservative educational institutions into company-like suppliers of culture has by no means created ideologically vacuous zones.' - from the inside cover