Monday, November 30, 2009

i participated in creating this installation

http://www.smitheliot.com/pages/ritesasylum.html

some of my favorite artists as collectors or vice versa

christian boltanski

starn twins

http://www.starnstudio.com/

Dawn's document of her collection

green feathers!

crispin's collections

i have collected for him:

vintage ties he rarely wears
clowns

he collects:

robby benson paraphernelia
newspaper clippings
old toothbrushes (???)

facespacemysterfriendbook

networking sites are ways to collect people, especially facebook. i keep ending up in long lists with other people and stuff. odd.

robin kandel artist statements

Here’s a statement I wrote ages ago for story 1 run and story 2 postola. (you might notice there’s beginning thoughts about run-dig and stack in here too.)

In 2001 I learned my father had two audiotapes from a 1983 interview. The tapes describe his childhood during the Second World War in Berezno, Ukraine. I asked him to send them to me. By hiding in the woods for nearly two years he, like others, escaped being killed by the Nazis. He was accompanied by his mother, younger brother, his grandfather and two uncles. Other members of his family, including his father, were killed either while in hiding or because they refused to leave their home and enter work camps. We didn’t talk much about my father’s childhood when I was growing up. As I got older he occasionally mentioned some detail, what the shelters in the woods looked like, for instance, or that a raw potato is edible. I believe he thought I knew the actual story, not my vague and fragmented version. I thought I did too.

When I first heard the tapes I was struck by accounts of literally running for one’s life, not once or twice but many times. What could this be like? I have no desire to recreate the experience of running in the woods, wearing makeshift shoes, while people are firing machine guns at me. But I did feel the need to enter the periphery of that world in order to begin to understand it. I went to my local woods and let my imagination assume a role while I ran with a camera in hand. I scared myself a little, but mostly I realized that I might be one of those “people who just couldn’t keep up (and) remained behind.” Of course, remaining behind meant almost certain death.

I continued thinking about the events recounted. The woods provided safety, while simultaneously harboring danger. The woods provided a chance for survival, but not everyone survived. Basic continuums of life - work, finding food and shelter, death - took on extraordinary proportions. Sisyphean tasks of digging and stacking were demanded at the work camp. Winter in the woods meant creating shelters underground to stay dry and warm, always ready to abandon and run if discovered. Food was begged for, foraged and stolen. When members of the family were killed, they were buried in the woods.

Would it be possible to visit the woods where these events took place over sixty years ago? Would there be any sense of the history that took place in those woods? I have relatives buried in those woods. I might walk where they lay without even knowing it. These and other topics surfaced in story 1, run. To further understand the events that my father recounts, it seemed necessary to transcribe what I was hearing on the tapes. In this way I could read bits and pieces slowly and repeatedly and make sense of them. During the process of transcribing I realized I was participating in a literal passing of story from one generation to the next. My father’s words went in my ears and passed out my hand in the form of text, a story.

The completion of story 1, run led to more questions. Details that my father mentioned in the tapes. Did he really remember how to wrap his foot with rags for lack of socks or shoes? When I asked him, he replied sure, though he may need a little practice. In fact he needed no practice. Clearly he had done this so many times that it was ingrained in his memory – simple as buttoning one’s own shirt. He explained how they wove shoes from strips of birch bark and drew a diagram on a scrap of paper, “The shoes were called postolas. The peasants in the area made them beautifully. We just made crude versions.” Thus story 2, postola began.

There aren’t many birch trees where I live, I thought eucalyptus bark that sheds from the tree might work as a substitute. My father was willing to give it a try. I watched as he stood in my studio and began weaving a postola. The last time he had made a postola was over sixty years ago, while on the run for his life.

Benjamin and Julius statement: (not great, but gives you some thoughts)

There are three family myths that caught my attention as a child. Maybe myth isn’t the right word because these things were based in fact, but they felt mythological, they felt as if they separated me from the ordinary kid. First, my dad had hid in a cornfield with his dad who was caught and shot dead by germans. Second, my mom had cousins in Alcatraz, members of the Purple Gang. Finally, my parents were cousins, their respective grandfathers being brothers. I accepted these myths as fully realized in their brevity.

As a child, to say, in one breath, the words relative and Alcatraz to another kid held some cache. As did having a dad who was Russian, it was the cold war after all. When, at an uncertain grade school age, a teacher explained a bit about concentration camps

I was proud to declare that my great grandfather had escaped from one. She said it was very unlikely, it rarely happened, which was confusing because we often visited my great grandfather at his apartment and I was sure he had been in a camp, evidenced by his red purple shins, clearly a result of torture, most likely his legs frozen in ice (or so I thought).

It would take a few decades before I began asking questions and sorting things out. I had waited, unintentionally, simply for lack of interest, until those who could explain things in their own words had died. So it was my mom who recalled that her dad was caught driving a get away car for the Purple Gang. My uncle, a few years older, never heard about the get away car but knows that his dad took a fall for the Purples because he visited him in jail; in exchange the Purple cousins provided for their family through the depression. Neither my mom nor uncle can describe how these Purple Gang are cousins to their father. Both agree that the cousins were nice guys who always arrived with bags of groceries. Nice guys who happened to be gun and liquor runners, extortionists, racketeers, kidnappers, murderers, and arsonists. They did experience Alcatraz.

My dad has provided me with more details of his war experience then I can recount here. His grandfather did escape a labor camp, as did his father, mother and himself along with many others. They fled to nearby woods where they lived, on the run, until nearly the end of the war. His father was killed during this time, on a day when he and his dad went to a farmhouse to beg for provisions. The farmer had alerted authorities, my dad and his father ran for their lives, my dad heard the shot that killed his own father. My great grandfathers red purple shins were the result of leaping from a slowing train, after liberation. Hot metal on skin.

There is a pleasing overlap to my father’s mythical time in Europe and my mother’s mythical family in Detroit. Dates overlap spinning in and out of each other. My mother tending her victory garden while a world away my father lay on his back watching bombs illuminate a sky; two kids, destined to meet, already related.

dad's paper

Ian Everard

Museums of Antiquities and Ethnography

Patronage, Social Progress and Cultural Sensitivities

“The seeing eye is an organ of tradition” – Sally Price.¹

The historical formation of many of the institutions we associate with the State, or “establishment”, and take for granted, such as museums, has, in fact, been haphazard. Indeed, one could speculate that, were it not for vanity and as a sense of largesse, on the part of wealthy, privileged, often aristocratic, individuals, from the late 18^thto the early 20^th century, we might not have the museums we now know. However, notwithstanding the agency of these individuals, there were greater forces at play in society at large, which exerted an influence upon them. The convergence of science, the arts, and a trend toward democratization in the Enlightenment, shifted the practice of collection from the idiosyncrasies of the Wunderkämmer, to an attempt to use exhibition space to contribute to aesthetic appreciation and scientific understanding.

It was, however, a gradual shift; Elias Ashmole gave his name to The Ashmolian Museum in Oxford, in 1683. It was the first university museum of modern times, indeed the first institution to use the term “museum”. His collection reflects his involvement in the occult, freemasonry and alchemy, as much as his interest in the emerging sciences. The formation of The British Museum (1753) and The Louvre, after the French Revolution are more in keeping with The Age of Reason. As Matthew Ramplay has observed, “In particular, a fundamental preoccupation of enlightenment thought, indeed modern culture in general, has been the search for its origins”² We collect in order to better understand ourselves.

As we view collections, initially amassed by these, often eccentric, individuals, there can be a sense that we are seeing the marvelous through their eyes. We may at the same time have misgivings about the way in which these collections, often stupendously vast, were acquired. Further, as the contents are literally displaced, we might ask, should they - can they - be replaced and what, in their current placement, do they mean in our own time?

Concurrent with the early history of museums, in the world of ideas, there was an interest in classical antiquities. Hegel and Schiller’s Lectures on Aesthetics were concerned with classical ornament, particularly in Ancient Greece. These ideas had an influence on Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Soane, Lord Elgin and others forming collections. There was also, in the geo-politics of the time, an interest in the strategic importance of the Greek territories. The Napoleonic War was raging, Greece was under the dominion of The Ottoman Empire, with whom the British were temporarily allied, and this gave opportunities, for those well placed, to purchase ancient artifacts cheaply, or simply take them, with little consequence.

Sir John Soane was an architect in London. He was a friend and associate of

Sir Joshua Reynolds, the founder of the Royal Academy. He had a great interest in classical antiquities and had the wherewithal to acquire them. He lived in a terraced town house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. He had such a voracious appetite for classical antiquities, especially sculpture, that, as his collection grew, he was forced to take out several floors of his house to accommodate them. Subsequently, in need of yet more space, he purchased both the adjoining properties and moved his family residence elsewhere. He taught at the Royal Academy and, from 1806 onwards, he made his collection available for study to his students. This, however, was neither broad enough access, nor recognition, and he campaigned to have the collection made into a museum bearing his name. In 1837, he achieved his wish, by Act of Parliament.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the Sir John Soane Museum is to be found, is an enclave within the City. It is a quiet, village like area of older buildings, housing mostly lawyer’s offices. It offers a peaceful respite from the city. The effect, upon entry to the museum, is extraordinary; a seemingly typical London town house on the outside – one looks up to see balcony after balcony, floor after floor, laden with classical sculpture. It is everywhere. The Museum is, no doubt, of interest to classical scholars to this day for what it contains. However, for many, the first reaction is a certain awe, followed by a sense of disquiet and, perhaps, vertigo. I found myself thinking of Piranesi’s re-worked etchings of Roman buildings. An extreme interest in classical order is, of course, evident, although it seems indicative, ultimately, of a disorder bordering on the obsessive and, to the contemporary eye, no less interesting for all that.

A fellow classicist of Sir John Soane was Thomas Bruce, better known as Lord Elgin.

A descendant of Robert the Bruce (the King of Scotland, portrayed in the movie Braveheart), Lord Elgin was an aristocrat, scholar and diplomat. He too had an avid interest in classical antiquities. Appointed as ambassador to Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey, in 1799, he saw an opportunity to bring cast-makers, artists and architects to study the ruins of the classical world. He hoped he could use his position to bring a greater understanding of classical civilization to the British people. He was issued a decree, or “firman”3, from Constantinople, allowing him access to The Parthenon in Athens. Initially his plans were to make record of the antiquities -“To measure each temple, make elevations and views with the utmost accuracy, mould every block of marble, statue, ornament and inscription”. 4 However, as it became clear how much had already been taken by the French, and with a second “firman”5 allowing him to remove some statuary, Lord Elgin set about the wholesale displacement of the marbles which would bring about his ruin and have born his name ever since.

Reading correspondence by him, his wife and contemporaries from the time, one has a sense of excitement, even giddiness, at the coup they were pulling off and the fame which they felt sure would ensue .6

From the outset, Lord Elgin’s marbles were controversial in Britain. Many people associated the acquisition with plunder and desecration; most notably the poet Lord Byron .7 Typical of Elgin’s defense is the remark “The Greeks of today do not deserve such wonderful works of antiquity. Moreover, they consider them worthless. Indeed, it is my divine calling to preserve these treasures unto the ages”. Elgin spent ten years lobbying to sell the collection to the nation and then sold them for about half his asking price. They are now housed in the British Museum. The Greek government has been trying to negotiate their return for over 100 years. They have almost become a symbol to the world of the displacement of treasures. The British Government has consistently refused to return them or even to “loan” them back to Greece for the 2004 Olympics but, as an indication of their sensitivity, has re-named them “The Parthenon Marbles”. Neal McGregor, the director of the British Museum offered his opinion that “The British Museum is the best place for the Parthenon sculptures in its collections to be on display" (sic). Construction of the New Acropolis Museum, designed by Bernard Tschumi, is underway. It is scheduled to open in 2006 and will exhibit the remaining sculptures held by the Greeks, with absent spaces for Elgin’s “Parthenon Marbles”. The current Lord Elgin has said that he dare not visit Greece under his real name and is “sorry his great-great grandfather (had) ever (seen) the bloody stones”. 8

In Britain, as the 19^th century progressed, with Napoleon defeated and dominion over much of the world acknowledged as The British Empire, the emphasis in the world of ideas shifted from an interest in classical origins, to the origins, in Darwin’s phrase, of species. There was, therefore, a search for the “primitive”. The types of collections formed by mid century reflect this change. One voracious collector was Augustus Henry Lane Fox, better known as General Pitt Rivers. Although another aristocrat, he was a second son of a second son and was, thus, obliged to take a military career. Given the assignment of testing a new rifle, he became fascinated with firearms and began collecting them. By all accounts, his appetite for the acquisition of rifles began to rule his life. However, it is the influence of Darwin which makes his collection so unique. Pitt Rivers came to believe that objects could be classified like biological species and grouping them together by type, regardless of origin, would help illuminate the evolution of ideas; one would observe “progress” over time in the form of a spoon, for instance. He coined the term “typology” to describe this form of classification. To demonstrate his theories, he had to obtain vast quantities of objects from as many different cultures as possible. As a British General, in time of Empire, he was very well placed to do so. Many of his colleagues were stationed in far-flung parts of the world and he counted Darwin, the Huxleys, Sir Richard Burton and other luminaries as his friends. In their travels, if they found something they thought would be of interest to the General, they would send it to him for inclusion in his collection. Eventually, he had accumulated so much that he felt the need to donate it to the nation. The nation, however, in the form of the British Museum, did not want it and he had to settle for Oxford University. The conditions were that a chair be endowed at Oxford University to teach the new science of anthropology, which he had helped devise, and that, of course, the museum should be named after him.

The Pitt Rivers Museum is in Oxford. To get to it, one passes through the well-lit halls of The Natural History Museum's with its dinosaur and mastodon skeletons and a stuffed mammoth (missing its tail). One might easily overlook the General’s museum, for the entrance is dark. Inside, and adjusted to the dim light, one finds oneself in a cavernous building, three stories high, much like a railway station, full to bursting with glass cases, laden with artifacts. The General’s contribution consisted of 18,000 objects but, over time, the collection has swelled to over half a million. The classification is, as I have described, eccentric, but so is the presentation, for the objects are shown just as they arrived, with hand-written labels, often by famous explorers (Stanley, Livingston, Burton, even Lawrence of Arabia). It is like stepping back in time. As with the Soane Museum, there is a sense of awe and fascination. Then, again, disquiet. Indeed there are spoons but also sacred items, totem poles, skull racks and shrunken heads.

The Museum’s publications reflect this sense of disquiet; “sensitivity to what is collected and, indeed publicly displayed, has changed considerably since the 1880s”. They describe outreach to the peoples from whom much of this collection was taken, such as Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, Maoris, the peoples of New Guinea etc. “Nowadays, for instance, at the request of Maori visitors, the Maori tattooed heads have been taken off display and other skeletal material, not properly held by this museum, has been returned via the Australian high Commission to the Aboriginal groups from whence it came.”9

By the early 20^th century, things were changing. The forces, which gave rise to the phenomenon of the unrestrained aristocratic collector, were no longer in play. The British Empire was in decline. The dominion, which had enabled these individuals to acquire their enormous collections at little cost from much of the globe, had ended. The concentration of power and wealth shifted across the Atlantic. The Industrial Revolution, although it began in Britain, propelled economic expansion in the United States and gave rise to the wealthy industrialist collectors. Many of these, such as Carnegie, Whitney and Freer, eventually had museums bearing their names. While Lord Elgin may have believed he had a “divine calling” to remove objects to London, the industrialist collector used the power of purchase. (It is interesting to consider what the good Lord would have made of the purchase and removal of London Bridge to Texas…). By and large, the collectors of The Gilded Age in the U.S. were interested in acquiring antiquities and art of European heritage. Toward the middle of the century, however, the forms of wealth and the strategic interests of The United States changed considerably. America was looking outward. It became possible for those of more modest resources than Carnegie to form collections.

Avery Brundage was one such collector. Brundage was from an upper middle class background in Chicago. He was successful in business and sports. In 1936, as president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, he visited Europe and, in London, saw an exhibit of Chinese art.10 He resolved then to become a serious collector of Asian art. He studied avidly for six years before he began purchasing in earnest. Keenly aware of world events, according to Clarence Shangraw, he took advantage of upheavals in China to add to his collection.11 Also, as Shangraw indicates, he took advantage of the Alien Property Confiscation Act of 1943, which forced Japanese nationals to sell their holdings. Indeed, it seems that some of the most important pieces in his collection come from this period. By all accounts he was careful in his acquisitions, in terms of cost and scholarship, but the embargo on Chinese goods from the 50’s to the 70’s, meant that he also had to be careful in terms of provenance. It should be stressed that there has never been any question that his collection was legally acquired. He collected voraciously, however, and by the time he died he had accumulated many, many thousands of objects. Over 10,000 of these he donated to the City of San Francisco. They still form a large percentage of The Asian Art Museum.

Many others, of course, contributed to the Asian Art Museum collections. Some, like Brundage, were able take advantage of the opportunities for low prices presented by conflict. Harry Packard, for instance, acquired significant works while stationed in Tokyo as part of the U.S. Occupation Forces.12

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, where the Avery Brundage Collection now resides, makes an interesting comparison to the Pitt Rivers and Soane Museums. One might note that it is not called The Avery Brundage Museum, although his name and reputation are very much secured for posterity by his gift.13 Housed, one has to assume, for convenience in a Beaux Arts building, formerly a library, in the Civic Center area, the artifacts are presented by region, so that one, as it were, travels through the Asian regions in time and space. Although aesthetic considerations are taken into account, they do not predominate, as at the Soane; nor are the artifacts classified by type, irrespective of culture, as at the Pitt Rivers. There is, as far as I can tell from the mission statement of the museum, no attempt to present Mr. Brundage’s collection intact, as he would have shown it. Rather, there is a commendable goal of making the achievements of Asian art and culture available to “a diverse global audience.” It is emphasized that it is a “public institution”. 14 Thus, it is answerable to the vox populi, and must be sensitive to changing mores. It seems that, as the collection is so weighted to the collection of one individual, The Asian Art Museum is fortunate that, as Clarence Shangrow puts it, “Mr.Brundage had been a methodical, timely and wise collector”. Most of his collection is from China, ‘though he only went there once. For his purchases, he relied on agents and international vendors. Nowadays, the museum relies on numerous experts and scholars to explain the collection, a large percentage of which was bought by him. Ultimately, he was one person with a good eye.

Over time, the pre-eminence of the singular individual in the formation of ethnographic collections has diminished. People such as Avery Brundage had an historical opportunity. There are still collectors and they are still donating their acquisitions and gaining, thereby, recognition of their names. However, the market for both antiquities and, as Shelley Errington notes, ethnographic artifacts has diminished and become somewhat more regulated.15 Moreover, there is much evidence in the written statements from museums, of their need to indicate an awareness of changing sensibilities. In the present time many museums use language which is indicative of a high purpose and lofty ideals. “The New de Young Museum aspires to provide a cultural common ground – a fertile gathering place for art, people and ideas with roots in history, flourishing in the present, thus sustaining the resonance and relevance of the collections.”16

I began this paper with the hope, despite my true feelings of ambivalence about these museums, that, in the present era, the rampant plunder which so characterized their beginnings, was something of the past, that progress was being made. Nobody, one hopes, could conduct himself or herself in the manner of Lord Elgin. However, recent events shed light on some current dubious practices, the continued existence of plunder and the probable need for more oversight.

Ironically, at the time of writing, one of the people who is often cited as a voice for responsibility and reform in museum practice, Marion True, is on trial for purchasing looted Roman and Etruscan artifacts.17 She is the former antiquities curator at the Getty Museum. In 1995, she devised a policy for buying only well-documented pieces, “now we would only consider buying from an established collection that is known to the world, so that we do not have the issue of undocumented provenance”. 18 The Getty had often been associated with illegal deals; it had received looted sculptures from the improbably named Giacomo Medici, for instance, so she set about reform.19 However, she is now accused of acquiring 42 objects illegally, on behalf of the Getty, as well as other acts of corruption. It is generally held that this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As Maxwell Anderson recently remarked, “what was adventurous in the 1980s is now criminal”. 20

He sites the case of Fred Schultz, who was convicted of smuggling and conspiracy charges in relation to Egyptian artifacts in 2002. Among other things, Schultz was apparently “doctoring” provenances. The conviction signifies a major change in U.S. law for, in a sign of globalization, the prosecution was based on a foreign statute. This precedent makes it all the more imperative for the museums to reform. However, it presents the obvious question of how far back one should go in pursuit of the loot. In 2000, Christopher Chippendale 21 and David Gill surveyed seven museum collections in the U.S., for the American Journal of Archaeology, and found that 75% of 1,396 antiquities were of unknown origin. There will probably be a bizarre international form of the statute of limitations, which will take into account recently unearthed objects, Nazi plunder etc. but fall short of requiring the British Museum to return its Marbles to the Parthenon.22

Angela Schuster observes that the trade in illegal antiquities is third in rank behind drug and arms smuggling.23 As in the history I have described, the upheavals of the present military conflict provide ample opportunities for those who would wish to purchase and those who would wish to profit.

As chronicled in the book “The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad”, a staggering number of objects have been taken from all the museums in Iraq as they were left unprotected by the U.S. invasion forces.24 However, this is nothing compared to the continuing industrial scale excavations taking place illegally in Southern Iraq. “We made several visits to Umma…flying by helicopter over the scene reveals an unimaginably grim reality, a scene of complete destruction that unfolds before you as a sea of holes in the desert…a pockmarked landscape with craters up to 5 meters deep. A landscape as desolate as the surface of the moon during the day, springs to life after sunset with generators, light bulbs trucks and shovels, as hundreds of looters dig ‘til dawn”. 25 For the people of the catastrophically impoverished South, the trade provides much needed income; they even refer to it as “farming”. 26 They can hardly be blamed for seizing an opportunity to put food on the table. As Brecht said, “food is the first thing…”. As in the drug trade, there are “kingpins” and they do not magnanimously share the profits with the “farmers”, nor do they have cultural stewardship in mind; Patty Gerstonblith observes, “Of the two to three hundred thousand objects removed from Southern Iraq, only the saleable items are saved”. 27

A loophole in current UNESCO legal guidelines places the burden on the country where plunder has occurred to report the theft, with an accurate description of each artifact – a task described by Angela Schuster as “impossible”, in the case of Iraq.28 There is urgent need for reform. As in the confluence of the world of ideas with the forms of collection and display in the past, perhaps societies will look to those who are giving thought to the workings of culture in the present time. One might detect the influence of the ideas of Susan Stewart and James Clifford, for instance, in Patty Gerstonblith’s advocacy that exhibitions of antiquities attempt to provide a correlation of context. 29 She says that association is only possible when objects are “in site together”. She argues that antiquities should be loaned for extended periods and that only “multiples” be made available. Although, like Clifford, she is concerned with issues of displacement, she is focused on reform, both domestically and internationally, describing the current UNESCO convention as haphazard and contradictory. In her advisory capacity, one hopes that she will be heard.

Museums are under much scrutiny. They are clearly problematic institutions. However, compared to the era of Soane and Pitt Rivers, not to mention Lord Elgin, there has clearly been an improvement. It is encouraging that some of the loot is being returned, although it’s interesting to note that items are being returned to the Maoris, for instance, but not the Greeks. It is fair to generalize that 50 years ago, the presentation of objects from “other” cultures and histories was less sensitive; 100 years ago, even less. One does wonder what an Occidental Art Museum in, say, Beijing, would be like and how an American visitor would feel seeing artifacts from their culture – a Shaker chair, a Remington or Rockwell painting, The Gettysburg Address, the head from The Lincoln Memorial – in that setting.

However, for all that, I confess, I’m glad that I, and others, can visit these places.

The Soane and Pitt Rivers Museums, because they have largely been kept intact, as their founders conceived them, offer us a chance to see with our own eyes into another era. Furthermore, I believe the “pure” aesthetic reaction to these places should not be denied. To imagine that we could not go to see a permanent collection of Asian art in San Francisco is to feel a sense of loss. I want it to be there. I think I would say the same of Sir John Soane’s museum and General Pitt Rivers’. At any rate, I’m glad I’ve seen them. I’m not so sure about Lord Elgin and his marbles, though. The sense of loss is rightfully with The Greeks.

ENDNOTES

1. Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places (University of Chicago Press, 1989), p.22.

Matthew Ramplay, Site Specificity: The Ethnographic Turn. Ed. Alex Coles, p.140 - Anthropology and the Ruins of Art History.
Theodore Vrettos, The Elgin Affair (Arcade Publishing,1997), p.47.
Vrettos, p.56.
Vrettos, p.50.
Vrettos, pp.64, 65, 66.
Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

“Dull is the eye that will not weep to see

Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed

By British hands, which it had best behoved

To guard those relics ne’er to be restored”

Vrettos, p.212
Julia Cousins, The Pitt Rivers Museum – A Souvenir Guide to the Collections

(Pitt Rivers Museum, 1993), p.28.

Clarence F. Shangraw, The Asian Art Museum

(Orientations Magazine Ltd. / Asian Art Museum, n.d.), p.4.

Shangraw, p.5.
Yoko Woodson, The Asian Art Museum

(Orientations Magazine Ltd. / Asian Art Museum, n.d.), p.124.

Wikipedia, “Avery Brundage”, <www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/avery-brundage.> (11.28.05)
Tim Hallman, “Fact Sheet: General Information Asian Art Museum at Civic Center”, 2005.
Shelley Errington, The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress

(University of California Press, 1998), p.268.

Statement in situ at de Young Museum, 2005.
James Poniewozik, “Case of the Looted Relics” Time, October, 17,2005, p.80.
Mark Rose, “The Getty’s mea culpa” The Courier – Unesco, April 2001,

<www.unesco.org/courier2001-04/uk/doss25.htm> (11.28.05)

Andrew L Slayman, “Geneva Siezure”, Archeology, Sept. 14, 1998, <www.archeology.org/online/features/geneva/> (11.28.05).

20. “American Museums under Fire over Antiquities” To The Point, Nov.23, 2005,

<www.moretothepoint.com> (11.23.05).

21. His real name! I just have to note – Chippendale, True, Giacomo de Medici…!

In my opinion, the obstinacy of the British Museum in this matter can only be explained by a fear of the precedent a return of the marbles would present.

Milbry Polk & Angela M.H. Schuster, The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad,

(Harry Abrams, 2005), p.

Polk & Schuster, p.

Polk & Schuster, p.

Polk & Schuster, p

“American Museums under Fire over Antiquities” To The Point, Nov.23,2005,

<www.moretothepoint.com> (11.23.05)

Polk & Schuster, p

Patty Gerstonblith is Professor of law at De Paul University and a member of the President's Cultural Property Advisory Committee.

rubaiyat

The nature of a translation very much depends on what interpretation one places on Khayyam's philosophy. The fact that the rubaiyat are a collection of quatrains - and may be selected and rearranged subjectively to support one interpretation or another - has led to widely differing versions. Nicolas took the view that Khayyam himself clearly was a Sufi. Others have seen signs of mysticism, even atheism, or conversely devout and orthodox Islam. FitzGerald gave the Rubaiyat a distinct fatalistic spin, although it has been claimed that he softened the impact of Khayyam's nihilism and his preoccupation with the mortality and transience of all things. Even such a question as to whether Khayyam was pro- or anti-alcohol gives rise to more discussion than might at first glance have seemed plausible.

- Show quoted text -

a note from a conversation

oh man, that class sounds dangerous to me. i've always been a total collector. you should read the books i have about harry smith. i have one of interviews that's really amazing where he talks about different things that he collected over his lifetime. it's really fascinating. of course his most important collection was his 78's which gave birth to the anthology of american folk music! the book is called "think of the self speaking" if you can find it at the library. don't know if it's in print anymore.

early semester not to self

1st class of the semester - The Paradigm of Collecting - so the first half of the day was introductions....but then we took a field trip to the Roger Brown Study Collection, which was donated to the school by Brown, who was a former student. My professor is AMAZING! Jerry Bleem. He's this really excitable, socially awkward nerd, with tape on his glasses and loafers! He gets really into specifics.

Its a studio and theory course - so part of the day is lectures, discussions and presentations, and part is work time. Anthropological perspectives of collecting (amassing, hoarding.....) material objects, thoughts, etc. as well as theories on the practice of "legitimate" collecting, (methodologies of organization) and how these perspectives and practices can be applied to our studio practice - with tons of field trips to flea markets and artist collections and hoarders homes etc! sooooo excited!!!!!!

roger brown

http://accidentalmysteries.blogspot.com/2009/05/roger-brown-study-collection.html

presentation

For my presentation on an aspect of collecting, I am focusing on he idea of “Collection as Documentation.” I am in the process of researching artists who collect and organize personal narratives. I am interested in developing a deeper understanding of the techniques of organizing and displaying photographic, filmed, text and audio narrated documentation.

The artists who I am focusing on are new media artist Jonathan Harris, Bay Area artist Robin Kandel, and David Lynch’s new Interview Project. Harris considers himself a “collector of stories”. He uses new media (websites and programs) to organize fragments of personal narratives. David Lynch’s Interview Project is a series of short impromptu interviews of randomly selected people in small towns across the U.S. “A roadtrip where people have been found, and interviewed.” Reconstructing Memories, Robin Kandel uses the personal narratives of her parents to create video installations, using reenactment and abstracted video.

Rachel's collection

Hi Pippa!

Here are a few of the photos that I took of my collection -- I figured I would let you choose which one you liked best.

An empty vase that once held birthday flowers was the main impetus for the start of this collection. I wanted a new use for the vessel after the flowers had died, and this desire nicely coincided with my already frequent trips to the beach. So, two springs ago I decided that each time I visited the nearby lake, I would choose a few especially appealing rocks to bring back with me and place inside the clear glass for display. I would often return with entire pockets full of stones and beachglass because it was difficult for me to narrow down my choices -- every rock was so beautiful and unique, how could I not want them all? I would scour the sand slowly, paying close attention to how each rock felt in my hand or changed color in water or sunlight. As time went on and seasons changed, I found myself adding to the collection with leaves, bark, and dismembered flowers that would catch my eye on walks home from work, school, or wherever.

The vase occupies the center of my mosaic coffee table. Its composition continuously changes as I add new elements and as the old ones shift positions or, in the case of the dying flowers and leaves, colors and smells. The contents have become a kind of souvenir of the precise moments in time when they first grabbed my attention. I also enjoy having these small remnants of nature in my home since I often feel like there is not enough nature in the city of Chicago to satisfy me or that I don't have the time to take advantage of it.

I've gotten into the habit of collecting rocks or pieces of plants from various parks and beaches whenever I go on a vacation or a trip, although I don't mix these in with the vase in the photos. I haven't yet figured out a way that I want to display those, but I like to keep them separate from the others so that I can remember their original environment more easily when I look at them.

Please let me know if you need any more details about this. I hope this was helpful! Good luck with your project, and let me know how it turns out!

-Rachel

thought

i wish there was a cache of all amazing documentation like that. - i mean aside from youtube, one that is organized.

i find writing in journals difficult

i always have. i think things in other ways, or collect things and i deas to think. i dont know.

collections around my home

Sunday, November 29, 2009

notes on oriental institute

middle east f1919
"PARTAGE SYSTEM"
coined term "fertile Crescent"

relief: parthenon / state capital building of nebraska

spec exhibits gallery>
excavation vs. purchase
egypt / ancient nubia (1960s)

collecting "A GOOD DEAL"

lawsuit - rightfully (rightful ownership - v.v.interesting legal battle w/ instit. in middle)

ernst hertzfeldt

eclectic collection of ivories (MEGGIDO)

OSSUARY (boz for bones)

objects with value /

normal museum / collectors as financial suppoerters - here researchers

mesapotamea

6-sided clay prism / cunaiform writing

sennacherib prism

meant for gods not people
**

yelda khorsabad court

open mouth rituals

looting of baghdad museum

object ownership

weird notes of equation of the costs and benefits of object ownership:

the value of an object one collects ( )in terms of it's cultural / financial value as well as its emotional value as well as its lifelong cost to one in terms of space (we pay for space it takes up - on our shelf, for instance), and duration of time we have it (spend taking care of it, spend working to afford to acquire it, and to store it in space over the amount of benefit to the body, or cost to the body equals its value.