Unfortunately closed by now, but ‘The Keeper’ was an inspirational and remarkably designed exhibition dedicated to the act of preserving objects, artworks, images and to the passions that inspire this undertaking — which made it for us, as avid collectors and collection lovers, a must visit. The curation that’s on display in the New York City-based New Museum forms a reflection on the impulse to save both the most precious and the apparently valueless, bringing together a variety of imaginary museums, personal collections, and unusual assemblages, revealing the devotion with which artists, collectors, scholars, and hoarders have created sanctuaries for endangered images and artifacts. In surveying varied techniques of display, the exhibition also reflects on the function and responsibility of museums within multiple economies of desire. The eye catcher of the exhibition is ‘Partners (The Teddy Bear Project)’ (2002), a vast display conceived by Ydessa Hendeles. Composed of over 3000 family-album photographs of people posing with teddy bears, and vitrines containing antique teddy bears, Hendeles’s project establishes the teddy bear as a metaphor for the consolatory power of artworks and images and underscores the symbiotic relationship that ties people to their objects of affection.
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