Thursday, November 10, 2005
Culture vulture
The Museum of Fred
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E-mail Miriam |
I hope many of you enjoyed perusing the self-representing artists section of eBay and exploring the world of art trading cards (ACEOs). Apparently, some of you already dabble in ACEOs on eBay. Culture Vulture now has an area set up on her online message board to enable folks to share images of their art, or links to galleries of their work (see Web links below). If you have images of your artwork online, pop over and promote them.
Just got back
I just got back from visiting the Museum of Fred. Haven't you been there? Fred Beshid is a devoted collector of thrift store art, which he shares with the world in his very own museum. No one can explain this more eloquently than Fred himself: "The goal of this museum is to increase the boundaries of the art world, because making art is too important to be left only to art professionals ... I hope to someday house my collection in an actual building, but museums are expensive to build and maintain ... before the Internet, only the wealthy could afford museums, but now anyone can have a museum." The Museum of Fred is a stylish and well-organized Internet site, and admission is always free. Upon leaving, you might want to visit other museums — why not make a day of it?
To the Moom, Alice
If you want to see a variety of passionately curated museums, go to the MOOM. The Museum Of Online Museums is the place to go to see all kinds of wonderful and obscure collections. The MoMA in New York site is listed there, as are major art museums around the world. In addition to the Museum of Fred, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musee d'Orsay and the Helsinki Design Museo, you will find the Bosch Universe, Letters of Vincent van Gogh, the World's Largest Collection of World's Smallest Versions of World's Largest Things (Traveling Roadside Attraction and Museum), and one of my favorites, the Museum of Temporary Art.
Get in here, quick!
The Museum of Temporary Art is curated by Debbie and Ben Rebsch, and I have great news. You, yes you, can get something into this museum. As best as I can discern, this museum seems to be a good-sized tackle box with 33 compartments. Your museum submission must be able to fit in one of the drawers of this exhibit space. That means it should be no larger than 1½ inches by 1½ inches by 3 inches. What can it be? It can be something you create, or something you find in your pocket or any of a million other things, as long as it will fit inside the "gallery space." But, there is a catch. The reason this is called the Museum of Temporary Art, as they explain on their site, is because "Your contribution will be placed in the museum, thus replacing one of the exhibits." In that way, the museum's collection is always fresh, with something new to see. Stop by, see the exhibits, fill out an exhibit sheet and send your submission to them in jolly old England.
What then? According to Debbie, "Once objects have been replaced, they end up in our archive — and are not returned to the artists. However, we do send out a documentation form as soon as we've received an object, and we also make a catalog that we send to participants every 100 exhibits." Let's see how many readers take this exciting opportunity and run with it. They might create a whole wing of the museum to display the work of our Southwest Virginia contributors!
Other avenues
Maybe you're not ready to start your very own museum; you just have drawings, photographs or other art you'd like to show others. Next time, I'll show you several sites that offer artists and creators free gallery space online, so you won't have to host or design a Web site. In the meantime, let's get our submissions in to the Museum of Temporary Art. When you've sent off your piece(s), or if you need help in the submission process, send me an e-mail at culturevultureva@gmail.com.
On the Web:
Show us your art at the Culture Vulture Message Board!
Notable museum links:
MOOM: www.coudal.com/moom.php
www.museum-of-temporary-art.com
Exhibits:
www.keaggy.com/crap/ (especially well displayed)
Miriam Young is a creative director living in color in Roanoke.
Note: Some Web links provided by the Culture Vulture may contain art featuring nudity, strong political content and bizarre visions. Parental guidance is suggested. Please respect the copyrights of the owners when visiting online galleries, and obtain artists' permission before downloading any images.
