Collector’s Item
A magazine by Melvin Moti
Magazine launch: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 4pm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
280 The Fenway, Boston, MA
Hours: Wed–Mon, 11–5pm; Thurs until 9pm; Closed Tues
On Wednesday, August 15, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will host a magazine launch of Collector‘s Item, a publication by Dutch artist Melvin Moti, an Artist-in-Residence at the Museum in 2010. This one-off magazine was conceptualized and designed by Melvin Moti, with additional contributions by artists Runa Islam and Douglas Ross.
Moti believes that collectors such as Isabella Stewart Gardner make collectors out of all of us. He says:
“We are looking through the eyes of the collector when we follow the very spontaneous yet sensitive connections between all the collected objects. The collector is materialized through the visitor, who becomes another component of the scripted orchestration of the collection.”
The magazine includes texts, drawings, and photography by the three artists, and investigates the extent to which the Gardner Museum’s conceptual approach can be found in other museums. Douglas Ross points to the very dominant presence of the collector and complex instructions for displaying the collection, as characteristics shared by the Gardner Museum and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The unusual transformation from a private collection to a public museum is the central focus of Runa Islam’s project on the Sir John Soane Museum in London.
Runa Islam lives and works in London.
Douglas Ross lives and works in New York City.
Melvin Moti lives and works in Rotterdam and Berlin.
Additionally, Moti’s film No Show (2004) will be on view from August 15–22 in the Gardner Museum’s exhibition Magic Moments: The Screen and The Eye, featuring films by nine Artists-in-Residence.
Purchasing information
Collector‘s Item is available in very limited quantities. For more information or to purchase a copy, please write to us at contemporary@isgm.org.
Organized by
Pieranna Cavalchini, Curator of Contemporary Art, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Media contact
Michael Busack: T 1 617 278 5107 / mbusack [at] isgm.org
This project is made possible in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
