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Collecting& the Meaning

of Forever

Long Term Thinking about Collections

Stewardship

Western Museums Association Annual Conference

27 October 2015

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Museum Wormianum, Denmark

Tribuna of the Uffizi, Zoffany

Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

National Museum of Ireland ornithology collections

Broad Museum, Los Angeles

Minnesota Historical Society Archives, St Paul

Smithsonian Museum Support Center, Suitland MD

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“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”

ICOM Statutes, 21st General Conference, Vienna 2007.

“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”

ICOM Statutes, 21st General Conference, Vienna 2007.

“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”

ICOM Statutes, 21st General Conference, Vienna 2007.

“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”

ICOM Statutes, 21st General Conference, Vienna 2007.

Given museums’ imperative to collect, what does it mean to make that commitment in perpetuity?

How can museums creatively address the tension between collecting/conserving materialand maximizing its public value over time?

Jill SterrettSFMoMA

• Nine museum collections in Glasgow

• Millions of objects

• 15,000 visitors each year

Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

More than acres of screens…

…curated screens

“the delirium of storage”

In the new SFMOMA, physical

working spaces have been

conceived and designed to reflect,

affirm, and advance the

collaborative practices by which

museums learn—staging,

documenting, researching, and

conserving.

A gallery in the middle of the vault

Collection study days > 50

Dan Flavin study day

Testing a Robert Rauschenberg display

Robert Motherwell during conservation treatment

Ellsworth Kelly roundtable

High-tech product design

study day

June 30, 2015

Curatorial

Collections

Content Strategy

Exhibitions

Artists collaborations > 15

Doug Hall

Richard Misrach

Julia Scher

Janet Delaney

StudentsTeachers > 800 guestsScholars

SFUSD teachers

The Library and Archives

SFMOMA COLLECTIONS CENTER

Close-looking

Artist collaborations

RoundtablesArtist Julia Scher in residence July 2014

Ellsworth Kelly study day October 2014

Gallery lighting session October 2013

Classes

Display experiments

Ted GreenbergMuseum Consultant | www.tagyourart.com

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Broad Museum, Los Angeles

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ResourcesCalifornia Association of Museums. Foresight Research Report: Collections and Assets in Museums.

Holden, John. Capturing Cultural Value. London: Demos, 2008.www.demos.co.uk/files/CapturingCulturalValue.pdf

Keene, Suzanne, ed. Collections for People: Museums’ Stored Collections as a Public Resource. London: UCL Institute of Archaeology, 2008.http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/13886/1/13886.pdf

Lord, Barry. “The Life of Collections and the Cost of Keeping Them.” In The Manual of Museum Planning. Ed. Barry Lord, Gail Dexter Lord, and Lindsay Martin, 246-250. Lanham, Maryland: Alta Mira Pres, 2012.

Merriman, Nick. “Museum Collections and Sustainability.” Cultural Trends 17 (2008): 3-21.http://www.museumsassociation.org/asset_arena/0/27/16720/v0_master.doc

National Museum Directors Conference. Too Much Stuff: Disposals from Museums. London, 2003. http://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/media/documents/publications/too_much_stuff.pdf

O’Hagan, John. “Art Museums: Collections, Deaccessioning and Donations.” Journal of Cultural Economics 22 (1998): 197-207.

Thank you!