Storage, Display, and the Museum’s Unconscious

Event time: 
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 5:15pm
Event description: 

What can one learn about a museum based on how its collection is stored and categorized? Contemporary artist Fred Wilson describes storage as the museum’s “unconscious,” a site where one can observe the cultural and institutional values and prejudices that inform curatorial decisions and display practices. The Yale University Art Gallery makes its storage accessible: located on Yale’s West Campus, the Wurtele Study Center is the Gallery’s state-of-the-art research and pedagogical open study-storage site that holds over 42,000 objects. Roksana Filipowska, the Programs and Outreach Manager of the Wurtele Study Center, will offer a virtual tour of this hybrid museum space and lead a discussion on the politics of collection management. In addition to the virtual tour, participants will focus on a case study of one artwork in the Center to consider how they would design its storage and display.