monday’s media archives

what I’ve been reading, watching & listening to

I promised myself I would consume more this year. Consume in the vampire way and the consuming media way. I want to suck great books dry, feel the crunch of a beautiful scene between my teeth, feed on the sound of a phrase or a song. I think that’s why I read so slowly. I really need to stay with a book, to know its curves and its flaws. To drink the ink until I know its secrets. I thought it would help to track what I’m reading, and might make an interesting Substack (let me know if I was right!)

Hans Ulrich Obrist, A Brief History of Curating, (2008)

I’ve been desperate to learn more about the historicity of curating as a practice, because I think the importance we ascribe to particular paintings and artists is powered by the way their stories are told. Curators were also hugely significant in the contemporary art movements of the 60’s and 70’s, because they would put faith that the artists against the grain were going to be successful, and therefore fund/exhibit them. This book consists of a series of interviews with this centuries greatest curators from Walter Hopps (American contemporary art curator with a 53-year long career) to Anne D’Harnoncourt (American curator and huge pioneer of Duchamp). I am 50 pages in so far, and have been reading it when the desk is quiet at the museum. The first interview with Walter Hopps fascinated me because of the insights he gave into the make-do methods of curators in his time, and the way he likened curating to conducting. Pontus Hultén’s interdisciplinary practice, too, made me consider the different way we can tell the stories of an art object. Will update you next week on my progress.

Eleanor Jackson & Julian Harrison, Medieval Women: In their Own Words, Exhibition Catalogue, (2024)

I’ve been dipping in and out of this book since I got it from mio cuore for Christmas. We went to see the exhibition back in November. I cried, feeling so in-touch with women from a time so long ago. To see Joan of Arc’s signature up close - Johanne - and to think of how she looked, how she felt, what she knew when she signed it all those years ago. To read the manuscript of Maergery Kempe - our weeping mystic - and to feel the power of her words written on paper. ‘Then many people were amazed at her, asking her what was wrong with her; to which she, like a creature all wounded with love, and in whom reason had failed, cried with a loud voice: 'The Passion of Christ slays me.'

It is nice to consolidate what I learnt at the exhibition. Even nicer to feel the glossy pages between my fingertips, gliding like ice. The images are so crisp I can almost feel the animal pin-prick hairs on the vellum.

CRAFT Magazine from 1990 & John Houston, Furniture in Studio: Fred Baier (1990)

The museums curatorial officer tells me we may have had a Baier object in our chairs exhibition over a decade ago, and that is why his marvellously eclectic designs are slotted in-between the pages of our artists archives. His work is exciting, very 1970’s and resonant of both the future and the past - a talent. You can tell, through his work and his photographic portraits, he is a truly unique man with an exhilarating perception of what objects can do; what they can be. Baier is extremely successful now, and was elected Master of the Art Workers’ Guild in 2023. A few favourite pages from the magazine and book are below:

Desperate Housewives (2004-2012)

James and I have been watching at least one episode every night since Christmas, and have conjured up fandom names for each of the housewives. Literally how does Wysteria Lane have that much going on?

Anna Karenina (2012)

Rewatch. Please God bring back yearning like this.

These last few days of winter sun have had me longing, naturally. Longing for a time when I can trust the sun to rise each morning, when I can feel the prickle of heat on my skin. I want to know that the sun will shine today as it will tomorrow and the week after and the week after. A mid-summer daydream. I listened to this playlist on the way to work, eyes scrunched from the sun streaming through the trees. Pretended it was a sticky summer morning.

I’ve been feeling nostalgic, as I often am this time of year. I time-travel through playlists, and this one from 2022 found me. It’s all folk and Fleetwood Mac and Billy Joel. Listening to Vienna on your way to work is the pinnacle of being 24, I think. James makes fun of me for loving The Lumineers, says it sounds like Christian music. But I think they’re reminiscent of some distant past. Where instruments were played together in the open air, feet bare and grass green.