Then there is the current museum trend favoring newness.
The museum trend has surely crested, but 2008 brought two of the best new museums in several years: the California Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco, by Renzo Piano, and the New Museum, on the Bowery in New York, by SANAA Architecture.
Victoria Siddall, the director of Frieze Masters, said that they were also very aware of the growing museum trend of juxtaposing contemporary and older work to show lineage and influence.
The resulting mix-and-match approach is part of an international museum trend that has left some people fretting that linear history, the old history, "the way things really happened," will be forgotten.
Althamer's installation embodies the next stage of relational aesthetics, the ever-popular museum trend which invites viewers to participate in the artworks, and in this case, actually create them.
But signs of a spirited commercialization in paintings, engravings, sketches and sculptures abound in Caracas, long admired across Latin America for its rich museum collections and trend-setting artists.
Guides are deepest for New York and London, with listings augmented by insider articles on music, theater, museums and cultural trends.
The worst trend — museum exhibitions without a curator: LACMA this year presented two: a four-day "pop-up" show in July of a satisfactory if conventional nine-minute music video by artist and director Steve McQueen and pop star Kanye West, and the gimmicky "Rain Room" by London design firm Random International, currently on view.
For inspiration, look through the Times's Museums: A Special Section that covers the latest trends in museums across the world.
IT is always chancy to read trends into museum exhibitions.
