Kate Weinstein
Electronic Media Review, Volume Seven: 2021-2022
ABSTRACT
The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation has a Digital & Media Art collection of 304 time-based media (TBM) artworks and counting. Of these, 148 works integrate software or video. Drawing from the extensive resources provided by larger institutions with existing registration and preservation strategies, as well as our close relationships with TBM dealers and artists, we’ve adapted many policy and procedure best practices to better suit our smaller staff, quicker timelines for acquisitions, exhibitions, and loans, and entrepreneurial spirit towards collecting and preservation collaboration.
The Thoma Foundation averages 30 TBM artwork acquisitions a year. With a small staff (and without any conservators on staff), it falls upon only a few people to process each acquisition from registration, testing and inspection to installation and preservation planning (e.g. creating archival & managed copies, verifying checksums, etc.). Beyond our active acquisition program, we also proactively lend our collection to museums throughout the United States, both as individual loans and as packaged exhibitions. Many of our borrowers do not have their own time-based media collections nor their own TBM conservator to oversee the exhibition planning, installation and maintenance while on loan.
This presentation outlines the decision-making process and preventative conservation progress we’ve made at the Foundation for our fast-growing TBM collection as well as our experience implementing internal standards while collaborating with our network of dealers, artists, artist studios, and freelance art handlers, technicians, and conservators. Over the last four years, we’ve overhauled our documentation policies and procedures, staffing, databases, servers, and physical spaces for inspection. From top to bottom, we’ve completely reimagined our pre-acquisition, acquisition, post-acquisition, loan, exhibition, storage and shipping procedures to better document, preserve, and care for these artworks.
From processing acquisitions in a timely manner to translating our learned best practices for institutions that don’t “speak” TBM, this presentation also expands on our internal learning curve and outlines not only the policies we’ve implemented, but also those we’ve discarded or have had to rethink as our planned procedures didn’t meet real-world needs.
AUTHOR
Kate Weinstein
Collections Manager & Registrar
Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation
Chicago, IL, USA