Cultural franchising, imperialism and globalisation: What's new?

The late 1997 opening of Frank Gehry's spectacular new Guggenheim in Bilbao has been widely promoted as the international museum event of the decade. In the context of other developments, it has also been seen as evidence of Guggenheim director Thomas Krens's ‘tireless efforts to build the world's first global museum brand’. In post‐colonial countries such as Australia we know that museums have often been inextricably involved in imperial and international as well as national cultural power struggles. In this paper the ‘global brand’ view of the Guggenheim is further examined in an attempt to clarify whether this is just more of the same, (old wine in a new bottle) or whether museums are entering a new era of globalisation—and if so what may be some of the consequences for professional museum practice.