The 1990s was an important scene for art museums. Such that, not only an increase in art museums’ construction numbers began, but also their publicness occurred as an issue in the discourse. From the 1960s and onwards critics including artists and curators had been criticizing art museums’ institutional and operational strategies and they had been demanding a democratized art museum institution that could foster a strong and comprehensive publicness for multiple publics in society. It is interesting that since the 1990s publicness has also demanded by art museum institutions as well. As a result of the foundation of art museums’ publicness as an issue in the discourse, today we are witnessing that discussions on art museums’ publicness are high on the agenda of the art world. This dissertation aims to understand what the publicness of art museums could tell us. By considering this aim, this research is focusing on the questions, why publicness has been an issue in the discourse on art museums since the 1990s, and how and which aspects of publicness have been discussed in relation to art museums since the 1990s in the discourse.