Outcomes - Seminar 5
Collections and Collectors

Speakers

• Giselle Eberhard Cotton
• Rebeca San Andres
• June Hill

PRESENTATION TO THE SEMINAR ‘COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS’ BY
GISELLE EBERHARD COTTON, CURATOR, TOMS PAULI FONDATION, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND
ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART, LONDON, FEBRUARY 11TH 2007

Giselle Eberhard Cotton

Thank you very much. I am very happy to have been invited to the UK. Mary mentioned earlier that we have a double name: Toms Pauli, and I’ll very quickly explain the history of it because it’s quite important. What you see on your right  is a 17th century Flemish tapestry "The Creation of the Horse" which was part of the Toms collection. The Toms collection was a series of historical tapestries and embroideries from the 16 to the 19th century collected by an English couple, Reginald and Mary Toms, who settled in Switzerland in 1958. They bought a large country house and they collected tapestry very actively in the 1960's. When Mary Toms died in 1993 she bequeathed everything, the house and the content, to the County. So the county suddenly had a collection that contained 100 monumental textiles and another hundred related pieces.  The State acted intelligently, sold the property and created a foundation to take care of this heritage. And so this is the Toms part of our name. 

Now there comes something more contemporary. Jean Lurçat was a very important,  French artist who revived the world of tapestry after the Second World War and tried to give a new impetus and a new direction to tapestry woven the traditional way.  He was a friend of Pierre Pauli who at the time was curator of the decorative art museum in Lausanne, and both of them decided that they needed an event to show what young artists could do with tapestry.  This is a work by Lurçat  dated 61, representing the four elements.  All the works I’m going to show today are part of our collection except for the very last one.  From 1962 on Lurçat and Pauli worked together to created the Biennales, until Pauli's death. The very first Biennale was devoted to traditional tapestry and two-dimensional works.  But this soon changed.  This is a work by Jagoda Buic dated 71 and  called "A Tribute to Pierre Pauli", who had died of a heart attack just before a jury session in 1970.  After his death, and around his memory, artists created an association to which they donated works.  Sometimes they donated pieces that they had exhibited in the Biennale and sometimes other works as well. This forms the core of our present modern collection. 

This is to show the importance in the 60’s and early 70’s of all the Polish and Romanian artists that exhibited in Lausanne. I think Lausanne was one of the first opportunities for the world to see what was done in countries then beyond the iron curtain.  This is a monumental work by Magdalena Abakanowicz, a very important artist, named "Abakan", dated 67.  The Buic and Abakanowicz works are also important because they show the discovery and use of new materials.  Both of them are made out of sisal.  The eldest of the Polish artist was Maria Laskiewicz who worked on a seried of human related figures.  This one is called The White Lady, dated 1979, and made with addition of carved wooden hands. This was a period where there was lot of creativity coming from these countries and artists were very happy to have the opportunity to exhibit and export their work and to get known outside their own countries which were still very closed. 

Another very important section of our collection is devoted to Swiss artists.  Elsi Giauque was the pioneer and this is a work from 72 called "The Moon" – a work which is made out of four elements placed one after the other with a gap in between so you can see through.  She’s one of the first artists who worked with transparency and avoided the heavy materials that were used in the 60’s by her Polish colleagues.  And she worked with bare exposed warp threads.  This is a work by Moïk Schiele, a pupil of Giauque's, also dated 72, called "Black Column" which works on the same principles. Both Giauque and Schiele have done a series of transparent columns suspended from the ceiling.

Another very important group of artist that appeared in the late 70’s and the 80’s in Lausanne were the first Japanese artists.  This is a work by Naomi Kobayashi dated 79, and this introduces again a different way of working with space.  "Dark of the Valley" is really a floor sculpture, and you must imagine these four elements are quite large. The Biennale was housed in the fine art museum of Lausanne which has huge 19th century exhibition rooms.  And, very rapidly, the jury decided on a minimal size of works for artists to exhibit.  These two factors explain why the works became more and more monumental through the years. The visual impact of it was absolutely wonderful. Naomi Kobayashi’s is a piece made of black monochrome dyed cotton thread, rolled up and glued on a wooden base.  By then already there was a cross between textiles and other media, a lot of pieces were using mixed media.  This a very famous artist from Columbia Olga de Amaral and one of her early 80’s landscapes.  De Amaral is fascinated by  her own South American native tradition. She went back to study the way the Indian wove tapestries in narrow bands and used the same technique.

This is a Rumanian piece by the - at the time - couple of artists Peter and Ritzi Jacobi called "Textile relief". They have since continued their own career separately but they were still working together in 81 and this work shows the integration of their home tradition and country.  It’s made of mixed media, cotton, sisal and goat’s hair woven together. All the elements are rolled up first separately and then tied together. 

By the early 80’s, there was a large discussion about whether the Lausanne International Tapestry Biennale should keep its name and still use the word tapestry or use something like contemporary art/textile.  The discussion went on many years and it did not settle until 1992 when "contemporary textile art" was finally adopted.  Many artists held on to the word tapestry saying this was a way they could all be grouped together because they worked with textile. 

A work which you might recognise by Lenore Tawney, the American artist who imagined suspended pieces that she called "clouds", made of thousands of threads hanging from the ceiling.  "Columns" by Suellen Glashausser also illustrates the move away from traditional tapestry . In 1984, the theme given for the Biennale was sculpture, so they were no more two dimensional tapestries on the walls of the museum.  This work is made out of  several elements of paper stitched together and set on the floor. We have the original admission files for these works and the artists used to come to Lausanne to set up their own installations themselves.  Sometimes they have left drawings or diagrams and sometimes they haven’t. Sometimes we lend works and the exhibition space is not that big so we can’t fit all the elements.  And I must admit I feel free to play with that and adapt because I know that in most cases the artist would have done the same. 

This is Machiko Agano in 1982 with one of the several works by her in our collection.  This untitled work is made of 15 elements of silk organza that can fill the whole room, and the image shows the way it was hung at the time. Usually we lend only a couple of the elements of this work because nobody has enough space to put up all of them. Another Japanese work from 87 by Kiyomi Iwata, a structure of 49 square boxes in silk organza dyed a beautiful bright orange. I’ve seen her recent work, and she’s still working along the lines of those boxes of silk organza.  Her work is still as beautiful as it was in the 80’s.

Now this is a view of one of the rooms of the 1985 Biennale.  These are works which we don’t own, by Daniel Graffin and Katsuhiro Fujimura. I'll use this slide to widen up the discussion.  The Biennale stopped in1995.  It had attracted a very mixed and varied international audience to Lausanne.  Lausanne by the way had no previous tradition in textile whatsoever.  The Biennale really gave the textile artists huge visibility and it was a source of inspiration for everybody as, funnily enough, it did not attract only the specialists.  I remember personally being a teenager in the 70’s and going to see these exhibitions without having a clue that I would become an art historian myself and one day look at that from another point of view.  I just went for the sheer fun of it, as a lot of other people did. The textile medium made contemporary art seem closer to people, more comprehensible and of an easier access.  This is something I find about textiles which is too often overlooked. 

The Foundation inherited this collection of modern tapestries that was added to the historic tapestry collection a few years later.  The Foundation was officially created in 2000 and I arrived a year later as the first curator for an existing collection that had not been really built with curatorial thoughts behind it, but which was quite comprehensive.  It already contained 50 pieces and there were still other works around.  One of the important effects of such fairs or Biennales is that they are a source of inspiration for artists and also for clients. Because of the Biennale, many firms commissioned works by the artists who were exhibiting there. They did not always buy the pieces that were at the Biennale because of their size.  But the artists sold at personal shows organized by the local galleries at the same time.

This slide shows a huge work by Carol Shaw-Sutton of 87 presently set up in a school.  It’s made of willow branches and painted linen.  It has a beautiful title " Our Bones are Made of Star Dust".  This is a work which fills a whole room and though we are happy that it was entrusted to us, it literally can’t be moved from where it is. So we just hope that the school will keep taking care of it .The previous lecturer was saying how very important storage is.  Well, typically if I had to take down Shaw-Sutton's work I wouldn't know what to do with it.  I discovered in the past four years when we've been hunting round Lausanne to find out traces of the works that were commissioned by local firms that a lot of them had been dismantled. Some had been put aside because they were judged old fashioned and no-one really cared about them any longer.  Works like these are today really endangered. Searching throughout 2001/02, my colleague and I have found many works which had been put in boxes or in crates and left for10 or 20 years, very badly stored. As a result, some of them had sadly to be thrown away. We had to write to the artist when we could find him or her and say we have found your work and we have to throw it away.  There was no way we could get them restored.  That was really a very bitter thought that all those works hadn’t been cared for during all these years.  This is something which we are working on and is still in progress. We are trying to build a repertoire of what’s left in the area in public and private hands.

Another reflection on the impact of the Biennale is the present art market situation. This is a work by a Swiss artist Lissy Funk dated 1977.  She embroidered wall panels which she exhibited in the first Biennales. She stopped exhibiting in Lausanne because of size requirements. When she died 2 years ago, her heirs did their best to exhibit and sell what was left of her works, with mixed success.  They wanted to promote the work of her mother obviously but few people would buy. So what happens in a case like this? Hearing about that, we contacted them and after some discussion they agreed that all the rest of the works by Lissy Funk be given to the Foundation.  This emphasises the fact that there seems to be no art market for textile work of that period.  I very rarely see a textile work in an auction catalogue and few galleries specialize in that field. Thus the works in private collections might get lost because the heirs don’t know what to do with them. In fact, in Lissy Funk's case, the family were happy with the idea of a donation to the Foundation,  because in doing so they were insuring the survival of their mother's work.

The final aspect I want to talk about is the Collectors World.  Of course, parallel to the Biennale a lot of people in the area, people who had money, wanted to buy textile art so there was a whole flourishing business. Many galleries in Lausanne were selling textiles, maybe not exclusively, but at least regularly.  Every time the Biennale came up, many of the galleries would concentrate on textiles and put up personal shows of the artists.  Nowadays there is only one gallery left which deals exclusively with textile artists.  And I fear that when the owners retire there will be nobody left.  All the major galleries have gone back to contemporary art in general. 

Professor Magnenat and his wife started collecting textiles in the 70’s .  They also collected sculpture and paintings, but with a particular eye to textiles.  Their collection goes from mini textiles to large pieces. In their home, there is a whole room devoted to the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz, who grew to be a great friend of theirs, and whom they helped in her career.  This is interesting because these collectors, now in their 80’s, decided last year to donate their entire collection to us. We inherited 78 pieces of textile art from the 70’s and the 80’s. We knew the collectors quite well, their children are not interested in textile art and there is no official institution to take care of textile art.  This lack of public interest and the lack of interest of other fine arts museum in the textile field is something we have to be aware of. 

Now to conclude, a few words about what has happened since the Biennale closing in 95. I won’t go into the details of the many reasons for its closure, as there were political pressures, financial pressures, and different matters that brought the jury into conflict so that finally the municipality of the City of Lausanne declared it had to stop after 33 years. The collectors stopped collecting.  The galleries closed one by one and, of course, the teaching stopped.  As an example, I recently looked through the programme of the Lausanne University of Art & Design which has a very good international reputation.  It offers no teaching in textile art at all.  So there is no interest from the young generation because they’re not exposed to these works.

The Foundation is in a way the spiritual heir to the Biennale not only because we have the collection, but also because we have all the archives.  We saved the archives of 35 years organising the Biennale together with the very specialised library, so that I have in my office more than 8000 artists’ admission files.  So there is and a huge amount of information available to people who want to research. In the next few years, I have planned to save all the colour documentation and build a database of some sort to keep the visual records of the Biennales.

The sad thing about the Foundation is that we have, for the time being, no permanent display space.  We created a website three years ago, and we have offices in Lausanne. We have storerooms for the collection but no display spaces.  So what I do to promote the collection is to make sure that it is known about, that people know that they can come and at least research into archives. We regularly lend pieces, both modern and historic, and we have organised two major exhibitions in France in partnership with the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine in Angers and the Musée Saint-Roch in Issoudun. We have also collaborated with the Italian mini- textile fair in Como and we have projects in other countries, but none in the UK yet. So if you come to Lausanne I can take you out for lunch but not show you the collection, which is always very frustrating But let’s be optimitistic and hope that in the next 10 years we’ll be able to find a solution. What I’m hunting for is space which can be used, maybe not on a permanent basis, but on a semi permanent base at least so that we are able to put up temporary exhibitions again.  Until then, well, go and have a look at our website www.toms-pauli.ch . Thank you for your attention.

Fondation Toms Pauli
2, rue Caroline
CH-1003 Lausanne

Tél. +41 21 329 06 86
Fax +41 21 329 06 87
E-mail : toms-pauli@bluewin.ch

top

PRESENTATION TO THE SEMINAR ‘COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS’ BY
PROFESSOR REBECA SAN ANDRES, FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, NEW YORK
ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART, LONDON, FEBRUARY 11TH 2007

Rebeca San Andres

Start with FIT Entrance slides

I would like to start by saying that I feel honoured to have been invited to be part of this conference. And  many thanks to Lesley Millar for taking me away from my classroom.

Speaking to a friend about this trip couple of days ago, made me realize that this is my second time coming to Europe related to Textiles and FIT. My first trip was in 1981.  I was about to graduate in Fashion Design and I entered a contest offered only to students in the knitting specialization program.  The criteria of the contest was to create your own fabric, design an outfit and produce it all in 3 weeks period. The price of the contest was to represent FIT in “Interstoff “ fabric trade show, and exhibit our own fashion designs.

I am here now as a faculty member to talk to you about: the Textile collection at FIT. The students and faculty use of the collection. The accessibility to the collection other than faculty and students and the dissemination of the collection.

The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology,
Founded in 1967  it is the repository of one of the  world’s largest and most important collections of clothing, textiles and accessories. The museum documents fashion and styles in all level of society. Through exhibitions that both inform and inspire, the museum interprets fashion and design in a broader context. The collection is uniquely accessible and actively used both by FIT students and faculty, as well by textile and fashion designers, merchandisers and forecaster, other industry professionals, fashion writers and historians for the purpose of research and inspiration.

The museum at FIT, is composed of two main galleries, a conservation laboratory, a photographic studio and workshop, offices and classrooms. An additional gallery on the main floor is dedicated solely to FIT student exhibitions.

(While studding at FIT in 1981, I had the privilege to work under the guidance of Betty Kirk in restoring 18th Century costumes and a Mariano Fortuny gowns)

The costume Collection Includes:

• Fashion by designers such as Cristobal Balenciaga, Paul Poiret, Chanel, Comme des Garcons, Halston, Claire McCardell, Issey Miyake, Yves Saint Laurant, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Vivienne Westwood.
• A menswear collection featuring some 2,000 garments ranging from formal to  active-wear, including suits, vests, and uniforms.
• Swimwear, lingerie, outerwear, knitwear, and children’s clothing
• The Halston Archives and Study Room that holds designs, patterns, and related records documenting this important designer’s life work.
  And ,by the way, Halston was also an FIT student.

The Accessories Collection Includes:

•  More than 4,000 pairs of shoes, boots, and sandals, including examples by designers such   as Manolo Blahnik, Salvatore Ferragamo, Herbert  Levine, and Roger Vivier.
• A millinery selection of more than 3,000 hats by famous milliners such as Lilly Dache, Caroline Reboux, and Philip Treacy. There are also examples from Christian Dior, Balenciaga and Jacques Fath.
• Handbags by Hermes, Gucci, Roberta di Camerino, Judith Leiber and Bonnie Cashin for Coach.
• Other accessories such as fans, gloves, belts, hosiery and costume jewellery.

THE TEXTILE COLLECTION INCLUDES:

• 30.000 textiles dating from the fifth Century to the present, including the work of   artist, designers such as William Morris, Salvador Dali, Raoul Duffy, and Junichi Arai.
• Apparel and home furnishing fabrics, laces, embroideries, quilts and shawls
  Over 300.000 textile swatches indexed and grouped thematically for visual reference.
• 1.300 fabric sample books dating from the mid-19th century to the 1960s
  Work on paper, including 14,000 jacquards point papers and painted textiles designs.
• The Francoise de la Renta Color Room, a color archive with vintage forecast material and an extensive palette of fabric samples.
• The J.B, Martin Velvet Room, and archive of hand woven and production velvets spanning a 125- year period.

INDIVIDUAL AND CORPORATE MEMBERSHIPS

To access the textile archives, one has to be a registered member, or a FIT student.
Asides from students and faculty, you can obtain to access to the archives, by becoming a  paying member, and the visits  are assisted,  unassisted depending on the section visited  are rules and regulation to view the collections.

Faculty’s and Students’ use of the Textile Collection.
Faculty members set appointments in advance with the staff at the Textile department to view the materials to be studied by the students, including velvet, color room, swatches, etc.  Some materials are allowed to be handled by the students, while others are not.  The Textile
Educational Associate, shows the students the swatch books dating from the mid 19th-Century to 1960, and familiarizes them with forecast magazines, textiles and non-textile magazine, exposing them to new ways to research materials, and   to think out of the box.

In the show “1945-1969 Women’s hand, - DESIGNING TEXTILES IN AMERICA”,
Several students and faculty members from FIT’s Textile/Surface Design were acknowledged by the Museum at FIT for their contributions to the show for their printed, woven, and knit fabrics for the interior and apparel markets. Students and faculty have a permanent gallery available for their exhibits.

The  student, and faculty of  the Textile/ Surface department were acknowledged by the museum for their contribution for their printed, woven and knitted fabrics for the interior and apparel in the  show:
“ DESIGNING TEXTILES IN America”

As Professor in apparel I bring my students to the costume Institute to both: the costume and the textile department to see the color forecast, and get inspiration from the textiles, since very often the students in fashion re-create the fabrics that they are working on,  and also to analyse  the work of the great master such as Mme Gres,  Mme Vionet, Cappucci, corsettes from the end of the 19th century.

Also  accessible to students is a work program at the Conservation laboratory.  While I was a student I had the good fortune to be an APPRENTICE  under the guidance of Betty Kirk, to restore costumes of the XVIII C. and Mariano Fortuny fashions. Which is a great form to put the student into contact with the living history of textile and fashion.

I show you now in random succession a number of images of Museum exhibitions, which will give you a flavour of the way the displays work.

Exhibitions
The current exhibition at the Fashion and Textile History is :
SHE IS LIKE A RAINBOW,  COLORS IN FASHION

Other exhibitions that have taken place in the gallery are:

• DUCH AT THE EDGE OF DESIGN, in 2005
• EARTHLY DELIGHTS
• THE TAILORS ART
• FASHION

The current exhibition at the Costume Institute is : “THE ART OF WEIGHTLESSNES” by Ralph Rucci

The exhibitions are attended by fashion enthusiasts, students, faculty members, designers, collectors, forecasters, historians, scholars of fashion, etc. Some of the above exhibitions travel to other institutions throughout the U.S.

top

PRESENTATION TO THE SEMINAR ‘COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS’ BY
JUNE HILL, FREELANCE CURATOR AND WRITER
ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART, LONDON FEBRUARY 11TH 2007

June Hill

Debatable Lands

Introduction:

As has been said, my task today is to set the scene a little by exploring the role of the curator and the positioning of textiles within collections.

I intend to do that by considering the role that the curator plays in collecting - outlining some of the frameworks within which they work and illustrating specific points with reference to particular collections.

I think it’s important at the start, however, to define what I mean by curator in all this. Throughout this presentation, I’m using the term Curator to describe someone who has responsibility for a collection that has a corporate function or identity, rather than Curator as a form of artistic or creative director of a specific project.

Positioning of textiles within collections

Throughout the Context & Collaboration discussion we’ve talked about the importance of the context in which material is seen, as a means of ascribing relative value. 

This led to thoughts about the positioning of textiles within museum collections and how that might influence current perceptions of textiles.
This was of particular interest to me, as I’ve been involved in a couple of recent projects that have been surveying textile collections: looking at where such collections are and what they contain.

What’s particularly interesting in these projects, in terms of today’s debate, is the range of curatorial specialism’s in which we find textiles. They include: Decorative Art; Ethnography; Crafts, Social and Industrial History; Science, Technology and Art and Design.
As well as some specific Costume and Textile collections, and what appears to be a more limited representation in art collections.

The other aspect that’s interesting to note in these surveys is, with a few notable exceptions, how little of these collections are often on display. This can be personally frustrating as there’s a natural desire to see the actual object/real thing. But, beyond that, it also raises broader issues of awareness and understanding around the particular material or collection.

How do you know the value or significance of something, or even what exists, if there is no direct contact with it; if it remains unseen?

Now, it’s important to realise that textile collections are not alone in this. It’s generally accepted that at, any one time, 90% of a museums collection are not on public display. It’s something that has been raised by the Museums Association ‘Collections for the Future’ report and it’s a matter of concern generally. (As is the subject of acquisition and continuing to develop collections)

Digitisation is one response to this issue of access to collections, but I don’t want to focus on that today:

The point I want us to explore, is why particular elements are hidden and the role of the curator within this.

If we accept as we’re told that, as a rule of thumb, only 10% of any collection is on display at any one time, then it’s clear that any collection will have hidden elements: that which is overlooked or not seen. Some will be rightfully hidden (as they’re not of display quality/ as something that exists primarily for research or as a collecting mistake). But other material will merit display: so what influences the selection of what is shown and what is hidden?

Key factors include:

• Priorities of governing bodies – What do they see as the key role or collection of the museum. What’s its major discipline or the key elements within that discipline? These are all important in determining parameters.
• Available resources –some items are more resource heavy than others to display. This includes textiles – they pose specific conservation problems and are vulnerable to damage due to long term public exposure. This means there’s a need to balance access and long term care that can mitigate against display
• Cultural trends/fashions in curation – Curatorial directions will change over time, in response to contemporary priorities.
• (For example: Bankfield has had a general textile bias since 1890’s and a concern for establishing local relevance for the collections, but the particular emphasis has changed throughout that time. It initially had a strong ethnographic focus; that changed during the 1940’s when there was a bias towards social history; then from the 1970’s it emphasised crafts/ & cross cultural material; now social history is again becoming a key theme.

It’s the same collection, but with different emphasise over time. That affects both what is displayed and what is collected. And it’s something that will continue. There are cycles in curation.

• Curator – each Curator is an individual with their own specific knowledge; their own ways of looking and their own working practice. This naturally affects how a collection is seen and presented. The same collection will be presented and perceived differently by different curators. Linked to that for textiles, is the added complication we’ve already mentioned, of its spread across a range of different disciplines. This has two effects:
• Firstly: that textile is rarely the dominant medium or focus. Rather, it’s largely seen in relation to something else.
• Secondly: that there is often a concomitant lack of specific knowledge. Curators of particular disciplines can cover large areas of specialism, of which textile is but a part. In depth knowledge therefore naturally tends to focus on one aspect rather than another.

An Example: Quilts – a textile item that appears across the disciplines, including social history, craft, art and ethnography. There’s currently one museum that has a fine collection of quilts and costume. It’s been gathered together over fifty years as part of a Decorative Art Dept within a broader museum collection. And it sits well there. However, curatorial responsibilities at the museum are currently being reassessed and its proposed that the collection becomes the responsibility of the Social History Curator.

It’s the same collection, in the same museum, but the points of reference will change completely. From being seen within the context of the Arts and Crafts, paintings and sculpture, in future the same material will fall within a curatorial remit that includes domestic, social and industrial heritage. It’s a different perspective - a different specialism – and one that will be reflected in the collections development in the future.

Contemporary Collecting

Which brings us to the subject of contemporary collecting. You may expect this to be easy, but it’s probably one of the most difficult areas of collecting for curators - precisely because it is of the moment and it’s often difficult to establish what will be of enduring significance.
And this is important: for its enduring significance that a curator is seeking. Collections exist in perpetuity. In terms of collecting we’re on surer ground with what is known and what is past: because we see it in retrospect and we have greater guidance as to what is, or has, significance. There is a filter of received knowledge. Contemporary collecting is difficult precisely because we often lack those parameters.

Yet, having said that, there is a sense in which all collecting is contemporary.

There are closed collections (Lady Lever Art Gallery) but most extant collections still acquire and all curatorial collecting is of the moment. It’s extremely difficult to extract oneself from contemporary perspectives and pressures – it’s part of the world in which we live and that’s inevitably reflected in patterns of collecting.

What Curators collect is influenced by a range of factors including:

• The existing collection – Few curators start with a blank sheet, nor even consistently coherent collections – remember the point we’ve already covered about fashions in curation– The Curators role is to ensure the continued care and appropriate development of the collection for which they are responsible. Extant collections are the base on which curators build
• Limitations and constraints – (we’ve already referred to some of these, including the organisations aims) Other’s are
  • funding - always a problem for acquisition at all levels of museum collections. Limited purchase budgets can mean collections are often donation dependent. Whilst this is acceptable to a degree for some disciplines (eg social history) it’s a problem for others and it always carries the danger of incomplete representation. 
  • storage/
  • display – As a rule, Curators can only collect material that they can store, display or provide access to – not just now but in the long term. This can be restrictive
• Significance

What curators are looking for above all is what is Significant to them : that is to the collection.

How do we know something is significant? It’s usually a combination of received and acquired Knowledge:

• An external validation that informs us of significance
• And knowledge gained ourselves through personal experience

For a Curator – this combination of received and acquired knowledge will come through working in a field, and from working with their collections. Curators learn from their collections.

And that knowledge, combined with an awareness of past and contemporary culture, affects what they collect. As does their own personality and their ability to work within the constraints within which they operate. Some individuals will be more dynamic in collecting than others.
Now just to illustrate with a few examples:

• This is contemporary collecting – field collecting of ethnographic textiles in Thailand for the Horniman Museum 
• There are a whole group of company textile archives that collect contemporary material as part of the ongoing documentation of the history of company production, as well as the broader field of design.
• The Craft Study Centre at Farnham – a craft based collection that includes material from the 1920’s onwards, with a particular remit for not just collecting finished work but also documenting the research process. The collection also represents work from different phases of practice by specific individual practitioners.
• Snibston Discovery Park– An unusual collection in some ways in that the odds seem stacked against it. Its not favourably positioned: its based in Coalville, (Leics), is set within an interactive Discovery Park with a science theme, and, as with other collections, it has to meet issues of local relevance. Yet, it has one of the largest collections of fashion outside London and it’s particular strength is the fervour of its contemporary collecting. It’s a prime example of the impact a Curator can make by taking the initiative, in an informed way, and working within specific parameters to develop a significant collection.
• It's probably deeply ironic that it’s founded on a collection of foundation garments, but there you go, it is. The Symington Collection of foundation garments produced by the Symington’s Co, makers of the famed Liberty bodice. An important manufacturer and in this instance, given added significance as a historically important local company. 
• Which brings us to NEXT – a contemporary local fashion industry – and Snibston’s policy of controlled collecting that documents the companies production by collecting an example of male and female fashion from each Winter and Summer collection.
• That’s complemented by a focus on broader fashion trends, that includes major designers and streetwear acquired from a range of sources, including eBay. The collection documents major fashion trends and fashion issues through a series of focused exhibitions that provide opportunities to collect and have included Fashion and Football (timed for last years World Cup) and Fashion and Fur developed with an anti-fur group. The collection balances popularity (and popular aesthetics: the mannequins were a response to public consultation) with informed curatorial knowledge and a policy of encouraging access.
• The result is, it has a high visitor response and its also developing and providing access to a significant collection of contemporary material.

Now, these are all examples within known fields.
As Mary Schoeser has written in her paper, Contemporary art textiles is a comparatively new field; say 30-40 years old.

So, if we are growing a field, as has happened with the development of contemporary art textile:

• How does the Curator address this within extant collections- how do they fit it into the parameters within which they work and
• How do they know what is significant? How do they know what is significant - given there may well be a gap between current practice and curatorial knowledge of what exists, especially when the medium crosses so many disciplines and there are perceived problems in exhibiting practice. 
• How do we provide some framework of significance for what has occurred over the past 30-40 years.
• How do we document it to help curators identify significance and how do we engage with what is occurring both now and in the future.

This is the crux of today. Other speakers will outline some initiatives that seek to address this. There are other initiatives too that delegates will no doubt want to raise. These are a few thoughts based on work at Bankfield:

As a curator, I’ve always found exhibitions a valuable means of learning about current practice. There’s always a danger for a curator that knowledge is centred around the collection one is responsible for: that’s natural in that it’s the Curators main focus and there’s always more to learn.  However, I was always grateful for the opportunity given by exhibitions to learn about different but related areas of practice. I found such exhibitions not only increased public awareness of practice, they also increased my curatorial knowledge and that fed back into the collections.

We generated a series of exhibitions at Bankfield based on contemporary practice; several supporting the development of new work, but for this context, I want to focus on a different format. It’s an exhibition we did in collaboration with Michael Brennand-Wood, ‘You are Here’, that covered 20 years of his practice as an artist. It was funded by the Arts Council as part of a broader development programme; took place over three gallery spaces and gave an overview of practice as it evolved over time.
It also drew together a series of collections active within this particular field.

As a result of the exhibition, there are now 4 pieces of work by Michael in the collections at Bankfield. Each reflects different elements of practice: both artistic and curatorial.

• This is ‘Knee High’, a grid work and was one of the start points for the project, as it existed within the collections at Bankfield prior to the exhibition. It came to us though the Contemporary Art Society distribution scheme: a means of placing contemporary practice in collections that might not otherwise benefit from access to such works
• ‘Measure for Measure’: a piece we bought from the exhibition as it had particular resonances with our collection. It was acquired through the Bankfield visitors donations fund – we were always keen that such funds went back into developing the collections for the future
• This is a detail of ‘Field of Centres’ which appeared in the first slide. We had the opportunity to buy this work after the exhibition and were able to do so thanks to support from, what was at the time, the V&A Purchase Grant Fund. It was one of several such acquisitions we made and its representative of similar contemporary purchases the Fund made possible for other collections.  

As well as reflecting a major body of work done by the artist in response to the historic lace collections at the Whitworth Art Gallery, ‘Field of Centres’ also reflects the body of outstanding work done in this field over the past two of decades by the Whitworth itself. It cross references collections.

• Alongside the exhibition, we commissioned a new work by Michael for the permanent collections at Bankfield. This was something we liked to encourage as exhibitions are by their nature transient, yet can absorb a significant amount of resources. Commissioning a piece of work alongside a major exhibition became a way of documenting that project within the collection and also a practical means of resourcing targeted contemporary collecting. This is: ‘Provenance’: a site specific commission that uses the documentation of one of Bankfield’s most important textile collections as a key element in the work. 

And quickly a few illustrations of other collecting done at Bankfield that set the textile collection within the context of other areas of contemporary practice:
 
A handbag made using traditional Shoowa cloth: reflecting the influence of ethnographic textiles within fashion 

A Glass platter by Amy Cushing that references printed textiles

Documentary  photographs taken during the Balkan conflicts in the 1990’s that relate to Bankfield’s major ethnographic collection

To Conclude:

Before the establishment of the English and Scottish borders, the land beyond Hadrian’s Wall was an area of contested ownership. It was known as ‘The Debatable Lands’.
There is a parallel here, in the positioning of textiles within collections– across disciplines and timeframes – and this leads to a question:

Given the Debatable Land of textiles within collections:
Is there a need for contemporary textile practice not to be seen in relation to something else, but rather in relation to itself – as something that has relevance in its own right, with its own terms of reference?

This, of course, links one of the contentious issues within our debate so far:  the relative value of a dedicated space or championing venue for textiles akin to the model presented by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park: This has been argued to and fro:

• Against: Is the concern that such a venue would limit practice within a narrow field of technique/discipline – and debaters have spoken about the value they place on exploring the margins of practice
• The Argument For a dedicated space: is the opportunity for sustained development this could enable by providing greater exposure to work and by moving textile based practice from a margin – where its seen in relation to something else – to a more central role.

There is, of course, the danger of limitation in any dedicated venue. But there remains that model of a championing venue: as a place that’s not so much about material and technique but rather an expression of a state of being;  about a way in which the world is perceived and understood: a place where the focus, be it sculpture or textile, becomes the prism through which we examine and explore the world we inhabit and the basis on which we establish a relationship with all those other disciplines and art forms: with music, literature, theatre and film; with the natural and the built environment.

A place where it’s possible to glory in the margins.

top