National Museums and Museums of Modern Art in Poland - Competition for Domination in the Field of Museums

The objective of this paper is to analyse the transformations in the field of museums in Poland, and to study more closely the process of constructing a museum model that meets contemporary challenges. Two types of museums are analysed here, namely national museums and museums of modern art, to demonstrate how their respective activities affect the structure of the field in question, bringing about change. It is the assumption of this study, following Pierre Bourdieu's framework of conflict perspective, that museums situated in the field of orthodoxy and the ones in the field of heterodoxy compete within the artistic field for a symbolic domination over other participants. At the core interest of this study, there is a question to what extent chosen Polish museums and staff apply the principles of the New Museology in their daily practice.