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This is Oak Leaves,
Pink & Gray,
a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe,
one of our star pieces.
I'm Laura Muessig.
I am the registrar
for collections
at the Frederick R. Weisman
Art Museum
at the University of Minnesota.
I'm responsible for the safety
here at the museum,
about those objects.
about being a registrar
about the physical objects.
You leave it to the curators
of the piece is,
of the physical objects,
and so we want to make sure
in the best possible condition.
the conservation of works.
condition of objects
artworks are stable.
by Charles Biederman
entitled #5, Redwing.
it's painted aluminum.
of great renown
who's represented in collections
all over the world.
Well, several years ago,
I had the privilege
in a large project
to bring his art collection
to the museum.
So we have over 1500
of Charles' artworks.
packing up the work,
every single piece
before it was crated or wrapped.
he wanted to say good-bye.
about each of the pieces
as we were packing them up.
special to be able to hear
what does an artist have to say
about his life's work basically
at the end of his life.
just had its last day
of being open to the public
major expansion project.
of our gallery space.
We've taken all the works,
all the artworks,
out of the galleries now
and placed them in storage
for the next year, when we
will be reopening in fall 2011.
of the galleries
is a ceramic installation work
by Kimberly Roth,
which is part of the
Ordinarily Here exhibition
last couple of months.
I'm a collections technician
at the Weisman Art Museum.
Right now, we're in art storage.
basically is manage art storage
coming and going.
There's a constant flow of art
right here.
We have about 20,000 works
in the collection
at any given time.
This is where the collection
is housed most of the time.
Every work we have
is one-of-a-kind.
It's irreplaceable;
it's...priceless.
And you have to consider
every work
in the collection the same.
Jim has a special set of skills,
and he also just has
a special kind of temperament.
require a lot of creativity.
The collection has grown
over time,
and so it's a tight,
it's a tight fit.
We need to constantly
think about finding ways
of the space,
we house the collection,
to come up with projects
the footprint of things.
The Mimbres collection
was a good example
that would be
a more efficient use
of the space we have.
It's obviously more accessible.
and they're well-lit,
and it protects the pieces,
it keeps them enclosed,
without needing to be handled.
And so anytime you can do that,
protect and maintain a piece.
about being a registrar
is that there's a lot of variety
in the work that I do,
in the types of people
that I work with.
There's a basic tension in
the work that a registrar does--
keeping things safe
and having access
and accessibility--
for both points of view,
but it's finding
that happy medium
that works for everybody,
that works for the objects,
that I'm working with,
it works for our visitors,
that really gives me
a lot of satisfaction.
some challenges too,
at the heart of what I do
and why I enjoy doing what I do.
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