snippets + new ideas

I spent some time reading from the Curitorial Research Center library today at UMMA. I picked up Stephen E. Well's A Cabinet of Curiosities: Inquires into Museums and their Prospects, as well as a book on each Joseph Cornell and Betye Saar.

A Cabinet of Curiosities had some great discussions of what a collection actually means - I loved the story of "The Renowned Kelly Sock Collection," where a young boy decided that his sock drawer can in fact be a collection as long as he establishes it as such. Here are some additional snippets from that chapter:

-"what actually made a diverse group of things into a collection...was not any thing-in-itselfness but a specific outside viewpoint"

-the idea that a collection is simply "temporary togetherness" of objects (it is fluid and may change over time)

-things in a "transient conjunction"

-collection as a relationship between objects rather than a thing in itself

While the book on Betye Saar gave some great imagery, I feel I gained more from taking a look at the book on Joseph Cornell. There were many works in the book that I hadn't seen before. Here are some more snippets:

-"chests, cabinets, and museums fulfill man's need to preserve, classify, and display specimens, documents, mementoes, and treasures"

-looking at northern renaissance altarpieces

-creating reliquaries dedicated to historical figures or fictional characters (medici slot machines, penny arcade portrait of lauren bacall - seen above)

What does this all have to do with my IP?

I was thinking more about what excites me when it comes to the idea of collecting, and I know objects excite me, but their relationship to their collector is just as important. I also find famous collectors, and their stories, incredibly thrilling. I remember reading about Doris Duke and her amazing, yet in many ways tragic, life. Joseph Cornell's pieces which serve as sort of altarpiece-like dedications to people got me thinking - maybe I could make a collection-based altarpiece dedicated to a great collector. So, this is an avenue I'm going to begin to explore. Wish me luck!!