Last Wednesday, prior to attending the press preview at AIPAD, I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Dr. Patrick Amsellem, the Associate Curator of Photography at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, NY.
Dr. Amsellem joined the museum in 2007 and during the fall of that year he organized his first exhibition of photographs at the museum, titled Goodbye Coney Island? This was followed by Romantic Delusions, an exhibition of short-film work by Danish artist Jesper Just, which was held from September 19, 2008 until January 4, 2009. Patrick is also the co-curator of 21: Selections of Contemporary Art from the Brooklyn Museum, a long-term rotating installation.
Prior to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Dr. Amsellem was a curator at the Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmö, Sweden, where he organized the first Swedish exhibition of the work of Andreas Gursky and was a part of the curatorial team that produced a major series of exhibitions under the leadership of Lars Nittve. He has written extensively about art for Sweden’s major newspapers and Swedish Public Radio.
Dr. Amsellem has also taught at New York University, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History and Architectural History from the Institute of Fine Arts.
As much of your academic work has focused on the history of art, what can you tell us about the history of photography at the Brooklyn Museum?
The museum currently holds over 7,000 photography prints in its archives. The collection began in early 1890s and was primarily used in the museum’s educational efforts. In fact, a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement, Clarence Hudson White, taught at the museum, in addition to his duties as a renowned instructor at Columbia University.
From the 1910s through the 30s, the museum’s collection primarily focused on pictorialist photography, which was in vogue at the time. The collection continued to grow until the 1950s when there was a sudden change of heart and the museum decided to stop acquiring photographs. Thus, from the 1950s until the 1970s photography was not collected at all. Not until my predecessor Barbara Millstein started collecting in the 1970s did the Museum pick up the thread. The collection as it stands today is eclectic and very much reflects Barbara’s interests in black and white documentary-style photography. But the material is much richer than that. We do have certain gaps and if we can find the means to fill them, it would certainly be fantastic. In the meantime, there are other collections in the area, such as MoMA’s and Met’s, which represent a more complete view of the history of photography.
So, what need can the museum fill?
Well, we are looking to increase and enrich our collections by working closely with collectors and supporters of the museum. This can be a great way to complement the historical material. In terms of active purchases we are acquiring more work from contemporary, 21st century, artists and photographers. With limited resources, this is where we can make a difference right now.
I’ve noticed that you post blogs, you’ve incorporated film for the first time into an exhibition at the museum, you hobnob with amateur photogs on popular websites like flickr, you host contests like the 2007 Brooklyn Museum Video Competition— is this the new museum curator of the 21st Century?
The Brooklyn Museum has had a long tradition of engaging the community. To a certain degree the Museum can work as an educational institution and we receive a huge number of school groups, of all ages, every year, as well as adult groups. It is important to keep up with the times and to use current technology whenever possible to communicate and connect with our various constituencies.
Also, as much as I have been involved in all those endeavors, I have to give a lot of credit to our education department, as well as Shelley Bernstein, our Chief of Technology. Since 1999 Shelley has worked to further the Museum's community-oriented mission through projects including free public wireless access, podcast subscription feeds, cell phone tours and handheld PDAs. She is also the initiator and current administrator of the Museum's web initiatives on MySpace, Facebook, Flickr , YouTube, and Twitter. In fact, she’s been so successful that she’s been lecturing all over the world about her efforts in this realm.
As you know AIPAD begins today and lasts through the weekend, and I’ve spoken with a lot of fine art photography dealers lately who tell me that the downturn of the economy has turned the focus of sales back to the more classic, vintage, one-of-a-kind prints. How does a museum like yours deal with assessing the value of traditional vs. contemporary work, especially now that we have entered the age of digital reproduction, multiples and where many artists are embracing the technology?
We acknowledge that few photographers work in the dark room anymore. And photographers and artists often scan their negatives and print using current technology, which is only getting better and better. From a conservation point of view, a digital print is often considered more archival than a traditional.
Moreover, and more importantly, I am primarily interested in the ideas that a work of art communicate. The Museum has a long history of dealing with work that on some level engages with social issues, often related to race and gender, and we are continuously looking for extraordinary art that can relate to other parts of the Museum’s collection as well as transform the collection and resonate with visitors.
You recently curated an exhibition of short-flim work by Danish artist Jesper Just, called Romantic Delusions.
It marked the first time an all-film exhibition was presented at the Brooklyn Museum. Has video killed the photography star?
No, I don’t feel that photography, video and film compete. They each evoke a different experience for the viewer.
One reason we brought the moving image into the Museum is because I wanted to do something new, something that had never been presented here before.
When I first saw Jesper Just’s work in 2004 at a gallery in Chelsea I felt it was really well made and very different from what I usually see – I wanted to share it with others. The strong reactions we received from visitors confirmed that it was the right choice.
Besides, I feel that my job title doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. As you pointed out in your interview with In Sook Kim, many artists who use photography today don’t consider themselves ‘photographers.’ Rather, they are ready to use whatever medium they find fit—whether it be photography, film or video or some innovative combination thereof—to express themselves.
For example, the museum has a piece by Rashid Johnson from his series Chickenbones and Watermelon Seeds: The African American Experience as Abstract Art, where he exploits stereotypes surrounding African-American food culture. To create the work he places things like watermelon seeds, black-eyed peas, chicken bones, and cotton seeds directly onto photographic paper, which he then exposes to light using an iron-reactive process.
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