Regards, Yon

Making their stuff available for public appreciation and education is part of every museum's mission, but preservation of the artifacts for scholarly study is more important to them. The priorities of these two objectives are exactly reversed for most collectors, and once we understand this the difference between the practices used by museums and those desired by collectors at least begins to make sense.

I think it would be better if they compromised more in the direction of our priorities, of course, and I'm not convinced that all of the practices they adopt are really sensible, but to suggest that they ought not have holdings in storage does run counter to their mission.

Besides, I have stuff that isn't on display at any moment, and I'll bet you do, too.

Steve Price

Regards, Yon

I'm with Yon on this one. How about more recycling by museums. I don't see how museums can go on accumulating indefinitely, especially when most pieces disappear into vaults and store rooms, safe from the public until the next exhibition is scheduled. Instead of expanding the museum, weed through the collection and spread some delight to the ordinary collector.

Museums do have a conservation mission, but so does any serious collector. And since he or she has a personal financial, as well as emotional stake in the piece, the rug or carving might even receive better care than in a large museum depot.

Why not encourage more recycling to the market of those pieces that may never be of enough interest or rarity to show except on the odd occasion? (For all I know, museums may in fact do so, but without much fanfare.) I have no idea at what rate pieces are passing permanently into museum collections, but at some point it must affect the availabilty of better examples at prices affordable to a collector of average means.

I have been this way before. Before I succumbed to the rug sickness, I was a collector of old (ideally rare, but who knew?) books. There were lots around, since collections were regularly being bought and sold, recycled to interested collectors for nominal sums. England and New England were great places to find books. I used to buy 16th and 17th century French, Italian, and English books for $5 to $10. Nice copies, contemporary bindings. The most I ever spent was $80 on a 1486 edition of the Golden Legend. Nineteenth century books were so cheap one barely considered them. (As a Turkophile, in the mid 60's I bought two copies of the "Beauties of the Bosphorus", with all the Allom and Bartlett engravings, for $15.) Since a couple of generations before me had done the same, I figured that such recycling of collections was the norm.

Then, as academic institutions expanded, rare book libraries started sprouting up in various areas. Volumes moved off the market into library collections. The supply dwindled as all those books disappeared into vaults, safe from the public and supposedly better protected against dust, light, bugs, and general human contact. Nothing came back out. Within a little more than a decade, there were very few books for the collector of average means. It would be a pity if this were to happen in the rug collecting world.

Best regards, Ken

I don't doubt the basic information you present in your last post - there was a dramatic surge in academic interest and in library demand for antique books with an approximately simultaneous surge in the prices of the books - but I wonder if the interpretation is correct. You attribute the increased prices to the supply dropping as the books were becoming the property of the libraries. An alternative explanation, one that I suspect is more nearly correct, is that the increased academic and library interest prompted many people to collect these books, and this caused the supply to dwindle relative to the demand.

We have seen this many times in Rugdom. Some exhibition or book creates a tide of collector demand for some group of textiles, and the price for those things goes up rapidly.

Just a thought.

Steve Price

This comment is about Yon's suggestion above that museums deaccession portions of their collections that they know they can't exhibit in some reasonable cycles.

I think the deaccesioning process is also often complicated for a variety of reasons. One sign I have seen of this is in the old paper curatorial files on the TM's Turkmen material.

Nowadays, I believe, the curatorial records of the collection are being transferred to computer but I was given considerable access to the old paper cards and have spend some time examining them.

There are handwritten notes on many of these cards done by folks who have examined them previously. For example, there are notes initialed by Jon Thompson, probably made as he examined these cards as part of his preparation for the 1980 Turkmen exhibition and his catalog with Mackie.

One set of these notes was made by a Washington dealer who was a member of the TM Board. He often explicitly suggests in them that a given piece is not of sufficient interest to be retained and recommends deaccessioning, but the record indicates that the piece is still in the collection.

I am not familiar with the details of the TM's deaccesioning process but I have heard that it includes a loop that must go before the TM Board of Directors itself.

In any event, I suspect that museum procedures often make it difficult to deaccession materials that the curatorial staff may well have concluded should not be retained.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Regards, Yon

I would like to make a few points.
1) Complaints concerning access and lighting reflect an unwillingness to grasp the simple point that museums - which in this country are primarily privately funded - are truly a result of financial restraints. At our museum we have a saying, "suggestions accompanied by a check are often followed." If you want better lighting technologies and more staffing then give the institution more money.
2) The fact that you are aware of the collections and wish to use them is a result of wise collectors who,by their donations, placed these pieces into public trust. They saved them for all of us. They created a legacy by which we compare our own collections and they provide a base from which our knowledge grows. The startlingly viewpoint that some would like museums to release these pieces to the market so that they can own them, is not only short-sighted it is also simply selfish.
3)The collector/scholars on Turkotek who generously give of their knowledge attests to the important relationship which should exist between museums and collectors. Not all collectors are of your sort. Museums routinely deal with collectors who attempt to steal, mutilate and destroy our collections. This is not an exaggeration. The impulses of these benighted individuals is simple. They believe that only they can truly understand and enjoy the objects subject to their depravations. And of course, at times, these individuals are simply in it for the money.

I'm probably less surprised than most of our readers will be by your description of some collectors. I get e-mail from some who actually believe that they not only have the last sensible word on any rug-related topic, but also the first word and every word in between.

And, like you, I suspect that many of these characters are simply in it for the money.

Regards,

Steve Price

Welcome to our discussion. It is useful to have another museum professional in the conversation.

No doubt our views are shaped by differences in our perspective. I cannot resist commenting on one aspect of your post.

You wrote in part: "...suggestions accompanied by a check are often followed."

My thought:

While it is true that museums are often strapped for funds, I want to suggest that this motto (I have seen local tendencies in this same direction) is particularly misguided. It indicates that only those with financial resources to give to the museums will be listened to.

I would suggest in turn that often those with the most experience with textiles and therefore often the best source of ideas of value to museums are also quite often not in a position to be major contributors to the museum budget.

Such a policy systematically cuts off the museum from the some of the most knowledgeable resources at its command.

Wendel Swan has suggested in another thread here that in Washington here the TM has rather ready access to a fairly knowlegeable group of rug and textile collectors many of whom would be willing to be recruited as volunteers in various TM efforts (for example, staffing Saturday rug mornings in which TM materials would used, something Sara has said is currently barred primarily because it's too labor intensive). But for some reason the TM is not interested in using this cadre of resources. It's not money but it is a real resource and one potentially aimed at some problems being cited by the museum staff itself. Why should such an idea not be considered unless a large check is attached?

It seems to me that not everything should reduce to money. The truth is even some varieties of money are also looked down on. The museums are most interested in "untied" money and are much less interested in funds give for a purpose designated by the giver.

I think the thrust of the slogan you quote is extremely wrong-headed and likely to lead to dysfunctional effects (e.g., an only moderately knowledgeable collector who has donated to a museum being asked to guest curate an exhibit primarly because he/she has donated; don't laugh, I know of instances.)

Thank you again for your thoughts here. Please continue.

R. John Howe

Getting back to Yon Bard’s original posting about “de-accessioning,” I realize how ignorant I am about how museums handle ever-growing collections. What do museums do—other than raise more money for expansion--when their collections exceed the institution’s capacity to house and show them regularly? Or is it only a hypothetical problem, since one can always fit another piece in here and there? Could Ms. Wolf or Mr. Koos tell us how their respective organizations “de-accession” pieces or whether it is even an issue?

Best regards,

Ken

Before deaccessioning, the piece must undergo something like a title search as well, to confirm the precise legal status of the object (some gifts in the past came with restrictions; this is no longer permitted in most museums).

I think you can see that for very good reason, deaccession is not taken lightly. There is also a considerable conflict between wanting to do serious research to bring forth an exhibition versus the kind of research to do deaccession. Deaccession cannot be relegated to the staff with lesser knowledge than the best curators....so it often is not a priority.

Many thanks for the information on just how much of a hassle museums inflict upon themselves before deaccessioning something. I'm sure there were very few among us who suspected that it was this complicated, and that there are still many, including me, who wonder why it must be so unwieldy a process.

One item in your response really caught my attention, though, and that is this: when the TM deaccessions something by consigning it to auction, it forbids attribution of the TM as provenance. Huh? In one breath the museum cries financial need, in the next it adheres to a policy that prevents the stuff it is selling from bringing the maximum price (provenance, for those who just emerged from a lifetime in a cave, affects value at auction). What's this one about?

Steve Price

Regards, Yon

Also, belated congratulations on the Turkish flatweave exhibition set up for the TM convention. It was beautifully done. It is a pity, however, there wasn't a catalogue or even reproductions of the accompanying identification guides available. I think there would be customers for such a publication, even if were rather informal.
Thanks again,

Regards to all,

Ken

Exhibitions without catalogs are like sneezes: a brief, vigorous activity over in a relative instant leaving little in its wake. (I'll not take this analogy any further lest the more sensitive among us draw feverish conclusions.)

The issue of catalogs rightly belongs in the "Financial constraints" thread because, as we all know, producing a catalog is a very expensive proposition with no assurance it will ever break even. I'm especially interested in this since I'm involved with planning the exhibition at the next ACOR in Indianapolis. We are currently discussing the possibility of photographing each of the pieces that eventually wind up in the show and copying them to a CD-ROM to give each participant. There are, of course, costs attendant to this as well; but nothing like the costs associated with printing a catalog. Unless I'm overlooking something, the only costs are photography, scanning the photos, and burning the CDs. (If the photos are taken with a digital camera, there isn't even any scanning.) The text would be written by the curator and included on the CD.

There may be reasons why a museum wouldn't want to distribute images of its exhibits; but if it were done on CD-ROM, cost is not one of them.

Am I overlooking anything here?

Cordially,

-Jerry-

As I've suggested elsewhere in this salon, an even more informal documentation of an exhibit is also possible and at little or no cost.

I offered to walk around Sara's current exhibition and to take selected candid photos with my own camera, to have the film developed, and to work with Sara on a text (the gallery labels would do something if Sara's time could not be spared) and then to scan the photos and (with Steve's help) to put them and the text into a document that could be displayed on the internet. The TM could put this result up on their own site for little cost or we could put it up on Turkotek and they could link to it here for nothing at all.

I proposed this. Sara was interested but we could not stir even a response beyond that.

So it seems to me that sometimes inexpensive opportunities of this sort are being unnecessarily lost. (And as a result, an easily reachable audience for TM exhibitions is not being reached and served.)

There may be other impinging reasons but no one has mentioned them to me.

Regards,

R. John Howe

John wrote:

"I offered to walk around Sara's current exhibition and to take selected candid photos
with my own camera, to have the film developed, and to work with Sara on a text
(the gallery labels would do something if Sara's time could not be spared) and then
to scan the photos and (with Steve's help) to put them and the text into a document
that could be displayed on the internet. The TM could put this result up on their own
site for little cost or we could put it up on Turkotek and they could link to it here
for nothing at all.

I proposed this. Sara was interested but we could not stir even a response beyond
that."

This is such a reasonable, obvious, risk-free solution that I am totally at a loss to even imagine why the TM might have demurred. Really, we've got to be talking about more than the negligible potential damage of a single camera flash/rug. That can't be the entire reason to prohibit those unable to get to Washington, DC, a look at an exhibit that must have taken a great deal of work to create. That would be ridiculous. Right?

-Jerry-

Copyright comes to mind as one reason the TM and others do not just let images of their resources proliferate willy nilly.
If I remember from several years ago, Chris Alexander had a problem with other manufacturers co-opting his designs and making copies and money from his hard work.
Even though the original makers of antique textiles were unaware of modern copyright laws, the current owners/repositories of potentially valuable material have a need to protect the future value of that material.

I tried to locate a photo of the 12x45 mural that Robert Rauschenberg made for the new Seattle Symphony's Benaroya Hall. There was a lot of concern that the reds would fade, rendering a multi-million dollar artwork worthless. He used a technique of transferring vegetable dyes to metal plates. Articles ad nauseum mentioned his name and the mural but not a photo was to be found.

John Howe's offer to photograph an exhibition would be undoubtedly welcomed by many lovers of the art of weaving, but the respone of the TM may infer more than just a simple "not enough time or interest" attitude.

Patrick Weiler

Regards, Yon

Regards, Yon

This was not a run-of-the-mill exhibition, so it would be a pity not to have a photographic record of it available.

Best regards,

Ken

There was no catalog because I never planned for there to be one. As curatorial work is not my "line of business" it took me perhaps much longer than some to develop my thesis for the exhibition (it sort of started out as "pretty things Sara likes" and evolved into something hopefully more coherent). I also found that when I finally began to work around the central theme that I had opened Pandora's box, and the research should properly have taken me several more years.

One other thing was that I wanted to limit words to as few as possible. For those who visited the exhibit, you will have noted that sometimes there was only one small label for 3 pieces. My goal was to get people to look and do their own interpretation.

I can't comment of why John's offer was not taken up, because that's not within my area of decision-making. I will point out some problems that any museum has when it uses pieces that are not from its collection: every loan comes to the museum under strictly written contracts. We are often quite constrained in how we can display and document loaned objects. This goes back to the issue of why photography is not allowed in the gallery.

I believe that another point (with which you may strongly disagree) is that the museum wants to be able to control the manner of presentation of its collection and scholarship. While John's photographs and use of the text might have been fine, it would not have been within the Museum's web site, nor would the quality and manner of presentation have been controlled by the Museum.

You wrote, ...another point ... is that the museum wants to ... control the ... presentation of its collection and scholarship. ... John's photographs and use of the text ... would not have been within the Museum's web site, (or) ... controlled by the Museum.

Nobody can argue that the museum does not have the right, indeed the obligation, to make such decisions. On the other hand, our preference was to have the museum do the whole thing on their own site and when they said they couldn't we offered to carry it. My own position was that we would only to carry it a short term basis, since web space is a recurring problem for us. We did not insist putting it on our site, we offered to do so as a service to the TM.

As for control of the presentation, I am sure John would have been happy to have the TM review it before it went public. That is, there is no reason of which I am aware why the whole project could not have been on the TM site and under the control of the TM even if John was donating himself for the heavy lifting.

Steve Price

Wendel Swan has suggested to me on the side that the quality of photographs that an amateur like myself could take of the pieces in Sara's exhibtion might be a legitimate stopper for the idea mentioned above.

I think that might be true but don't think it explains things in this case entirely.

I think that TM photos exist for a large proportion of the pieces in Sara's exhibition. What I proposed could likely also have been done largely on the basis of images the TM has.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Yes, I did say that the quality of the photographs might be one factor in the decision against your idea. Others here have alluded to the same issue in one way or another.

However, anyone who has read all of the posts on this salon should be able to recognize that obstacles to the introduction of new ideas and methods at the Textile Museum are seldom based upon any one factor.

Wendel