Resumen de The visitors’ perception of authenticity at the museums: archeology versus modern art

Juan Gabriel Brida, Marta Disegna, Raffaele Scuderi

• The aim of this paper is to analyse the authenticity perception of visitors of two different types of museums: archaeology versus modern and contemporary art. The research is based on 1,288 questionnaires collected from June to September 2011 among the visitors of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology (ÖTZI) in Bolzano and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MART) in Trento. In general, the majority of the sample (86% in the ÖTZI, and 82% in the MART) considered the visited museum as an authentic attraction. In order to estimate the main variables influencing the perception of authenticity, the study employs Logistic regression models that are also used to provide a comparison between visitors of the two museums. The study is a starting point to discriminate between two types of museum visitors, archaeological versus modern and contemporary art, based on their authenticity perception. The results show that in general, both museums are perceived to be authentic. The authenticity of the ÖTZI museum is mainly related to its uniqueness in the world and importance for the description of a historical era. The MART is perceived as ‘fascinating’ and the perception of its authenticity is mainly related to temporary showrooms. The results also show that men are more attracted by archaeology than art museum and that art museum visitors are more likely to have a high level of education, to be retired or in other occupation while the ÖTZI museum seems to attract more high-income families than the MART