Collecting:
“I want to throw things right out the window as
they’re handed to me, but instead I say thank
you…I really do want to save things so that they
can be used again someday.”
--Andy Warhol
This presentation is for educational use only.
All images contained within are subject to copyright and may not be reproduced.
What did you collect when you were
younger?
Brainstorm Web:
Why do we
collect?
What
do we
collect?
Collecting
How do we
keep what we
collect?
What do others collect and why?
Why do Artists Collect?
• Collecting is visual and
cannot really be
explained only shown.
• Collecting provides a
way to organize & reflect
our chaotic world.
•A collection of things
reveals personal and
cultural patterns and
associations.
Detail of Portia Munson’s Pink
Project. This artwork could be
described as her collection of pink
plastic objects that were thrown
away but when you see it the visual
is much more powerful than the
description.
Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules
were a way for him to
organize a myriad of things
over time as well as to reflect
on particular moments such as
the Iran Hostage crisis
featured in these newspapers
collected in 1978.
Biko’s collection of AfricanAmerican memorabilia and
historical documents reveals
many stories about culture
and patterns of racism. Photo
by Jim Judkis.
What is artistic practice?
Andy Warhol in portrait session with unidentified man 1980.
An artist’s practice is fundamentally the
way an artist goes about making.
Andy Warhol with Campbell's Soup Can paintings in his
Lexington Avenue townhouse ca. 1962.
Andy Warhol at work in his studio at 1342
Lexington Ave., December 1962
Artistic practice includes the techniques and
media an artist uses as well as an artist’s
ideas and approach.
Warhol began collecting Hollywood movie star
photographs at the age of 9 in this scrapbook.
Warhol’s early interest
in movies and
Hollywood continued
into adulthood. In the
1960s Andy Warhol
made famous
paintings of movie
stars from publicity
photographs from his
collection.
Andy Warhol Liz, 1962
Warhol continued to collect “stars” in his
filmed portraits called Screen Tests:
ST308 Edie Sedgwick, 1965 16mm, b&w, silent; 4.6 min.
@16 fps. Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum,
Founding Collection, Contribution the Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © 2000 The Andy
Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, All rights reserved.
ST67 Salvador Dali, 1966 16mm, b&w, silent; 3.7 min.
@16 fps. Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum,
Founding Collection, Contribution the Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © 2000 The Andy
Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, All rights reserved.
3 –4 minute films in which the sitter posed in front of the film
camera in silence. Warhol tried to collect people being themselves.
Warhol created over 500 of these short films.
Time Capsules:
Warhol collected more than
600 plain cardboard boxes
which he called “time
capsules.” He filled them
with objects from his
everyday life:
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Andy Warhol, 138 of 612 Time Capsules installed in
the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Photo by Paul
Rocheleau.
Mail
Newspapers
Food
Clothing
Gifts
Souvenirs
Clothing
Plane Tickets
Andy Warhol, Time Capsule 232, Collection of
newspapers form the Iran Hostage Crisis.
Examples of Warhol’s
Artistic Practice of Collecting
Source material (left ) for Andy Warhol’s 129 Die in Jet painting, (right) 1962.
Warhol’s Death and Disaster Series were created from his collection of
photographs and newspaper clippings of these fateful events.
Other Artists Who Collect:
Joseph Cornell
Stephan Hoderlein
Whitfield Lovell
Karsten Bott
Portia Munson
Marc Dion
Joseph Cornell created his art from a large collection of
objects including:
•Photographs
•Maps
•Feathers, balls, miscellaneous trinkets
•Fabrics and textured papers
•Packaging and wrappers
Cornell is famous for his box
constructions. He was influenced
in part by Surrealism:
• an art movement emerging in
the 1920s
• showed cynicism about the
world
• embrace dream theories of
Sigmund Freud
• juxtaposition of incongruous
things to represent reality in an
irrational way
Joseph Cornell, Untitled, (Cockatoo and Corks) c.1948
Construction, 14 3/8 x 13 ½ x 5 5/8 in. Private Collection.
Cornell used this juxtaposition of
things to create poetic
associations
Aesthetic Response Question:
What do the objects in this
box make you think about?
Do they remind you of a
feeling or of a memory?
Describe:
Narrative Writing Assignment:
Pretend this box is a
window into a story. Use
the feeling or memory you
have about this box to
create a story.
Joseph Cornell, Untitled, (Cockatoo and Corks) c.1948
Construction, 14 3/8 x 13 ½ x 5 5/8 in. Private Collection.
Personal Collecting:
artists who use their personal collections in symbolic
ways to convey their ideas about the world
Professional Collecting:
artists whose practice can be compared to
anthropologists and other professionals whose work
strives to reveal new information about culture.
Institutional Collecting:
artists whose work questions institutional collecting
and display in natural history and art museums.
Personal Collecting:
Stefan Hoderlein photographs
his collection of clothing against
black backgrounds. The
combination of clothing changes in
each figure.
Stefan Hoderlein,
Matching Jacket and Pants, 1996,
Slide Projection, 3 views,
Installation at Gallerie Fricke, Berlin. Matching Jacket and Pants
Whitfield Lovell uses his various collections of personal and
anonymous artifacts as source material and inspiration for his
artwork.
Whitfield Lovell’s
hand collection, detail,
installation at The Andy
Warhol Museum, 1998
Whitfield Lovell did a series
of portrait drawings
involving large hands.
•What is the feeling you get from this
art work?
•Who do you think this woman is? If
she could talk what would she say?
•What does the hand make you think
of? What does it remind you of?
Whitfield Lovell
Hand XIV, 1998
Charcoal, graphite and pastel on paper
Professional Collecting:
Portia Munson collected pink
plastic objects that had been thrown
away.
• Her work speaks to the volume of garbage
produced in our plastic world as well as to
what is promoted to female consumers.
•She collects objects as an anthropologist
might in order to reveal larger cultural
attitudes or trends.
Portia Munson,
Pink Project, 1994, detail,
Installation of found
pink objects,
Courtesy of the artist.
Karsten Bott loves
collecting, storing,
exhibiting, and scientifically
classifying objects. His
exhibited items have no
labels so that the viewer may
freely associate with the
objects. He tries to create a
link with peoples’ personal
histories through his
collection.
Karsten Bott,
One of Each, 1993, detail,
Installation at the Offenes
Kulturhaus, Linz, 1993,
10 x 30 m.
Institutional Collecting:
Mark Dion
questions the classification systems
placed on objects in The Tate Thames Dig public
project in London. With a crew of assistants in
protective clothing, he combed the muddy banks of
the Thames for objects.
This project consisted of three phases:
• the archeological dig phase
• the cleaning and classifying stage
• and the final display in what Dion terms his
“Cabinets of Curiosities.”
Mark Dion,
The Tate Thames Dig Project,
The Tate Gallery, 1999.
The final exhibit Cabinets of Curiosities
shows how Mark Dion organized the
objects from the dig according to
location in a large mahogany cabinet:
• Dion classified items loosely according
to type (such as bones, glassware,
pottery, metal objects), in seemingly
unhistorical and largely unexplained
arrangements.
•Antique items were shown alongside
contemporary items
•Ephemera and detritus were next to
objects of value
Mark Dion
Cabinets of Curiosities
Gallery View, from Raid the Icebox with Andy Warhol, Exhibition
at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, April 23 - June 30, 1970
Warhol’s Raid the Ice box:
pun referring to many museums’ cold storage areas
that are filled with objects that the public does not see
His radical displays broke
institutional values about display
and the value of certain objects
over others:
• Warhol was interested in
elevating lower objects in
R.I.S.D.’s art museum to a higher
status
• These Windsor chairs which had
been kept in storage as lesser
pieces were hung on the wall as if
they were master paintings
Gallery View, Installation of Windsor Chairs,
from Raid the Icebox with Andy Warhol,
Exhibition at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island
School of Design, April 23 - June 30, 1970
Handouts:
Brainstorming List
Personal Collecting Project Prompts