The expansion of museums is in part necessitated by the growth of collections. While Alfred Barr had originally proposed that the Museum of Modern Art, New York, should sell all its works after fifty years to remain wholly wedded to the new, this idea was quietly forgotten when the modern attained the status of the masterpiece. However, construction can never keep pace with the growth of major public collections or with the enormous scale of late-twentieth-century installations.

When Lars Nittve, the director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, had to close the museum for building works, he offered the collection to any institution that had interesting ideas for presenting it. Britain’s Tate also has an active programme of lending works to regional galleries. Increasingly, however, museums are loath to lend, often using their collections to lever reciprocal loans; or as a source of revenue, charging loan fees and reproduction rights. Small provincial museums, which are strapped for cash and space, can also only show the tip of the iceberg. As a consequence, many works of art languish, undead, in the dark seclusion of a crate. There are also public collections with no homes, such as the British Council, the Arts Council and the Government Art Collections in Britain. Although they are shown in government buildings or as loans to exhibitions, these collections paid for with public money, can rarely be seen in one place. The rise of the contemporary art market has also seen a proliferation of substantial private collections. Serious collectors are often great pioneers in supporting emerging artists well ahead of their risk-averse colleagues in the museum sector. But their works of art disappear into the sitting room or storage. Kunsthalles are entirely dependent on borrowing works and therefore ensure their circulation. But typically they borrow single pieces. Collections have their own internal logic. The British Council has acquired art produced in Britain since 1938. With slim budgets but a prescient and changing team of expert advisors, it supported artists early in their careers. The result is a collection that is breathtakingly fresh, with works that have all the energy of being formative. Assembling, housing, insuring and conserving collections is an expensive business. So why not borrow one from someone else?

In this way, works of art can be brought back to life in an encounter with their public. Collections offer public displays of art – but let’s also look at them as research tools. The institution can offer resources for students to use collections as ways of learning about art histories, about the conservation of objects and the dynamics of display. The Whitechapel Gallery is borrowing public and private collections, focusing on their highlights over a period of a year. With guest curators including artists making selections to bring different perspectives into the institution, the displays have also been offered to a local university as part of a degree course for budding curators.

Excerpted from ‘A Manual for the 21st Century Art Institution’ © Whitechapel Gallery Ventures Limited, 2009, £19.95