collateral matters @MCC

Upon first entering the exhibit, my first instinct was to reach out and start touching and navigating through the paperwork that was neatly hanging in slip covers along the first two walls. It is a know fact, that in most museums, the displays and works are off limits to the curiosity of your fingers, and so I only quickly flipped through a few pages after noticing my fellow classmates were doing the same. After listening to Kate Bingaman and Clifton Burt speak about the exhibit that they collaborated on, everything made sense. The exhibit called for interaction. Everything was intentional from the way things were hung, to the time line on the far wall of the exhibit. They wanted the visitor to have a similar experience to the one they had when going through the paperwork and collateral trying to figure out how they were going to put together the exhibition. They thoughtfully picked out the most interesting pieces from each file and ordered them in chronological order and placed each individual paperwork in each individual case in a cover slip and then hung them together on a orange clip board. These hung all over two whole walls. Each one telling a story. On the far wall was a time line, spanning from the 1940’s to the 1980’s. Having the collateral from the different eras lined up in juxtaposition called attention to the changes that were taking place due to advancement in technology and society. In the 40’s the collateral was small, imageless and painstakingly hand written or typed on a typewriter. Further along the time line images start appearing, works start to get larger, there becomes a focus on the artist and color appears. The time line ends in the 80’s because collateral takes a turn as the world starts to get logged into the web. After Kate and Clifton finish speaking and give us free range to play and explore I tried out the type writer, making a spelling error in almost every sentence, while others practiced their penmanship at the stationary station and some read through the clips boards or other collateral story lines behind the glass panels. The fascinating thing about this exhibit is that it calls your attention to all the unseen work that goes on behind an exhibit that makes it actually happen. It shows the changes of our society, from single handedly writing every resume one did and snail mail to looking at where our society stands now with all our technological advances. The exhibit shows the hard work of the people behind the scenes and brings them into the foreground, who would have never guessed that what they were doing would be looked at as a form of art within itself. These collections of collateral should be appreciated for their stories and personalities, for the work and the time that is represented by all the many, many pieces of paperwork. They give a look into people’s lives and of our society’s past that is seemingly being replaced with e-mail, internet and monotone Times New Roman. It’s not that, how we do behind the scenes today is bad, indeed it’s quite quick and handy, but rather our past should be appreciated and thoughtfully perused.