Based on the observation that cultural institutions are increasingly interested in developing participatory projects, we pose the following question: How and to what degree can participatory projects lead to a transformation of the organization, similar to the activation of the work of art via the gaze of the spectator? Based on three case studies, we shall demonstrate that, while audience participation in the cultural field has developed apace and has effectively transformed the relation of participants to the worlds of art, it has not, as a practice, succeeded in penetrating the frontiers of the organization beyond different ad hoc services. We explain this phenomenon in reference to the need to implement organizational change further upstream, and to the difficulty inherent in making available specific approaches to evaluating participatory projects.