Oscar Palacio + Light Work

One of the benefits to the museum being closed is that the Addison’s curatorial staff has had more time to pursue “outside” projects from serving as guest jurors, to presenting lectures, to writing articles for various art publications. An example of the latter is an essay in the current Light Work Annual (Contact Sheet No. 152) by curator Allison Kemmerer about new work by Oscar Palacio. Palacio was an Edward E. Elson artist-in-residence at the Addison in 2005. His new series of photographs, some of which were created while an artist-in-residence at Light Work in 2008, focuses on national monuments and historic sites and what they say—or don’t say—about American history and our national identity. In her essay, Kemmerer wrote:

“These photographs suggest that history is an ongoing dialogue between past and present, between traditional interpretations of events and the emergence of alternative perspectives, between the keepers of the eternal flame and those who wonder what other fires are burning underground, just outside the frame.”

To view other works by Palacio, check out the photographs in the Addison's collection, like Grass Over Asphalt of 2002 [illustrated] and the artist’s website at: http://www.oscarpalacio.net/.


Posted by Jaime DeSimone
Charles H. Sawyer Curatorial Fellow

The Accession Log

One of the projects I've taken on in my "spare time," if such a concept exists in any museum environment, is to study our Accession Log and compare it to the information in our collections database.

The Accession Log is a list that tracks the objects we have formally accepted into the collection. As each object was acquired for the museum, it was entered into the log. It exists as a stack of typewritten sheets of paper held together in a felt-covered loose-leaf binder. It has that glorious scent of age that is sweet to any Registrar's senses. It was maintained at the Addison from 1928, when we started acquiring objects for the future "Addison Gallery of Art," through 1977. After that, different methods were used to track our newly acquired objects, cumulating, nowadays, in our computerized collections database, a version of which is accessible to the public on our website.

By comparing the log to the object records on our database, I've been happily able to rectify many of our inventory anomalies. It has also been interesting to see the changes in our collecting practices over the years. Early on, paintings and drawings by older, established American artists took precedence. As time went on, prints and photography, many by young, relatively unknown artists (at the time) became more prevalent. Nowadays, our collecting embraces all American artists and media, from oil on canvas to conceptual to digital media.

We still do maintain a paper record of our objects as they are acquired into the collection. I print out a list from the database after every Trustees Meeting, no longer requiring the loose-leaf and typewriter of old. I wonder, though, how future Registrars will be tracking their objects?


James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives