A book (again) by Karen Archey
Some works I found , and their associations, highlighted below.
‘Art museums are often the products of decades- or centuries-old histories. They’re born from outdated ideologies, comprise collections of sometimes looted or ill-begotten goods, and reflect patriarchal and Eurocentric collecting practices’
‘These disparities extend beyond the artists (the case of representation & diversity) in the collection : if you were to consider the staff makeup of museums…art institutions may seek to answer such demands by altering their exhibition content rather than reevaluating their ways of working’
‘To make material, rather than just representational (or tokenistic), change’
Gallery-goers’ Birthplace and Residence Profile , Part 1 (1969) Hans Haacke
‘Haacke thus laid bare how access to arts and culture is often limited by socioeconomic factors, yet , within the discourse in the field of art, access to it is erroneously seen as public and open’
‘art’s constituents must recognize that “we” make up the institution… it’s not a question of being again the institution: We are the institution. It’s a question of what kind of institution we are’
My life as a dog (1992) Fred Wilson
‘posing as a guard made Wilson invisible to the docents. This piece highlights that the public-facing staff of a museum –namely security guards and ticket desk attendants — often account for the most people of color in many museums’
The work was not photpgraphed so to make up for the lack of visual representation I added this work from Fred Wilson made a year earlier in 1991.
‘to analyze how institutions function and continue to produce public knowledge’
‘Yet who, in our contemporary world of overpriced real estate and widespread financial precarity, would relinquish an affordable studio for ethical considerations? That would be viewed as insanity’
Museum highlights: A Gallery Talk (1989) Andrea Fraser
Dressed in a formal grey skirt-suit, Fraser assumes the identity of Jane Castleton, a volunteer guide taking visitors on a route through the galleries, lobby and cafeteria. In addition to the usual comments of a tour guide on the history of the institution and its collection, Castleton shares personal thoughts about the building, the cloakroom and the toilets of the museum, as well as her passionate opinions on politics and social classes.
For Fraser, Castelton embodies the role of a figure habitually found in the North American museum context: the upper-class amateur volunteer who has ‘the leisure and economic and cultural capital that defines a museum’s patron class’. Through the figure of Castelton and the language she uses, Fraser exposes the social history of the art museum in the United States, emphasising the relationships between taste and class, private philanthropy and public policy in museum production as well as other spheres of urban culture.
https://www.macba.cat/en/obra/r5623-museum-highlights-a-gallery-talk
The work reminds me a lot of the underrated work by Ria Pacquee ‘Madame’ (1982-…)
http://riapacquee.com/#information
The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of New York (Chinatown Division) (1992) Mark Dion
Mark Dion makes elaborate sculptural installations that investigate how systems of classification, display, exploration, and preservation inform the construction of knowledge, especially where it concerns the natural world. More concerned with how knowledge about nature is ideologically driven than with nature itself, he explores the ways in which institutions help—and sometimes hinder—our understanding of the natural world and our position within it, questioning the authority of those institutions and their conventions. A precisely organized collection of office furniture, storage containers, implements for writing and measuring, maps, and books, The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of New York (Chinatown Division) was initially installed and performed in 1992 as one of three works in Dion’s exhibition at American Fine Arts, Co., in New York City. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Dion collected and documented the fish on offer at the markets in the Chinatown neighborhood adjacent to SoHo, where the gallery was situated.
This work makes me think of ‘The Embassy of the North Sea’ which i saw last year at Manifesta
The Embassy of the North Sea was founded in The Hague on the 1st of June 2018 by the Parliament of Things. The Embassy of the North Sea departs from the idea that the North Sea belongs to itself. The Embassy researches how non-humans – from phytoplankton to ship wrecks to cod fish – can become full-fledged members of our society. The Embassy of the North Sea works towards 2030, when we (humans) hope to emotionally, juridically and politically relate ourselves to the sea in a fundamentally different way.
I wasn’t able to attend their event but it seemed beautiful…
From the 11th to the 14th of July 2024, the Embassy of the North Sea is organising the Not Illegal Fishing Competition in the Llobregat River, as part of Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana.
About half of the inhabitants of Barcelona have daily contact with the Llobregat River, as they drink its waters; yet most of them do not know the river well. The city does not face the Llobregat – the river is virtually nowhere to be seen from the city and is also difficult to access. To take care of a river, it must start living in people’s imagination.
One of the problems the Llobregat is facing is the excessive presence of invasive species. That is why Sheng-Wen Lo, Leon Lapa Pereira and Harpo ‘t Hart are organising the Not Illegal Fishing Competition on behalf of the Embassy of the North Sea. The inspiration behind this comes from the popular fishing competitions in Taiwan aimed at eliminating invasive exotic species. Organising such a fishing competition in the Llobregat River evoked understandable resistance since we are encouraging people to kill animals. Providing you have a fishing license, it is not illegal, but is it the best option? This question touches upon a common conflict between, roughly speaking, ecologists who think from a system’s approach on one side, and animal rights activists with strong moral convictions on the other. What is in the best interest of the river and who are you to make choices for an ecosystem? What do you do with the invasive exotic species once you catch them?
The Not Illegal Fishing Competition invites you to get to know the Llobregat River as a living ecosystem with its own beauty, problems and conflicts.
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