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These artists have been beleaguering us and asking for additions/changes to our records in ways that are so outrageous, any discussion with them winds up unavoidably being a debate about cataloging. –a debate we always seem to lose. They are never satisfied. At times I’ve felt that we have been the victims of a practical joke, a hoax, or a performance piece. All may be partially or completely true. I recommend caution.

I agree with Lynda; we should not accede to wishes for editorial changes in these cases (except, if we happen to discover true errors). Just because their names do not appear prominently in a particular catalog and consequently don’t deserve mention in cataloging records is no reason to highlight their contributions. We are not their private publicity agents! Our legal and ethical responsibilities regarding cataloging relate to accessibility our collections to the public. And the reason so much of our procedures as catalogers involve transcribing information is because, like journalists, we are reporting what we find. If we’ve got a catalog featuring the work of 50 artists we’re not going to mention 2 at the expense of the other 48! That would be a error in the extreme.

Yes, there are examples when we have responded to authors/artists who tell us that their names are misspelled or their birthdates are incorrect. We have made the corrections. We have even occasionally created new authority records (thanks to Sherman Clarke) to clear up discrepancies between persons with similar names, etc. But what’s going on here is reprehensible and deserves our collective rebuke.

(ask me if I’m worked up about this. I haven’t posted to the list in quite a long time)

Sincerely,

Daniel Fermon
Museum of Modern Art Library
Associate Librarian/Cataloguing
11 W. 53rd St.
New York, N.Y. 10019
212 708-9434

From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lynda Bunting
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 1:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] Fw: [ARLIS-L] cataloging question - dealing with living artists

Hi Daniel,

Now that I work at a commercial gallery, perhaps I can shed some light (or muddy the waters!). Most galleries have the best intentions to create a good exhibition and catalog, beyond the sales aspects. They exist for the art and artists and want to make them happy.

However, when I started working at the gallery, the biographical information was out of date and poorly formatted for many of the artists. The owners would like to be current, really and truly. It is now my job to do so, and I've been slowly editing them. However, when you're installing a large sculpture exhibition with a very short turn around time, or worrying about getting artwork to a fair, or preparing images for a major press inquiry, sometimes archival work takes a back seat for a few days. I'm now the project coordinator for our upcoming Zhang Huan catalog and am making every effort to ensure the biographical information is correct. Many galleries want to produce catalogs and do so, but don't have the man power to comb through the artist's CV.

Sometimes there are also a lot of politics between the artist and the gallery. I can see an artist getting mad at a gallery and disowning their previously affiliation. And, they also might kiss and make up.

I feel really uncomfortable with what these artists are attempting to dictate. At the very least, the catalogs have images and checklists, correct? These are the most two valuable pieces of a catalog. (Who reads the text anyway? Ouch, bad Lynda!) Every single museum curator knows biographies produced at galleries are suspect and need more extensive research, but are good starting points. The information about the artwork itself for captions and the checklist was probably received from their loan source (another gallery or lender?) and checked once it arrived. I would wager the artwork information is probably more accurate than biographical matter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these artists seem to be asking you to deaccession these two catalogs or delete the records? If I were you, I would look at the books and ask yourself if they have decent images and checklists. If yes, keep them and don't change the bibliographic record at all. If not, then get rid of them. Let's face it, if we librarians started worrying about what is or is not factually correct in a book, we would start deaccessioning a large chunk of our collections, and many gallery catalogs would be first on the chopping block.

One more thing, are these artists sending random letters to various museum libraries with this request or do they have curatorial support from your institution? If they sent a letter directly to you, feel free to ignore. If they contacted your curators, show them the catalogs and ask them to decide if they are useful or not.

I hope this help. My very best wishes to you,

Lynda

Lynda Bunting
BLUM & POE
2727 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
T 310.836.2062 F 310.836.2104
www.blumandpoe.com
[log in to unmask]

--- On Thu, 6/2/11, Starr, Daniel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Starr, Daniel <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [ARLIS-L] cataloging question - dealing with living artists
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, June 2, 2011, 6:02 AM

We, and a number of other libraries I believe, have been asked to change our cataloging for a number of publications about or including the artists Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. We certainly are willing to correct mistakes and to add information, for example to add their names to records for group shows, but we are not willing to remove information. They specifically ask:

“We asked not to make a link between our name and two gallery catalogues (Rigassi and Eva Poll) because both publications were made without our agreement, works were received not from us and biographical information could not be checked. None of these galleries ever represented us.

These small private galleries without a proper responsibility have made too many mistakes which we cannot endorse as a serous source of information about our art, it creates a confusion taking in account that they are listed as a source in a such great library collection. “

I don’t want to get into a cataloging debate with them, but I’d be willing to add their statements to the bibliographic record. Does anyone have a comment on this approach? If I were to do it, what field would you recommend using?

Thanks,

Daniel

********************************

Daniel Starr

Associate Chief Librarian

Thomas J. Watson Library

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10028

212-650-2582

Daniel

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