The Art of Collecting

I was thinking of writing about the new Mayan exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, which I got to see last night. I found myself much more interested, however, in writing about two smaller exhibits I saw in the past few days, which gave interesting glimpses into museum collections.

I went to the ROM earlier in the day yesterday to see The Art of Collecting, a small temporary exhibit from the European department. Taking up only one room (but fitting in over one hundred artefacts), the exhibit highlights recent acquisitions from the past fifteen years in stand-alone glass cases. I wandered past a Tiffany lamp, Georg Jenson silver teasets, Royal Worcester porcelain figures, 19th century bouquet holders, and early 20th century rocking chairs, among other things.

Unlike most exhibits I've seen that highlight objects in this way, the text panels on the wall went beyond explaining why the museum focuses on certain areas of collection. They first explained why the department was set up in the first place - to collect masterpiece decorative art objects that students could learn from and observe. The panels then explained how the museum acquires its artefacts - fortunately mostly by donation with some purchases. It then explained how they got the money for purchases - through deaccessioning other objects. Surprisingly, it then explained the rules for deaccessioning objects that museums follow. It even finished with a paragraph about the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board!

I loved the transparency of it all - museums aren't exactly secretive but most people probably don't think about how and why certain objects turn up in museum collections. I understand what the ROM is doing, of course - explaining clearly to collectors that they can get tax receipts for donating objects to museums instead of keeping or selling them, and reassuring the public that their tax money, for the most part, is not being spent to buy these lovely objects. But it's also a great lesson about how museums build collections - something a little different from the usual decorative arts history lesson/timeline.

The Art Gallery of Ontario too has a small, temporary highlight exhibition. It's called Shift, and also encompasses a small space - one and a half rooms on the first floor. It features highlights from the Modern collection and despite its small size, it's quickly becoming a favourite - among my fellow employees, anyway. It definitely packs a punch - Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Chuck Close and Andy Warhol (among others) are all featured.

These highlight exhibits can serve different purposes - an older post of mine also talks about this. They can allow museums and galleries to show off new objects without the time and effort to re-do permanent displays (or while waiting for funding to do so!) or without organizing a larger, more comprehensive exhibition. For the ROM, most of their decorative arts collection is in furnished period rooms, with very few objects received post-1990s on display. It can also show the breadth of a museum's collection. For the ROM, the European department collects pieces from the medieval period to the 20th century, obviously a huge timeframe. As for the AGO, most visitors know about the Thompson collections (Group of Seven, European art, etc) but may not know that the gallery does hold some interesting modern pieces. It's also fun to see objects out of a linear context - viewers can see each independently or find connections between different objects. These objects are meant to be seen, and anything that gets them out of storage is fine with me.