Exposições displays a selection of documentary photographs of exhibitions, taken by Portuguese photographer Mário Novais (1899–1967). They are documentary in what is often seen as the driest sense: they simply record the exhibition itself, without the human eyes that it is there for. But here and there among the collected photographs are some that begin thinking about what it is to exhibit.

This photograph from a 1957 exhibition celebrating recent Portuguese philosophers, writers, and the like does not let the gallery-goer forget for a moment that the objects here are to be placed in a particular context: they are about writing and books (plural), not, say, objects of beauty in their own right.

Biblioteca de Arte

This next exhibition, however, seems to want to focus us at least as much on the (modernist) drama of the present—presumably as it has been created by the life of Infante Henrique (Henry the Navigator), 500 years and more before. A remarkable companion image can also be found in the set.

Biblioteca de Arte

In this wartime exhibition, Third Reich documentary material is appropriately displayed (if one permits the museum an opinion) behind bars. Yet to the Flickr viewer—with the habit of seeing image first, title and description later, and able often to absorb only the visuals when the rest is in one of the many other languages on Flickr than one’s own—there is also the more generalized idea of an exhibition behind bars: one with which we are forbidden to interact.

Biblioteca de Arte

And then there is this label-less exhibition (which reminds me that the “new” mode of label-less exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario is not, perhaps, so new after all). Unless the original mid-’50s exhibition goers, who could only look at these beautiful 18th-century objects and wonder at them, we can do more. We can ask questions about them, lean in close, and label them ourselves.

Biblioteca de Arte

Institutions’ Workflow

• George Eastman House posts an introduction to the ARTStor Digitization Process, a nonprofit online database of art images.
• The DNA (Digital Nationaal Archief) movie illustrates the Nationaal Archief’s digital ambitions.
• Informative articles from the National Library of New Zealand introduce their new Manuscripts & Pictorial website.
• The Brooklyn Museum updates us with an new installment of Purchasing a Major Work of Art for the Collection.
• Want to know how to implement an internal Wiki? Powerhouse Museum explains their process.

Blog Blog Blog!

• A wonderful post from the Australian War Memorial’s blog about Minnie Augusta Rattigan, who helped feed and entertain soldiers on leave in London during the First World War. A terrific adjunct to their currently running exhibit, Advancing to Victory, 1918.
• At Face to Face, the Smithsonian celebrates the 250th wedding anniversary of U.S. President George Washington and the first First Lady, Martha Washington.

Go Visit!

See below the fold for events at the institutions.

Opening 01 Jan: at the State Library of New South Wales is the Heritage Collection 2008, displaying rare treasures from life in the region. New to the display are images from Aurora Australis, the first book written, printed, bound and published in Antarctica.

08 Jan: The National Media Museum, in collaboration with Impressions, Fabric, and Redeye, hosts the Yorkshire Photography Network, Thursday, 8 January, 6pm to 7.30pm, a get-together for photographers. Freelance press and editorial photographer Richard Hanson will be talking about and showing “the work that inspires him and the work that pays the bills.”

10 Jan: The Médiathèque Empalot opened Tuesday January 6 at 10:00. The opening ceremonies are hosted by Peter Cohen, Mayor of Toulouse, Saturday 10 January at 11.30, featuring music, live entertainment, and projected image archives provided by the INA, drawn mainly from television news, from 1966 to 2005. From the Bibliothèque de Toulouse.

12 Jan: The Library of Virginia hosts Douglas R. Egerton, professor of history at LeMoyne College, who will discuss and sign Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America, his lively and comprehensive account of black Americans and the Revolutionary era in America. Monday, January 12, 2009 at noon.

14 Jan: The Bibliothèque de Toulouse hosts the Seeds of Criticism (Graines de Critiques) at the Piccolo teatro (Rez de Jardin de la médiathèque José Cabanis) on 14 Jan 2009 at 17h30.

Through 18 Jan: Musée McCord Museum presents Reveal or Conceal?—a provocative exhibition that explores historical perceptions of modesty and eroticism in women’s clothing.

Through 28 Feb: Obama: The Historic Campaign & Victory in Photos is presented by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, courtesy of the New York Public Library.