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Face value

I'm in a somewhat privileged position. I'm not reliant on exhibition branding to get me into a show (in New Zealand at least). Most of the time, when I see that such-and-such an artist has a show coming up, I either already know their work well, know their work a little, or know the place that they're showing well enough to make a stab at what kind of show it will be.

As a result, I pay little attention to exhibition branding, and it only really sticks out to me if it's particularly attractive, or seems at odds with the show (the title & font used in City Gallery's current 'Ready to Roll', for example, has a kind of Gen X nostalgia that doesn't seem to sit so well with the artists in the show).

I was mulling this over this morning in relation to book covers. The above rule tends to apply to authors whose work I already know. I'll pretty much ignore the cover design (unless it's gorgeous/ugly, and yes, occasionally I'll splurge in the hardback just because I like its looks) because I already have a feel for the content.

But like so many readers, when it comes to unfamiliar authors, the cover and blurb are crucial factors (along with a quick Google for Guardian or LRB reviews). Which is scary if the 0.8 second rule really does apply. Sometimes even a book with a really good reputation will pass me by, because I'm so put off by the cover and blurb.


Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now is a case in point. Here's the blurb from the inside cover flap:

It would be much easier to tell this story if it were all about a chaste and perfect love at an Extreme Time in History. But let's face it ...

Daisy is sent to England from New York to live with her cousin's for a perfect summer.

There are four of them: Osbert, Isaac, Edmond and Piper. Three boys and a girl. And two dogs and a goat.

Daisy has never met anyone like them before. Especially Edmond.

This summer will change her life. It will change the world too.

I've been picking this book up and putting it back down for about 6 months now. Everything about it screamed teenage girl coming of age bittersweet love affair small-but-titillating amount of impropriety country idyll weird relations. It felt like the kind of book Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm still takes the piss out of (with some late-20th-century concerns thrown in).

And it's not. I finished the book on Friday night, then picked it up and read it straight through again. Daisy's voice - like that of Todd in Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go - cuts you to the quick. The irregular writing - muddled tenses, emphatic capitalisations, sprawling sentence structure - makes you aware of the way you're reading, as well as the driving narrative.

Re-reading the book, I was struck by how much Rosoff leaves out. Only weeks after Daisy's arrival England is occupied by an unnamed invader, and social structures rapidly collapse - the family is split up, and the story rapidly moves from one of typical teenage introspection and rather atypical first love, into a desperate fight for survival. But the conflict is described only from Daisy's perspective - and she's not all that interested in the details. Somehow this makes the story more compelling, not less - rather than being an all-knowing narrator, she's a normal person, not altogetherly sure about the whos and the whats and the therefores.

I sometimes think a key to being a great painter is knowing when to walk away from the canvas. How I Live Now made me think of this. Like Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me there's no backfill, no extraneous detail. Just extraordinary writing and a haunting story.

Good times

Because I'm leaving my job, I'm dealing with clearing out years of emails. Trawling through them, my feelings range between bemused, amused, enraged (still), uninterested and, every so often, deeply moved.

One of the last instances was an email exchange with Julian Dashper over this reading list he made for Auckland City Libraries. It remains the only time I have started an email to an artist with the phrase OMG!

Not with a bang

I've been mulling what I want to say about my visit to the Govett-Brewster's 40th anniversary shows for over a week now.

Luckily, David Cross has said some of it for me, in his review of John Reynolds' Nomadology: Loitering with Intent. Reynolds clearly has an important relationship with the Govett, but this show simply felt too big, too repetitive, too much like other work I've seen elsewhere.

The 40th anniversary show contained two other large-scale works from the collection. Pae White's Songbirds is lovely, but also oft-used: it feels like safe, easy curatorial choice. And Don Driver's Elephants for Sale is an odd fish; the installation (which hasn't been exhibited since its first showing in 1986) is a bit trippy and bubbly for my liking - I want my Driver either rigorous and elegant, or grunty and threatening.

On reflection, the word I come up with is 'toothless'. I don't mean it unkindly, really - I guess, with all the history the gallery has to choose from and play with, I feel somewhat let down. The Govett- physically and spiritually located on the edge - seems to have gone down the middle of the road for its big birthday show.

Crazy beautiful

One of the reasons I continue to buy print books - and believe that I will, even when all the ebook readers reach our shores - is simply that I like the way they look on their shelves. And I like walking past my books on my shelves, and thinking about them. I recently read this article about the joys of leaving books unread, and while I wouldn't go quite that far, I do like catching glimpses of books on my shelves that I'm saving for the right moment, or will return to when necessary.

I think that's part of the reason why this (s)lavish recreation of Donald Judd's library appeals to me so much.



Partly it's because yes, the books you acquire and keep over a lifetime of reading and thinking become an aggregate that says something about the person you have become.

And partly it's because someone at the Judd foundation didn't think it was enough to simply catalogue all 10,720 titles. Instead, they thought it was important that we be able to see a shelf-by-shelf, book-by-book facsimile of the two rooms of Judd's library, and the placement of every single item. It's magnificent, and a wee bit insane.

Pick a path

Best of lists always create antagonism (unless the list in question is this year's Turner or Walters prize finalists, both of which have pretty much disappeared without creating a ripple).

These lists of the Best Children's Books Ever by Lucy Mangan for The Guardian certainly raised ire as well as endorsement in the comments section. But debate's part of the fun, right? Why pick Matilda over Danny, Champion of the World (or Boy) - and so on, and so on.

I can't speak for the books for wee kids, but I think the lists for 8-12 and 12 and over are real gems. I particularly like the way recent books (Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy, for example) are mixed with the often-snobbishly-overlooked (come on, what girl didn't feel secretly relieved upon reading Are you there God? It's me, Margaret) and the classics - The Borrowers, I Capture the Castle.

Sure, if I were including a saccharine morality tale for girls I might have gone for A Little Princess over Little Women (only because I still resent Jo's decision - why, Jo? For the love of god, WHY?) . I would have liked to see either Ursula Le Guin or Madeleine L'Engle in there. And naturally, I'm pissed that The Sword in the Stone - hands down best children's book ever - doesn't feature. But nonetheless, you should check the lists out.

Let them down easy

Or, if you prefer a Human League earworm with your internet browsing ... don't you want me baby? don't you want me ooooo-oooooh?

A WSJ article about when and how museums say 'no' to donations has some interesting numbers:

13: the number of works Cleveland Museum of Art has returned to Italy because their provenance has been questionable. Solid histories of ownership, especially around antiquities and works that have come from Europe in the Second World War period, are an important consideration for potential donations.

1/3: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' estimated turn-down rate

9/10: Houston Museum of Fine Arts' estimated turn-down rate

3: number of years an institution must hold a 'commodity' (an item that is donated but not accessioned into the collection) to qualify as a tax-deductible donation from the IRS after its sale

The article also gives some examples of the need to be very clear when rejecting offers:

In the mid-1970s, a Florida resident contacted a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, offering to sell a purported Rembrandt. The curator, who knew the picture wasn't by that artist, gently declined the opportunity to buy "the painting by Rembrandt." The curator was unaware that the work's owner would use her words to proclaim that the painting must be authentic. For years, she found herself explaining to one Rembrandt expert or another what she had meant.

On the same day I saw this article, I saw a response by Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar to a Jonathan Jones column on museums' declining purchasing power. Deuchar cited a recent Art Fund survey of museums and galleries in which 75% of respondents cited a lack of funding as the main barrier to collecting, and only 2% saw acquiring new work as a top priority. Deuchar made an interesting point:

Take away acquisitions and you take away one of a curator's reasons for living. So as budgets are pinched, curatorial jobs are inevitably coming under threat. And once expert knowledge starts to ebb away, it won't only be that museums can't afford to buy great works of art; they simply won't know how to.

I'm curious about how curators learn to approach buying for a collection - which is, I think, a very distinct task from selecting works for an exhibition or putting together a book.

It seems to me that building a collection requires more than just cash. It requires curators with vision, skill and deep knowledge, and an organisation that gives these curators time to mull decisions slowly, and licence to make decisions swiftly.

Collection building is a deeply strategic activity that requires the balancing of current and potential future needs, opportunism and careful planning. It requires a deep understanding of the existing collection and how and why it has been built, and a vision of how it will continue to grow. It needs a mixture of pragmatism (will it physically last? do we have a wall big enough to hang it? how much of this year's budget will this leave? would anyone chip in to help us pay for it?) and connoisseurship (what's its wall appeal? how will it fit in? is it the best of its kind? does it need to be - or is it making another point?). And it needs people who know how to bid fearlessly, negotiate tenaciously, network assiduously, and charm in a meaningful way. It seems to me that these are skills that need to be learned, and I wonder if New Zealand provides enough opportunities for this learning to happen?

Acknowledgement (for Paul Reynolds)

Paul Reynolds - advocate, champion, gadfly, orator, pot-stirrer, asker of hard questions, master story-teller - died yesterday.

Many others will be putting together tributes over the coming days; Russell Brown (and see the discussion), Graham Beattie, Katherine Greenhill and Don Christie have all already posted.

As people are noting, as well as being a general advocate for the glories of the web - in particular as a commentator on Radio New Zealand and in other forums - Paul has been a special friend to New Zealand's libraries, archives, galleries and museums. Through McGovern Online he and partner Helen have worked professionally with many organisations, and Paul has criss-crossed the country delivering workshops and lectures, urging us all to open up and embrace the world through the web.

I've got to know Paul over the past few years of working on the web at the National Library, most closely in terms of working with him on the annual National Digital Forum conference, and most recently on joining the NDF Board, of which he is also a member. We've certainly locked horns at times - my practical, pragmatic approach running up against his visionary, hell for leather, shoulda-happened-yesterday stance. But Paul made me realise that every endeavour needs a range of people behind it, and every organisation needs someone to push it forward.

It's comforting to reflect on a miserable day like today just how deeply Paul's spirit is embedded in the thoughts and actions of those who work in New Zealand's cultural institutions, particularly in the technology, digital and web arms. I expect 'What Would Paul Say?' will become a well-worn refrain in gatherings where we're trying to thrash out the best ways to not only get New Zealand's culture online, but to get more people into New Zealand's culture.

"I don't know what the story is", he roared in the last meeting I attended with him. "You need to tell me a story!" So I told him a story; a story about dusty books on dark shelves that were full of treasure and wonder, but languishing unknown, which - with a little money and a little effort and a little good will - we could rescue, and release out into the world where they could become useful and marvellous again. And he said thank you, and threw himself behind the idea. So that's what I'll remember, and take into the world with me - the need to tell stories, to excite people, to bring power to your ideas.

Count down

Often at conferences I hear people say 'We have [X number] of seconds to grab people's attention before they walk on to the next picture / label / interactive".

The number of seconds that seems to be most frequently cited is 6. Or maybe 8. My memory is a bit shonky. But surely it's not 27.2, which is the mean number of seconds according to this study.

I thought of this figure today when reading this article about the genericitisation* book cover design, in which bookseller Jonathan Ruppin asserts that "on average, book buyers spend just 0.8 seconds looking at a jacket ". Yikes.

The article, which discusses the growing power large retailers have over book cover design, details several interesting examples of changes made to cover designs in response to requests from chain stores. It called to mind an article from a few weeks ago, about the rather odd things that happen when book covers are redesigned for international markets (my pet peeve - the gorgeous, restrained English version of Alex Ross's The rest is noise, and the meh American version).


*Genericitisation - the process of things of becoming samey. Similar to 'gentrification'. You heard it here first.

Search and serendipity

The sting in the tail of all the work art institutions have been doing to digitise their collections is that the more stuff you have, the harder it is to find any single thing.

To my mind, collection sites have two core needs:

1. Search

This is for the people who know what they want, and want to get to it fast. Academic and professional image researchers may benefit from advanced search options. Experienced searchers might use filters, or other tools that allow them to expand and limit their searches easily (say by date, region, maker, materials, subject matter). It's also good to cater for people who get their search terms nearly-but-not-quite right (collin mcahon) with fuzzy search or suggested search options.

One of my favourite solutions to the search-right-now demand is the IMA's mega-menus: from absolutely any page on the site you can start a new collection search, but because the tool is tucked away in the site navigation, it doesn't have to be visually present on every page.



This blog post by the IMA's Charlie Moad explains the tools that have been put in place for collection searchers

2. Serendipity

This is for the people who want to know what you have, but don't know where to start. A search box is scary if your question is "what is there?".

Yesterday LACMA's Tom Drury blogged about findings from a survey of website visitors. People said they LACMA should let images rule the website (rather than the more proasaic info, like opening hours, that LACMA expected).

As a result, LACMA have introduced two new collection display techniques.

First up, collection splash pages - like this one for photography - provide entry points to works, blog posts, exhibitions and events related to different collection areas.



Second, a new collection homepage (in Flash) based on the idea of remixing. Clicking on an item in a tag cloud opens up three works grouped according to a word or short phrase.




The initial sets are been curated by staff, although visitors have been invited to email suggested sets in. Although the first thought I had was that this should work more like Flickr's galleries - with people being able to sign up and create their own groups for sharing or personal reference - on reflection I actually like the very lightweight implementation.

Getting them through the doors

Today Will Cary tweeted about LACMA's Project Membership - an effort to sign up 10,000 new members within 10 weeks. Prizes for joining include a trip to Hawaii!*

In the tab next to Project Membership I had a NYT article open that I had clicked through to from ArtsJournal. Titled 'Giving Museumgoers What They Want', Carol Kino's article is about the revamp of the Oakland Museum's exhibition spaces.

According to the article, director Lori Fogarty saw the renovations as “a huge opportunity to rethink how we’re engaging the community.” Community engagement is obviously embedded in the museum - from the numerous advisory councils to welcoming people to invite museum staff to their events.**

What I found just as interesting were the details about the changes made to the galleries after extensive visitor research. For example, individual wall labels had been done away with when the museum opened 40 years ago, but asking visitors now revealed people wanted to read stuff - as long as it was interesting. So more labels have been added, "some with background information, others with more personal observations by conservators, scholars, local artists and writers, all of which are signed."

Another aspect of the redevelopment which I really admire is the decision to focus on providing faster-moving exhibitions and collection installations for the local community, rather than long-lived exhibitions for the tourist market:

Part of the plan Ms. McLean and the museum staff devised involved creating exhibits that could be modified easily. Unlike San Francisco and New York, “we’re not a tourist destination,” Ms. Fogarty said. “We need to have our local community come back, so our big challenge is to have people see that there’s something different every time.”

In the history galleries, that means presenting the objects and environments on inexpensive plywood stage sets that can be broken down quickly and redesigned. In the art collection galleries, it means ensuring that the work and the wall texts change frequently.

*Ironic use of exclamation mark. Museum membership should surely feel a bit more special than joining up for a discount card - unless that's basically what your membership offer consists of.

** This page has a nice touch - listing areas that the museum can provide expert speakers and commentators on - smart media move.

Concrete modernism

Back near the beginning of the century, when I was researching for my Masters thesis, I spent many happy hours poring over issues of Home and Building, which regularly featured articles on the visual arts alongside advice on soggy lawns, home furnishings, and knitting patterns.

Peter Tomory, the subject of my thesis (and director of the Auckland Art Gallery from 1956 to 1965) wrote a number of pieces for the journal, including a brave self-assessment of the Gallery's ambitious 1961 exhibition 'Painting in the Pacific'.

While I dutifully sifted through boxes and boxes of back issues looking for relevant articles, it was the covers and the advertisements that kept me going. This was when I first noticed the strong connection between smoking and modernism - a casually held cigarette seemed essential for selling everything from linoleum to copper piping.

Home and Building resurfaced in my visual memory a wee while ago, when I spotted this post about Concrete Quarterly by Aegir Hallmundur on his blog Minstry of Type (a must for design-related goodness).



The exquisite covers immediately brought Home and Building to mind. Concrete Quarterly has been in production since 1947, and is still being published - you can download the back issues as PDFs.



Home and Building was published between 1937 and 1998. The redoubtable New Zealand Electronic Text Centre has digitised a small number of back issues in a test project in collaboration with the Architecture and Design Library at Victoria University of Wellington. The NZETC has also digitised the Architectural Centre's Design Review from 1948 to 1954. Happy scanning.