16th March - Unpacking My Library

This week we went to Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts to see the 'Unpacking My Library' exhibition, it basically explores the idea of collecting things, the process of collecting and the content of a collection. It is based on Walter Benjamin's text and therefore addresses his argument that in a collection you can see traits of the collector revealed, what the order and disorder can reveal about the gatherer. He writes "what I am really concerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection" (http://www.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/benj-bookcoll.htm) Different approaches to collecting were on display by different artists, the most interesting one to me was 'Found Time: Big Ben', an ongoing project by Elizabeth McAlpine that attempts to represent every minute of a twelve hour period through existing postcards of Big Ben (the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London). By 'existing' I mean that she uses one of two approaches to collecting, there is the artist that explores collecting and the artist that reflects on existing objects. At first glance you can't tell that the work is assembled from postcards, they just look like photographs under glass. When you get closer and see that it is postcards it becomes much more fascinating, you take into consideration the time and effort it took to collect them all and find out the exact minute of the day the photograph was taken. Also the photos, though of the same thing, all look different, one that I noticed and decided was my favourite was one taken at night and the clock was glowing with yellow light and the clouds behind it looked very dark and sinister, the Gothic architecture made the photo look very cool. It was a very interesting and very attractive way of collecting. Admittedly I didn't fully understand this collecting concept, there are obviously a lot more layers to it to explore which is why it is its own exhibition.
What i do understand of collecting is that it can be very much a form of art in the sense that it reflects the artist, a painting can reflect its artist by the technique and even the subject as can a collection of objects, texts, etc. There are different approaches to collecting, meaning different mediums. The process of collecting is always going to be different and it could take ten years or ten days.