Laura Rhicard, who works in our Daura department, just got back from a trip to the 2010 Art Museum libraries symposium and wrote it up for us, as follows:
Your Museum Has a Library?
This question and more were some of the issues discussed at the 2010 Art Museum Libraries Symposium, held at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, MA September 23 and 24. The symposium was organized by Sidney Berger, director of the Phillips Library at the PEM, and his planning team, who secured a grant from the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) for the event. Funding was also provided by the Kress Foundation, to which I am grateful for providing a scholarship for my attendance at the symposium.
When I arrived in Salem on Wednesday, everyone was pleased to see that the warm weather had followed me from Georgia, and I was somewhat surprised to observe that Halloween prep was already in full swing in the small New England town dedicated to all things “witchy.” Apparently Halloween is very publicly celebrated throughout the month of October in Salem, and revelers flock from far and wide to participate. It’s like Mardi Gras, just with more fake blood and Victorian frock coats.
The PEM, however, was projecting more of an Imperial China theme, with its current special exhibition of “The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City.” On view to the public for the first time, the exhibition showcases items from the Qianlong Garden, a long-forgotten 18th-century compound hidden within the Forbidden City. You can learn more about it in this video. Another highlight, the Yin Yu Tang House, dismantled and transported from southeastern China and reconstructed piece-by-piece at the PEM, adds to the museum’s extensive collection of Asian art and provides the opportunity to study the artistic and cultural heritage of rural China. I very much enjoyed touring the house, which was built during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and is the ancestral home of the Huang family. You can explore the house yourself on the PEM’s award-winning, interactive micro-site.
But I digress! The symposium, which was held in the PEM’s auditorium, consisted of two keynote addresses and six sessions presented by 15 insightful and entertaining speakers from the art museum and museum library/archives fields. The main reoccurring theme across the sessions seemed to be “collaboration,” as in, how can art museum libraries better work together with their parent institutions to support the institutional mission? Other important points I came away with were:
• Today’s art libraries (and museums) must be flexible in serving audiences the way they want to be served, not the way we think they want to be served. • Art museum libraries must strive to find the right balance between serving internal and external museum audiences. • By making our collection info more accessible and searchable, we can inspire greater use of our holdings by a larger audience. • Contributions to museum exhibitions by the library and archives both broadens the audience and provides a powerful vehicle for developing closer relationships with other parts of the institution.
Two presentations I found particularly interesting were given by Michelle Elligott, museum archivist at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), and James Forrest, web creative director for the PEM. Elligott recounted the history of MoMA’s institutional archives and provided several examples of how these archives have been very successfully integrated into exhibitions, promotions and even retail opportunities at the museum. Forrest, speaking during a session on “Data Unity in the Institution,” stressed the importance of always keeping the end user in mind and of a positive user experience as both the library and institution’s main goal. As you can see from the links I’ve provided earlier, the PEM utilizes high-quality photos, video and what Forrest referred to as “focused data sets” on its website to deliver “curated” experiences to the user.
How they are reaching out in this way ties in well with what PEM deputy director Joshua Basseches brought up in the Future Trends wrap-up session of the symposium: with the level of information accessibility today and the way in which many people are acting as their own curators (think about all the personalized iTunes libraries and playlists), museums will need to meet this demand for customization by patrons wishing to self-curate their museum experience. And this is where libraries and archives can step in to organize and provide the necessary content! The patron still may not know the museum has a library, but at least now the library is serving the museum’s mission in perhaps a more active way.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Art Museum Libraries Symposium, and I look forward to helping implement some of the ideas presented at the GMOA library when the building project is complete. As for Salem, I think a second trip is in order, seeing as I did not have time to visit the Witch Museum! (Or the New England Pirate Museum, or Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, or Dracula’s Castle Haunted House, or my personal favorite, The 40 Whacks Museum: Lizzy Borden’s Story….)
As promised last week, here is part two of “Notes from the Midwest:”
My last installment ended with Bill, Beau, and me in Milwaukee, having had an inspiring day at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM). We drove back to Chicago that evening just in time to pick up the indomitable Dr. Perri Lee Roberts from O’Hare. Perri Lee (most people call her “Perri,” but we like to be Southern about it) is Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at University of Miami, and authored our most recent publication, and one of our grandest efforts to date: the three-volume Corpus of Early Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections: The South. Never one to rest on her laurels, Perri Lee is now embarking on an exhibition for us. To quote from the prospectus: A prominent scholar, teach, curator, administrator, and collector, Ulrich Alexander Middeldorf (1901-1983) is a well-known figure in Renaissance art historical studies. Prompted by his belief that the so-called minor, decorative arts were essential to an understanding of the history of the material world, he assembled a unique collection of Italian medals, plaquettes, textiles, and wrapping paper.
Middeldorf was also a key researcher of the Kress Collection, part of which is now housed at GMOA. Middeldorf’s own collection of medals, plaquettes, and textiles resides at the Indiana University Art Museum. We were originally scheduled to meet up with Perri Lee in Bloomington to look at those objects, but fate was kind and gave us a couple extra days with her beforehand. More on the Middeldorf exhibition research and planning momentarily.
We started the next day with a trip to the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. Although their space is limited—have I mentioned lately how lucky we are to be getting such a great building in only a few more months?—their collection is superb. I was especially interested in the way they organize their galleries thematically, rather than by period or region. This is a strategy I intend to use on a more limited scale in our Holder Gallery, in which we’ll display our European art from the 18th-20th centuries. I find that this approach encourages meaningful comparisons while allowing one to show a broad range of artistic styles in a relatively small space.
After our visit to the Smart, the three of us hit the road for Champaign/Urbana to visit Beau’s folks and their outstanding collection of American Post-War art. On the way, we made a stop at Governors State University in Middle-of-Nowhere, Illinois (Monee, IL, technically, but I never saw a town). In part one of this post, I said that we visited “one of the best, but least-known, outdoor contemporary sculpture collections in the country.” That may have been bordering on hyperbole, but for its renown—or lack thereof—it really is the best sculpture park I’ve seen. Twenty-six monumental public sculptures reside on a rugged 750 acres tract, where the only groundskeeping is a mown trail through the underbrush. It takes some hiking, but the interaction with the works this offers makes it well worth the sweat and bug-bites. Highlights for me included their sculptures by Mark di Suvero, For Lady Day, 1969 (54’ x 50’ x 35’), and Martin Puryear, Bodark Arc, 1982 (2.25 acres—I love the dimensions in acreage), as well as a temporary installation by Icelandic artist, Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir, Horizons, 2007-08, pictures of which are included in the slideshow above.
Continuing on the drive to Champaign, we brainstormed about possible titles for the Middeldorf exhibition. After some failed attempts at alliteration on my part and Perri Lee’s, Bill came up with the winner: “Materials of Culture.” Of course, this will be followed by the typical colon and more descriptive subtitle.
We made it to Champaign in time to see some of Randy and Shelia Ott’s collection and to freshen up before dinner. Meeting Beau’s parents, it was easy to see where he got both his unfailing charm and his impeccable taste. We had a thoroughly delightful evening at the Ott’s home, filled with conversations ranging from art (of course), to Portuguese Fado music (Bill and Randy are both fans), to cattle breeding (both Randy and my dad were large animal veterinarians), not to mention a meal that was as beautiful as it was delicious. They had us over for breakfast the next morning, and then we hit the road again, this time for Bloomington.
When we arrived in Bloomington, work on our project was already well underway. Christa Thurman, formerly Chair of Textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago, is helping us evaluate Middeldorf’s fabric samples to determine which we will use for the exhibition, and she and Nan Brewer, IU Art Museum’s curator of works on paper, had already examined most of the hundreds of textiles in their collection. After some more looking and talking, we narrowed our selection further, choosing pieces made in Italy during the Renaissance that offer a range of styles and techniques. I’m really excited about the “wall power” these will bring to the show; they’re gorgeous.
That evening, Heidi Gealt, director of the IU Art Museum, took us out to dinner, where we were joined by her husband, Barry Gealt, and Bill Itter, both accomplished artists and studio professors at IU. Bill Itter actually has a show up at the Lamar Dodd School of Art’s Gallery 307 right now, which I highly recommend. I’m a big fan of both Barry’s and Bill’s work, and had a wonderful time hearing about their pedagogical approaches at IU as well as their student days at Yale (both were in the MFA program there at the same time as artists like Chuck Close, Richard Serra, Nancy Graves, etc.). To top off the evening, we were treated to a double rainbow as we left the restaurant.
The next morning, Bill Eiland went to see Bill Itter’s collection of African pottery while Perri Lee and I returned to the IU Art Museum to look at Middledorf’s medals and plaquettes. Here again, we were choosing objects created during the Italian Renaissance. These will be a perfect complement to the textiles, I think. Although they’re not particularly exciting from a distance, for me, they sustain close study much longer, and offer a range of fascinating subjects, from portraits to mythological narratives.
Our last stop on the trip was Dayton, OH. We reluctantly dropped Perri Lee off at the airport and checked in at our hotel. After a couple hours catching up on emails, we went to Carol and Jim Nathanson’s home for hors d'oeuvres, giving me a chance to see their collection, which is especially strong in works on paper. Carol is a recently retired professor of art history at Wright State University, and is writing our forthcoming collection-catalogue of works on paper, Tracing Vision. Jan Driesbach, director of the Dayton Art Institute (DAI), joined us at the Nathanson’s, and we all went to a German restaurant for dinner, where we “closed the place down.”
The next morning, Bill was up at the crack of dawn for a 7:30 meeting with the Dayton Art Institute’s board of trustees. I met up with Jan and Bill a little later and we went to the DAI to speak with their staff. Since this post is getting pretty long and my time is running short, I’ll restrain myself from waxing too poetically about their galleries and collection, but suffice it to say I was deeply impressed with both. I do have to note that theirs is the only Carl Andre sculpture whose label acknowledges that one may walk on the work (I usually have to confirm with the security guards that to do so is OK). Before closing, I also have to give a shout-out to Will South, DAI chief curator, who joined us for lunch and whom I very much enjoyed meeting. By one o’clock we were back in the car, on the long road back to Athens, GA.
