Evan Little

As the inaugural Charina Endowment Fund Intern at the Tang Teaching Museum in 2020-21, I focused on working with the museum’s permanent collection. Before starting the role, I had engaged with the collection by searching the Tang’s website, through exhibitions and class visits, and during an independent appointment to collections storage to view Nan Goldin photographs (a personal favorite) with Collections Registrar Kara Jefts. I was eager to spend more time discovering what exactly was happening behind the scenes at the Tang.

One of my long-term projects was to catalog fifty protest photographs that entered the Tang collection with little identifying information. I gathered as much information as possible and used that research to make decisions about crucial details such as title, artist name, date, place of creation, artist biographical information, and contextual information about the situations surrounding the protests photographed. This project sent me on a deep dive into digital newspaper archives, city historical sites, and the exciting work of directly handling the objects to review the backs, allowing me to gain an understanding of how the photographs were used over time.

Through this process and many other projects, I was able to see firsthand the expansiveness of Tang collection. I was excited to discover objects ranging from vernacular photographs to works by Catherine Opie, Lynda Benglis, and Chantal Joffe.

I learned that while the Tang takes every opportunity to engage the campus with the collection, with more than 17,000 objects, there are many that remain hidden away in collections storage areas. I became interested in making the collection more easily searchable and accessible to the Skidmore community. One of the great joys of my internship was having the access to search through our collections management system, EmbARK, and explore the possibilities for research and exhibitions without limitation. Before working as the Charina Endowment Fund intern, I curated Hyde Cabinet #9: Neither Snow nor Rain, featuring a 1971 USPS reward poster. During the initial planning phase for the exhibition, I wanted to browse the collection for ideas but found that to access the full database I needed a curator or registrar to do the search for me. As someone who enjoys the thrill of discovery, I wanted to find a better way to browse the vastness of the collection on my own.

I thought other members of the Skidmore community would feel the same way. So I thought about ways to make the collection more acessible beyond the walls of the museum and in addition to what has been digitized publicly. For my capstone project, I looked to the digital visual image resource Artstor. I had used Artstor in art history classes at Skidmore and noticed that students were familiar with the platform. Although the Tang had an account, it had become an unsustainable resource and hadn’t been used by the Tang in about five years. In that time, Artstor had changed its systems to simplify the uploading and management of records. After significant research, countless conversations, and troubleshooting with Artstor staff, I was able to rebuild the Tang’s digital Artstor database from the ground up. I proposed what fields and data we should release and uploaded over 80 percent of the collection to Artstor for Skidmore students, staff, and faculty to browse and engage with. This process included migrating over 14,000 images and corresponding metadata by systematically organizing records using EmbARK. In this new iteration of Artstor, I was able to better capture the scope of collection images and metadata from the Tang’s 21-year history. Part of my work has been to create an instructional guide and schedule for future Charina Endowment Fund Interns to update and maintain the new Artstor database. Future interns will work to ensure that Artstor does not become stagnant and that the database can live on as an accurate source of collections information, accessible to anyone on Skidmore’s campus.

In making these records available, I hope members of the Skidmore community will discover artworks and objects they may not have known are right here on campus. This new access to Artstor will increase opportunities for students and faculty to research the Tang collection, and thus expand our knowledge of collection objects. I hope Artstor will exist as an accessible way for campus to engage with the museum, giving future Hyde Cabinet curators and Skidmore art enthusiasts alike the opportunity to discover collections objects on their own time.

I believe that contemporary art is best experienced through personal exploration and engagement. The Tang’s Artstor database enables us to experience the breadth of the expanding collection. Our community now has the extraordinary opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the art of our time through the Tang’s Artstor.