Presentation /
“Accumulated Wisdom: The Collector as Inventor,” with Melissa Catanese, Rutherford Chang, Carrie Cooperider, Tim Davis, Louise Harpman, Maira Kalman, Nina Katchadourian, Thomas Y. Levin, Harvey Tulcensky, and Penelope Umbrico

Date: Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 6:30–8:30 pm
Location: The Morgan Library, 225 Madison Avenue, New York (map and directions here)
Admission: $15 ($10 for Cabinet subscribers and Morgan members; free for students with ID).
Co-organized by the Morgan Library and Cabinet in conjunction with “A Collective Invention: Photographs at Play,” on view at the Morgan through 18 May.

When is a discovery an invention? When is accumulation art? Is recombination transformation? In an evening of short performances and talks, artists and scholars will consider the relationship between collecting and creating through case studies of their own collections, which include coffee cup lids, signs prohibiting photography, Toscanini’s pants, shipwreck memoirs, snapshots, The Beatles’ White Album, photos of beds for sale on Craigslist, toilet paper from European hotels, photo postcards, and spoken letters recorded on vinyl.

Participants include Melissa Catanese, Rutherford Chang, Carrie Cooperider, Tim Davis, Louise Harpman, Maira Kalman, Nina Katchadourian, Thomas Y. Levin, Harvey Tulcensky, and Penelope Umbrico.

“A Collective Invention” will be open at 5:30 pm for program attendees.

See press about “Accumulated Wisdom: The Collector as Inventor” in Art in America.