Place-thingsCataloging the ephemeral

Chantal Lee, Meredith Powers, Alexandra Provo, Marlee Walters

LIS 653-01Knowledge Organization

Spring 2014Dr. Pattuelli

Ephemera vs. Ephemeral

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvortygirl/3945189711/

● “Material of short life”(Tomlinson, 1942)

● Documentation that isn’t a book or periodical

● Works that are ephemeral: ○ temporary ○ subject to change, alteration, or

removal ○ meanings often tied to sites

Vesuvio Bakery Soho 2004.Source: http://goo.gl/ijZL4W

● Surrogates are representations of works that stand in for a work when the work cannot be physically represented in a collection

● Surrogates can also be works in themselves

Street Art: Graffiti & Murals

Graffiti wall at Houston St. & Bowery

Clockwise, from bottom left: Retna 2012, Os Gemeos 2009, Barry McGee 2010 (http://goo.gl/CNshV2), Swoon 2013 (http://goo.gl/CNshV2) & Maya Hayuk 2014 (http://goo.gl/FAk1TE).

“Permanence is relative” (Freeman, 2013)

“Showing parts of the city at the moment before their disappearance”

http://goo.gl/56aUvm Byron Company. 857 Fifth Ave. at 67th Street. [The George Gould Residence.]. Museum of

the City of New York. 93.1.1.17185.

Cataloging Material Evidence : Ephemera vs Documentary

Artificial Evidence (ephemera): Props, announcements, press releases, and correspondences

Tehching Hsieh & Linda Montano.

Rope Piece.

http://goo.gl/WwBvh3 Documentary Evidence: Photographs and video

Source: http://goo.gl/it7Ew1

Art Gallery of New South Wales. Online record

entry.

Retrieved fromhttp://goo.gl/TfhJv2

Documentation as Works of Art in their own Right

On Cataloging Performance“It’s the difference between a collection of facts about a performance and the

experience itself. You can’t collect an experience, but maybe with multiple sources and perspectives on it, you can document a performance thoroughly enough to offer a kind of approximation after the fact”

Schultz, Sarah (2011). Cataloging Performance: Proceedings of the Walker Art Center Conference for Archivists.

“Deciding what to leave out of the archive is almost as important as deciding what to put in.”

Brin, Judith (2011). Cataloging Performance: Proceedings of the Walker Art Center Conference for Archivists.

Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 41.190.482.http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/199003

Ensembles of decorative and

furniture elements in context of a museum

Shifting mix of parts and wholes: pastiches

Represents two “periods”:

Whatever time is being represented AND time of the

assembly

Period Rooms

Period Rooms: Issues

Lucy Rie’s apartment, Kaiserliche Hofmobliendepot, Vienna. Williamson, L. (2012). Retrieved from http://lesliewilliamsonphoto.blogspot.com/2012/05/note-from-londonhofmobiliendepot-vienna.html

"Period rooms are paradoxical…is the room a fantasy or is it a fairly accurate

approximation of the past? Is the point of view historical or aesthetic? What is the

room trying to show or prove?"

(Diane Pilgrim, 1983)

The Period Room: An Illusion of the Past

What kinds of cataloging standards and frameworks best capture relationships between parts and wholes?

North East Parlor of Joseph Russell House, Brooklyn Museum, 20.956. L: 1980s installation; R: undated installation. Retrieved from https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/11662/The_North_East_Parlor_of_Joseph_Russell_House

May Day by Shepard Fairey. April 21 - August 31, 2010

http://goo.gl/PbZS6s

Parts of the previous installation by Os Gemeos peek out from underneath after May Day is vandalized http://goo.gl/eDRjhO

Who decides which moment(s) to represent?

http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/ Eiko & Koma, Naked, Walker Art Center, 2010http://goo.gl/5pD9XZ

Is an exhaustive archive feasible?

Who describes?

Who describes?

Source: http://goo.gl/CYvfqCSource: http://goo.gl/bzv1zr

References

Cheng, S. (2014, February 3). Maya Hayuk has begun working on new mural for the Bowery wall. Complex Art & Design [Blog]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/FAk1TE

Dvortygirl. (2009). I blame the post office. [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvortygirl/3945189711/

Ephemeral New York. (2011, May 4). The pleasure gardens of lower Manhattan [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/IZyMn2

Freeman, B. (2013). Digital deception. The Design Observer Group: Places. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/Ax9Y4W

Korkidis, J., & Schonberger, N. (2012, March 5). The history of the Bowery / Houston Street graffiti mural wall in NYC. Complex Art & Design [Blog]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/eDRjhO

Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2014). Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris. Exhibition objects: Percement de l'avenue de l'Opéra: Butte des Moulins.[Digital image]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/2qePb2

Murray, J. and Murray, K. (2014, April 3). New York storefronts: what a difference a decade makes. Guardian. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/ijZL4W

Tomlinson, L. E. (1942). The library science glossary [HathiTrust version]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/YD793b

Yearsley, M. (2013, October 30). Swoon unveils Hurricane Sandy-themed mural. Gothamist [Blog]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/CNshV2

Yen, I. (2013, October 4). The history of the Bowery mural: from Keith Haring to Crash. Green-label.com [Blog]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/PbZS6s