(For more info on Sexual Context: a Re-History and/or to see the first post visit: LINK)

Art Historical Texts:

“Mapplethorpe remained devoted to the minimal elegance of black-and-white photography, using the medium in part as an agent to explore certain paradoxes and binary relationships. In many of his works, for example, the distinction between male and female is problematized… Calla Lily takes an object used as a cipher of femininity and redeploys it as a male organ.”  LINK

“His treatment of the male and female aspects of the calla lily is most striking, one photograph emphasizing the flower’s phallic stamen, another emphasizing its feminine curves. At the size at which the flower photographs have been printed, their sensuality becomes overwhelming…forcing [the viewer] to acknowledge their primitive sexuality.” LINK

RESPONSE:

Robert Mapplethorpe was an extremely gifted photographer with a wide range of subjects.  Not choosing to limit his portfolio to still life, editorial, commercial, or portraiture, or even to Black and White or Color platforms,  Mapplethorpe often moves seamlessly through different photographic styles and subjects.

Mapplethorpe’s eye and sensual relationship to light express a strong degree of aesthetic primacy.  His Calla Lily series embodies this aesthetic sensibility– formal compositions, stark contrast, and the lush detail afforded by the large format film, make these flowers larger than life and luxurious.  It is understandable that such richness could be romanticized, especially within the context of Mapplethorpe’s catalog.

Here are some rules of thumb:

Press releases:  Need to be received by a press contact a MINIMUM of 6 weeks before the opening of an exhibit, or the beginning of an event.  One-off events or programs need even more lead time, if you actually want any sort of feature.  Institutions that advertise with these press outlets often have some latitude, and so do pre-existing relationships with those press contacts, however neither should be exploited on a regular basis.

Research: All research should be done a minimum of 2 months prior to sending the press release, giving you 2 weeks to process the info into Press Releases and other Promotional and Printed Materials.

Editors and Non-Content Providing contributors: Add another 2-4 weeks depending on contractual obligation.

Social Media and Other Web Outreach: Should be updated 4 weeks prior, and should be maintained and reposted a minimum of once a week in the weeks prior, and ideally posted/cross-posted by multiple users.  Its very hard to orchestrate such incentives, or promotional strategies without sufficient lead time.  The more it gets posted, the more it gets re-posted, the more it gets re-posted, the more serendipity to reach new constituents.  THIS IS COUNTER-INTUITIVE to all other PR strategies, and in fact is usually the thing that is THE MOST DIFFICULT for by-the-book experienced events marketers.  Get over it.

Twitter: should have at least one update every 3 days, there are statistics on which time of day, and the frequency depending on the market.  This isn’t expressly necessary, however consider this: Is your audience primarily professional? Then assume in a rapidly updating stream of information like twitter that your audience won’t see something posted between 9am and 11:30 am and 1pm-5pm in your time zone.   Also, the frequency of posts has a strong effect on the position that those posts and your posts in general appear in searches, which increases your followers, which in turn increases the position of your search results, and so and and so forth. Also, the frequency of posts that include links dramatically decreases your position in searches, and in fact may exclude them as they try to limit advertisements….So you need a diverse and frequent stream of posting for maximum bang for your buck.

(For more information on Sexual Context: A Re-History, and/or the first post: LINK)

Art Historical Text:

“This dilated and menacing orifice, bulging in a dark, swarming atmosphere, might be read as a vagina, an anus, or even a mouth, but what is important is that it is an image—magnified—of a basic, dynamic structure, ambiguous between the organic and the mechanical.

Bontecou’s work through the early 1960s becomes even more direct, brutal, and allusive. While the openings in the earlier pieces had a plushy ambivalent erotic lyricism, the works from the early 1960s are riddled with holes that look like they have been blasted out from inside, or they are guarded by metal bars or blocked by saw-toothed blades. “

LINK

RESPONSE:

Lee Bontecou is best known for her works created in the late 19050’s and  early  1960s, which played with artistic conventions of  use of materials– rough unpolished metals, scraps of canvas, and sharp menacing blades– and presentation by hanging these sculptural forms on the wall like a painting.

Her use of material and absence of representational imagery or textual references leads many to sensualize the materials and forms of her sculptures.  Because she is a woman, her work that incorporates welded steel with recycled  industrial detritus (commonly associated with male factory workers and industries) is often characterized as “brutal”, regardless they beautifully reference both the mechanical and organic,  using a language of the abstract.

Wrong.  I have seen several workplaces that assume there will be a blind follow-the-leader dynamic or that people “should just know the right way, its common sense.” And this is not commonly found in less formal or DIY spaces.  Quite the contrary, this problem happens in the mid-size, professionalized institutions and galleries more than anywhere else.  Common excuses: lack of managerial experience while otherwise competent; spread too thin (aka poor delegation skills); Personal judgment on an employees competence, attitude or lack thereof; oversight; nonviable channels of communication etc etc..

It sounds obvious when put this way but: No matter how skilled or experienced someone is, every work environment and process is different.

Suggestions:

-Have at least 1-2 days or more depending, where the new employee shadows the existing or former.

-Encourage dialog.  The addition of a new employee can mean that the environment and itself will change. When done collectively, often this improves things. (eg, a more humorous or talkative employee may lighten the atmosphere, and while there may be more gab-time, that doesn’t necessarily mean that productivity decreases along with it, in fact the team may feel more connected and enjoy being at work more.)

-Dont be too quick to correct or try to change someone else’s way of doing something you are used to doing a different way.  Just because its different doesn’t mean it isnt functional, and comfort and building a relationship with, and among, your staff and volunteers is crucial.  (eg, a fax and an email-to-fax are two ways of accomplishing that someone receives a fax. Don’t quibble or micromanage, let people get the job done the best and most efficient way they know how to.)

-Encourage employee connection to the material.  Ask them to draw on previous experiences, even non-professional experiences, that may give them unique insight or avenues for creative problem solving.  Discuss these things as an opportunity to understand how they think, and to develop a relationship.  Sometimes chatting is part of the job.

-Develop brief outlines of the regular tasks that can serve as checklists, but don’t use this to circumvent direct explanation of the operation. Definitely do not insist that “answers can be found in the manual” when questions about procedure are raised.  Personal engagement is critical to understanding, and will save you more time in the long run to get it understood fully the first time.

-Contextualize jobs.  Make sure each team member knows their responsibilities, and make clear distinctions between part-time, full-time, and contracted employees in the division of labor, and to ensure seamless execution of projects and on going tasks. If tasks aren’t clearly assigned they may never get completed, or some people will carry the weight for the others, or even worse, tasks can take twice as long to be completed if dependent on one part-time staffer.

I began with 4 categories: The Eroticized, the De-Eroticized, the Symbolic, and the Radical  as a way of differentiating between the ways that sex and sexuality are handled in the fields of art history and erotic art history.  The first selection is an outline or sketch, that consisted of 12 works, by 12 different artists: Georgia O’Keeffe, Lee Bontecou, Robert Mapplethorpe, Titian, Paul Gauguin, Egon Schiele, Salvador Dali, Manet, Catherine Opie, Nayland Blake, Balthus,and  Linda Nochlin. Future artists may include some of the following + : Andre Masson, Carolee Schneeman, Judy Chicago, Gustave Courbet, David Wojnarowicz, Jacqueline Livingston, Sally Mann, Jeff Koons, Judith Bernstein, Meret Oppenheim, Kara Walker, Louise Bourgeois etc etc.   My hope is that this project will expand into a book or exhibit + catalogue.

I include in each example an image, some pre-existing historical text about that image, and my “response” text.  Response text is not intended or designed to supplant, erase, undo or over-ride the pre-existing text but rather to complement it, or to provide a viable “alternative” using language that pre-supposes a sex+, trans-friendly, post-colonial, rather fantasy land normativity.  Enjoy!

#1  Georgia O’ Keeffe “Grey Line with Black, Blue, and Yellow” 1932 (Category 1, The Eroticized)

Art Historical Text: “When thinking about erotic symbolism in art Georgia O’Keeffe springs to mind.  The painting to the right is a detail of a flower but it is also an excellent visual symbol of an open and flushed vulva.

At first glance you see a flower and, on reflection, you might  grasp features of female anatomical details such as the clitoral hood, the clitoris, the labia majora, and the labia minora. O’Keeffe is making an interesting statement in associating the vagina with a flower. The vagina is to humanity what a flower is to nature: it is life-giving, beautiful, and fragile, yet resilient.

There is a strong sense that we are entering into the flower, but we also get a sense that inside is a whole new universe open to us.” LINK

RESPONSE: Georgia O’Keeffe diverged from the realism practiced by her peers choosing instead to focus on familiar forms with a beautifully simple, but accentuated details  that effect a transformation that  can become very abstract . After moving West, away from New York, she drew inspiration from natural forms in the environment that surrounded her.

O’Keeffe uses a rich color palette to add a fleshy quality to the organic forms she represents.  Known for her landscape treatment of flowers, these organic forms become a fertile ground for the viewer to encounter other organic forms to which it can be compared.

The first Tipi you encounter in the exhibition Tipi: heritage of the Great Plains is a traditional yet modern Tipi made by a contemporary Blackfoot, painted in his own designs.  The materials used were hemmed canvas, rope and supporting planks bolted onto a plinth, and reflected both the time period and application for which it was created. By contrast, what I expected to see in the Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains exhibit was an ethnographic tableaux of dried leather hides stretched over antiqued wood, hand stitched into a tipi over some sort of peace-pipe scene.  Throughout the rest of the exhibit, the objects and the texts engaged in a conversation between expectations of Indian-ness, primarily in cultural products made by Native Americans for non-native populations, and objects that were made for use within Native communities.  The exhibit focuses on this in a few ways, not the least of which due to the absence of stereotyping and non-photographic illustrations, but also by specifically indicating which objects were made for commercial trade, and how they know.

Most of us can think of examples of how America meets Native America with a degree of fondness.  These cultural experiences can look like anything from John Wayne Westerns, to the Redskins, and children’s games like Cowboys and Indians.  We usually encounter these things like a nostalgic romance for a collective semi-imaginary past, and probably don’t think about them beyond their fantasy value.

One of the things that struck me the most about the Tipi exhibit was the use of the term “Pre-Reservation Period”, which as a term can also indicate the pre-production-for-others era.  This split between cultural products made for use within Native populations and those made by Natives for non-natives is presented in the film Reel Injun alongside the third option of made by non-natives about natives for non-natives.

For example, when I was a child I woke up early every week to watch Sunday morning cartoons, and one Sunday I remember watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon and thinking to myself, “is he really killing Indians?! How is that ok?”  It was one of the more surreal moments of my pre-adolescent Sunday morning viewing tenure.  The Reagan era had raised me to understand in no uncertain terms that guns were bad, scary, dangerous things that kill people, and so watching Bugs Bunny tick off “little injuns” one by one was jarring to say the least.  The divide between the pre-reservation era and the reservation era is created by converting Native Americans into Reservation-dwellers, and not coincidentally occurs simultaneously with the advent of Hollywood representation of Natives as symbolic of the White conquest of Manifest Destiny in the American West.

The notion of surreal and dark encroaching on the seemingly innocent space of entertainment, especially children’s entertainment, stuck with me but I had all but forgotten about my introduction to cartoon macabre until I saw the clip again in Reel Injun. (In Reel Injun the film clip from the Bugs Bunny Cartoon “Horse Hare” is shown

Through its awareness of these differing cultural viewpoints, the exhibit manages expectations well, and presents a diverse take on Native cultures of the Great Plains and avoids declaring a processed understanding.  It demonstrates cultural products and words straight from the source and compares things intended for native use to things intended for non-native use, while making the subject accessible to the even larger and more diverse museum audience.  The film Reel Injun is being show at 7pm on Thursday, March 24^th at the Museum, and was recommended for screening by the show’s curator Nancy Rosoff,  For some, the film will be an excellent an entertaining entry point for challenging existing cultural stereotypes, and for others the film may become an extension of the rich conversation begun by the exhibit itself.   All visitors to Tipi will be confronted with their own expectations of what Native Culture is and was, how it is usually portrayed, and how the exhibit presents its own version—and while we can all access these conversations at other places, in my opinion the accessibility of multiple, simultaneous discourses and vantage points is why we intentionally seek these forums within museums.

Tip #1 Introductions: Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

This seems like a no-brainer, but its often an overlooked or underutilized social mechanism in the work place.  Like day 1 of Kindergarten, those little details you learn upon introducing someone can really enhance rapport and the ability to work together.

When bringing in a new person, every new person should be introduced to everyone else.  More than simply introduced, a review of their Skills, Interests and CV however formal or informal, can become essential to getting along and also productive and enjoyable teamwork. In the creative sector, no matter how paperwork and administrative your role, creativity is a critical component of what we do.  New ideas, new phrasing, past experiences, networks are all vital and we come with different and mutually beneficial backgrounds.

Also, utilizing people’s skills leads to a logical division of labor, reduces the chances of burn-out, jealousy or competitive work environments, and encourages staff buy-in and support to both each other and the mission of the institution.

Good Fortune is an exploration of how international efforts to reduce poverty in Africa may undermine the communities they intend to benefit. From Nairobi to the Kibera Slum, and as far as the Yala Swamp, the documentary looks into the struggles of Kenyans amid Election controversies, the Kenyan Slum Upgrading Project, Foreign Development, and Foreign Aid. The gripping stories of two Kenyan families, battling to save their homes from large-scale development , presents a unique opportunity see foreign assistance through the eyes of its recipients, and shows how this assistance may result in the cultural and economic disenfranchisement of an already impoverished population.

When: 7pm, January 27th, 2011

Where: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052

Cost: FREE with museum admission (suggested donation)

What: P.O.V. Independent Film: Good Fortune , by Landon Van Soest and Jeremy Levine 2010. 90 min.

There will be a Q&A with Documentary Filmmaker Jeremy Levine after the film.

For more information, visit www.brooklynmuseum.org

http://www.handeyemagazine.com/content/interpreting-ikat-21st-century

Collections play a large part in establishing the identities of museums.  The choice to acquire and preserve certain works over others is not only a responsibility museums take upon themselves it also invariably comes with a power to influence the narrative of art, both how it is historicized and how it will develop into the future.  These museum identities also influence the mode of interaction that the museum audience will have with these narratives and indeed with the art on display, or information about the artwork otherwise in holding.

Pros and Cons

While having a fixed collection that creates a fixed identity for the institution can be indicative of an adept curatorial vision, a “wordless” thesis on a subject or an era of art, it problematizes the museum’s relationship with other institutions as it may foster a paranoid competitiveness or risk redundancy.  In addition to contention between institutions, through agreement they could be viewed as colluding to fabricate hyped histories for mutual self-importance, as with the once-modern now-classic model proposed by the Modern and the Metropolitan. Conversely, museums that operate mostly with loans cultivate active collaborations and co-operation between organizations, and do so on a case by case basis avoiding the appearance of colluding.

Semi-permanent collections attempt to avoid this kind of specialization by abstaining from “freezing” a discourse on contemporaneity into an authoritative tautology on “what is X”.  On the other hand, those albeit tautological, narratives create a compelling accessible entry point for a non-art historian public to engage with the history of art. Allowing the museum to become a 3D textbook may not be appealing to some, however more closely resembles the legal definition of what a museum is, as opposed to the intellectual or etymological.

Dynamic organizations seem attractive to some and unstable to others.  Some who may wish to get involved with organizations that keep their finger on the pulse of hipness might be reluctant to hand over property because they are unsure what would become their valued object, and the status of their donation.  The risk of offending someone through deaccessioning is not only perceived, its proven to be real.  Incidentally, by leaving this process unambiguous, the New Museum’s semi-permanent collection may attract fewer donors, however likely with less strings and therefore more securely.  The practice of relying on donors for acquisitions relinquishes a considerable amount of control in defining the nature of a collection; donor works tend to be older either because they were owned for a period of time or bequeathed, but they also typically reflect and previously established canon.  So in effect, the development of a collection gestalt in more permanent collections, and for the collections of semi-permanent museums must include active and forceful purchasing for its acquisitions.

Collections have immense financial value aside from their significance as historical treasures.  Maintaining a collection is akin to maintaining an investment portfolio, but as these objects accumulate equity, they also attract visitors who wish to bask in their aura.  Additionally, the care of these collections requires not only a great deal of liquid capital, but also skilled labor, space and large amounts of time.  The storage and conservation parameters for short term, small-scale collections is exponentially less demanding than large aggressively expanding collections allowing not only the emphasis to be placed elsewhere than storing and conserving, but is a major budget saver.

While some permanent collecting institutions are allowed to sell parts of their collection in order to acquire new works, and in some cases in order to properly care for and conserve their holdings, the process of deaccessioning by sale is largely taboo and also ineffectual; the works most able to be sold for the liquid capital needed to sustain the institution are the works most valuable to the institutions holdings, and therefore undesirable to sell.  An asset isn’t an asset if it can’t be sold: it loses its monetary value for all things except insurance and tax assessment. There is an inherent statement in this deaccessioning process that these works are “less valuable” even if only to that institution.  This devaluing of work through weeding the collection is largely avoided in the churning outlined by the semi-permanent collection of the New Museum, where all works regardless of status are put out to make way for new works.  In fact, this method does the opposite of devaluing to the effect that this method is compared to the methods of a dealer.

Opinions

As a product of a very socially motivated generation, I conceptually prefer the environment cultivated by the New Museum.  However, I recognize that different institutions not only can and should have different approaches, but that they must.  It was important for MoMA to pave the way by bridging the gap between the classicizing role of the Met and the incubator method of the New Museum. MoMA revolutionized the perception of art, and new art, during its first few years and needed to compromise the semi-ness of its permanent collection in order to ensure its sustainability as an institution. This compromise allowed MoMA to forge its role as a modern masterpiece-creator while also allowing it to cash-in on this equity.  This aided MoMA more than simply financially, it also reformed the public perception of a museum as a place for social encounter, and a different kind of intellectual encounter.  Loose identity and intangible holdings would not have been a viable model for MoMA in its first few decades, but now may be a model able to be realized by new generations of institutions.  Progress and evolution need stepping stones; the analysis of museums and their development take on much of the same narrative elements as art history itself.

The New Museum recognizes the traditional role of the museum as preserving art and assisting its entry into the annals of history, however its goals are different choosing instead to make itself a site that encourages interaction between the work, the dialog surrounding the work and the public that comes to engage.  It is my opinion that both functions are not just desirable but necessary.  Aside from the necessity created by works which intentionally defy traditional collection and preservation methods, the lens we view works in exhibitions with and the lens we view collections with are different, and the context often permanently affects its meaning.  While some works are designed to decay and others to stand the test of time, why not allow all works the equal opportunity to live in the limelight and reach their broadest audience and to have access to long term preservation and care?

MoMA’s clever strategy for sustainability succeeded as a business model for the museum, however it did result in the permanent alteration of term modern as regards art, irrespective of their mission to actively pursue the new.  MoMA adeptly realized that writing an origin point in stone begs the question of an end point, and very few people can or will commit to the abstract theoretical terrain of “forever” long enough to believe that the ongoing component of their mission can/will truly be all-inclusive, or whether it will simply be how “modern art” continues into today and tomorrow. MoMA’s compromise is what they call “equal exposure” to new works and to works in their permanent collection through exhibition, and they do this to defend their identity—an identity formed to distinguish itself and compete with international and national museums.

Current contemporary movements place an emphasis on the social mechanism of art and the museum’s role as instigator and initiator.  The museums that embrace this model have the potential to shape their institution into something organic, like a living being, with reflexive, constantly shifting knowledge and ideas, rather than an institution with a fixed identity and a perception that can be defined devoid of its context.  It is easy to understand why this model would be appealing to current audiences, but it is also impossible to ignore that this is a product born of developments in the not too-distant past of other trail-blazing institutions, and a model that might not be able to continue its experimental nature should those other institutions cease to exist.