Mmm..schmaltz.
I went through the box of CDs at work today. The Center has probably been collecting them for years. There aren't just CDs in there but also JAZ disks (remember JAZ disks? And how we thought they had so much storage space?)- and other media that we can't read and will be a pain to transfer to something digital. My job is to save the images in the appropriate artist's file. Open, select, save, file hard copy. Repeat.
I recognize the names of some of the artists, but it doesn't really matter because in the end I see everything. Artists fresh out of school, painters hanging onto the coattails of Zionist modernism, up-and-comers, romanticists, nostalgiaists and existentialists, artists with their eye on some far-off cultural center, nationalists of every stripe and lots and lots (considering the media) of videoart. I feel kind of greedy and kind of like a voyeur- I sneer a bit at some of the art and wonder what my former professors would think if they knew I was handling their work. Of course, the CDs that I see aren't the actual art (with the exception of videoart), but they represent enormous time, effort and thought. Years and years of work, condensed into a rather small cardboard box. Every CD representing, by the way, a wish on the part of the artist to show in the museum. "Dear Sir," start the accompanying letters, "Please find enclosed my CV and presentation of works. If you would be so kind as to.." It's like a box of cooked-down ambition drippings.
(And I kinda want to file images in the wrong place, just to fuck with them)
I recognize the names of some of the artists, but it doesn't really matter because in the end I see everything. Artists fresh out of school, painters hanging onto the coattails of Zionist modernism, up-and-comers, romanticists, nostalgiaists and existentialists, artists with their eye on some far-off cultural center, nationalists of every stripe and lots and lots (considering the media) of videoart. I feel kind of greedy and kind of like a voyeur- I sneer a bit at some of the art and wonder what my former professors would think if they knew I was handling their work. Of course, the CDs that I see aren't the actual art (with the exception of videoart), but they represent enormous time, effort and thought. Years and years of work, condensed into a rather small cardboard box. Every CD representing, by the way, a wish on the part of the artist to show in the museum. "Dear Sir," start the accompanying letters, "Please find enclosed my CV and presentation of works. If you would be so kind as to.." It's like a box of cooked-down ambition drippings.
(And I kinda want to file images in the wrong place, just to fuck with them)