The Open House: A Portrait of Collecting exhibition emerged out of my embeddedness in the Lamont Gallery (click to read about the gallery) and its position within a traditional, longstanding New England academic institution (click to read about Phillips Exeter Academy).
Even though the Lamont Gallery is non-collecting, it nevertheless had many collection items tucked away in various storerooms and closets. I had no knowledge of these items until after I arrived. Once on campus, I was a bit confused to see a jumble of framed pieces, prints, random historic portraits, sculptural and ethnographic objects, and a flat file crammed full of assorted mystery prints. The objects had literally and symbolically been hidden from view.
What was all this stuff? How did the collection come to be? Why did we have such an odd assortment of works? Where were the details about these objects? Who donated them and how were they used?
Summary:
This section captures some of my motivations for organizing the Open House: A Portrait of Collecting exhibition. Initially, the project was borne out of a frustration with discovering an unmanaged collection within the Lamont Gallery. While we did not have the organizational capacity to address the objects, my sense of responsibility prevented me from looking away completely. My initial questions around this “inadvertent” collection led me to consider: Why do people collect? What are the material and economic conditions of collections? Were there creative ways I could utilize our own collection? I organized several projects in response to these questions, which ultimately led to Open House. These projects revealed not so much how we move objects, but how objects move us.
Trying to address these collections questions has become a chronic condition. I still do not have the answers.
I have regularly integrated objects from institutional and individual collectors in other exhibitions: a repeating gesture of intersection, of introducing one form or entity into conversation with another (including mid-century modern furniture, board games, illustrated travel diaries, and ephemera such as letters and rare books).
In 2013, the Dust & Discovery: Works from the Lamont Gallery Collection exhibition featured a cabinet of curiosity style display complete with gallery-based conservation assessments and “behind-the-scene” installations. A few years later, the request to borrow a “forgotten” Diego Riverapainting led to additional excitement. Most recently, Of Accidental Origin (2017-2018), recontextualized the Lamont Gallery collection via the interpretations of a team of student curators.
As a non-collector with an ambivalent relationship to objects, this logistical and professional dilemma became a way to exercise my curatorial curiosity by inviting other collectors to the discussion. What drives us to acquire items ranging from model horses to magnets? What do (private) acts of arranging do, and how does (public) curatorial agency impact those acts? How is a collection understood as knowledge: classified, analyzed, and brought to bear on other knowledge systems? How do collectors share their collections? What does this act of sharing produce in others?
The urge to share a collection, and the response it brings forth, reveals that action is already inherent in objects, as potential (movement).
Objects catalyze us.
