A recent addition to Artspeak’s library is Uneven Bodies (Reader). Built around transcripts from a 2020 symposium of the same title, and informed by Ruth Buchanan’s 2019-20 exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (Aotearoa New Zealand), the Reader’s texts consider “approaches that weave in and out of the institution in order to recalibrate the ways in which we produce, engage with and shape collections” [1].
Neck deep in Artspeak’s library I wonder: how do catalogues, artist books, miscellaneous literature and periodicals—cobbled together via decades of curatorial research and directorship—serve to reflect an art organization’s values and intentions, and how does this compare to the reflective qualities of an art collection?
Their similarities are more abundant than their differences. Books are to be held close, thumbed through, and touched, whereas collected artworks are to be held at arm’s length, by acquisition policy, and as endowment—but both are shelved when not in use. An organizational library may be more intendedly private, but artworks don’t regularly feel the breath of the public either. As well, books and art are both lent out to ‘friends’ (for reading or for exhibition), with accompanying worry regarding loss and damage. While the ramifications of a stilted art collection are more staggering—given that many museums operate through at least partial public funding and their collected works are considered as markers of ‘excellence’—a library does justify and reflect the decisions of those in leadership positions.
In light of their parallel operations, a sense of responsibility and opportunity for visioning arises within an art gallery’s book shelves. As collections “walk a tightrope, balancing on the one hand a commitment to capturing the important artists and conversations of a given moment and, on the other, creating a microcosm of a world that we hope for, that we strive towards into the future,” so too must institutional libraries [2].
— Alexandra Bischoff on “Summer in the Stacks”.
[1] Buchanan, Ruth, et al., editors. Uneven Bodies (Reader). Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2021. Front cover.
[2] Ibid. Back cover.