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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 However, when I started working at the gallery, the biographical information was out of date and poorly formatted for many of the artists.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 StarrAssociate Chief LibrarianThomas J. Watson LibraryThe Metropolitan Museum of Art1000 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10028 212-650-2582 Daniel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~