On Tuesday, June 14th, the Libraries and Archives hosted a Salon in the Reading Room welcoming Museu

On Tuesday, June 14th, the Libraries and Archives hosted a Salon in the Reading Room welcoming Museum staff members to view archival and library items related to the 1990 exhibition, The Brooklyn Museum Collection: The Play of the Unmentionable (Joseph Kosuth). This unique exhibition featured many objects from the Museum collection. This artist-curated exhibition was considered controversial, and displayed a bit of irony in that the pieces selected by Kosuth were “deemed to be objectionable” at the time of their creation. The Museum Director, Robert Buck, stated the exhibition “at first seemed to be a potential danger to the institution proved to be one of the most popular exhibition in years.”The Play of the Unmentionable, like Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective, 1996-2016, was part of a series of site-specific installations in the Museum’s Grand Lobby. Approximately 100 works were selected from every curatorial department ranging from ancient Egyptian objects to contemporary photographs. The installation also included enlarged texts, both historical and contemporary, propagandistic and theoretical, which framed and reframed the viewer’s perspective. Then Curator of Contemporary Art , Charlotta Kotik, remarked, “In keeping with the concerns of his work for the past 20 years, Mr. Kosuth’s project transcends the traditionally defined aesthetic criterion of what constitutes an artist’s work.”The Museum’s Libraries and Archives provide a rich treasure trove of materials related to the groundbreaking exhibition. Library materials include the exhibition catalogue, institutional file, and many other related publications. Archival materials include U-Matic and DVD versions of a filmed interview of Kosuth in which he discussed his curatorial decisions. There are letters from museum goers offering praise and criticism, correspondence with Museum staff, checklists, photographic materials, and a photocopy of Kosuth’s original bound exhibition plan.Posted by Jennifer Neal -- source link

More pics about