Our new exhibit Soviet Architecture: The Fifth View offers an exploration of Soviet architecture of the early to mid 20th century. Books and texts from the Fisher Fine Arts Library (and a “rare” guest appearance by a Kislak Center book) are on view in the Library’s main floor exhibition space, as well books from our holdings that you can flip through. Stop by October 10-December 16, 2019 to have a look.
In the February issue of Das Kunstblatt (no. 2, 1925), to usher in the ideology of a new architecture, El Lissitzky wrote: “Fulfilment depends on the arrangement of space by means of lines, planes, volumes. No self-contained, individual bodies, but relations and proportions. The unconfined bodies which originate from movement, from communication and in communication. New constructions. Taking into consideration the fifth view (from above). A demand for new materials, but no material-fetishism. Under the controlling influence of a single idea: function” (22). This proclamation can be unpacked within the structural principles of Constructivism – the artistic and architectural movement that dominated the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s – as well as within the larger cultural landscape of that time. Essentially an imposition of socialist ideology to make the creative process into the process of creation, these statements can guide our approach to the misunderstood and fetishized architectural style that permeated the Eastern Bloc for nearly a century.
The style of Soviet architecture is distinct in its non-architectural roots. It began first as theory in the works of Naum Gabo and Aleksei Gan, who advocated a rejection of the autonomy of art, and instead set as the objective «коммунистическое выражение материальных ценностей… Тектоника, конструкция и фактура — мобилизующие материальные элементы индустриальной культуры» (the communist expression of the value in material – tectonics, construction, and faktura – the mobilized material elements of industrial culture).[1] When translated from abstract, illustrative, and conceptual renderings to tangible architecture, these principles stress function and utility to create buildings marked by their brutal composition and material, and yet defined by their social and cultural function as well as the subtext of their erection. Characterized by overt strength and stability, geometry, and monolithic external structure, these structures made as much of a political statement as an artistic one, proclaiming architecture as an ideal way to express or achieve ideological goals.
Thinking of buildings as relational and proportional both within themselves and to one another – to their inherent ratios and to the land that holds them – asks us as viewers, inhabitants, and citizens to live physically and conceptually in the realm of architecture, to view it from different perspectives both literally and as a medium. This exhibit asks that we do the same – that we approach Soviet architecture from above, within, and without, as a self-contained system part of a larger one, and to reexamine what lies beneath.
[1] Proclaimed in an April 1, 1921 meeting of practicing Constructivists (Khan-Magomedov Arkhitektura sovetskogo avangarda). Faktura is a term used to refer to the material properties of an object, as opposed to its tektonika (spacial presence) or its construction.
Art, Territory, and Identity offers a sampling of visually arresting books and materials held by the Fisher Fine Arts Library that delve within the intersection of art, activism, and the exploration of identity in Latin America. Not losing sight of the many differences among the diverse countries and territories located in the Caribbean, Central and South America, the exhibit offers a glimpse into the subversive, critical, and advocacy work created by artists and writers in a vast region with different colonial heritages, languages, histories, ethnic and racial compositions, landscapes, economies, and political traditions. The exhibit is not encyclopedic--Fisher’s collection is by no means comprehensive especially when it comes to Latin America--however, the exhibit highlights through its inclusions (and omissions) the countries and people represented in our collections. Combining traditional print texts with digital resources and objects from our Materials Library, the exhibit draws from the array of materials Penn Libraries offers its community.
We invite patrons to contribute information on books, zines, and other materials related to the arts in Latin America that should have a home at the Fisher Fine Arts Library.
Please join us at the opening reception on Monday, July 1, at 4:30pm in the Fisher Fine Arts Foyer. Ulises, the local bookstore and curatorial platform dedicated to artists’ books and independent art publications, will be conducting a pop-up event at the opening! #LatAmArtsFisher
]]>The Fisher Fine Arts Library is happy to host this year's end-of-year Visual Studies Thesis Exhibition, now on view through May 20th. This show is the terminal event for the Department and features twelve exhibits prepared by the majors. There will be a closing reception on May 20th at 1pm. Please stop by to see how the students have transformed Fisher's gallery space!
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Librarians, artists, and Wikipedians gathered again last Friday to put fingers to keyboards in the name of countering geocultural systemic bias on the 5th most popular website on the internet. The week prior, Fisher Fine Arts Library hosted the Black Lunch Table to focus on increasing visibility for Afrodiasporic artists and culture. For this event, WIKIArte, we turned our attention to Latin America.
After a training session on the why’s and how’s of Wikipedia editing and with the backdrop of an energetic playlist comprising work by prominent Latin American musicians, attendees set off once again to elaborate the artistic contributions from underrepresented communities by enhancing and creating articles. Unique to this event was another opportunity for increasing visibility – bilingual editors were able to contribute their language skills by translating pages in and out of Spanish to reach broader audiences.
Wikipedia edit-a-thons provide a chance for those interested in both art and in issues of social inequality to convene at GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) institutions and make measurable contributions to the fight against bias. Dedicating just a few hours and a site for both discussion and editing can ensure fair representation in both what Wikipedia offers (the content) and who says it (the editors). We hope you will join us for our final edit-a-thon event participating in the Art+Feminism initiative to improve coverage of cis and transgender women, non-binary folks, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia!
Please sign up using this link and we look forward to seeing you this Friday, April 19th from 1-4 pm in Fisher’s Foyer!
]]>from Black Lunch Table training material
A search for “Black Lunch Table” or “BLT” on Google returns some expected images. Search in Wikipedia and see a rich history of meet-ups organized by Jina Valentine and Heather Hart, two artists who initially hosted an event mimicking a lunchroom discussion to provide space and time to dialog about critical issues affecting African American visual and performing artists. According to its website, the Black Lunch Table (BLT) “mobilizes a democratic rewriting of contemporary cultural history by animating discourse around and among the people living it.” Representatives of the organization travel to different institutions in order to host a Wikipedia edit-a-thon as an activity that fosters community interaction while addressing the lack of representation for people of color.
Despite the fact that Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced project that should therefore represent the diversity present in the general population, statistics estimate that 91% of editors are White and 77-87% are men. With such an overwhelming lean towards the White male in both content and perspective, Wikipedia becomes a microcosmic reflection of the cultural bias present in Art History and cultural studies to this day. But the prospects are not so bleak. In recent years, socially-conscious institutions have started hosting edit-a-thons – particularly inspired by the Art + Feminism initiative – aimed at injecting marginalized voices and creating or enhancing entries for figures from under-represented communities. At these events, editors who have been awoken to social inequities gather and receive training on how to make probably the most-used information site by all, about all, and for all, and then dedicate time to working on individual articles.
Photo by Sukhmani Kaur
The Fisher Fine Arts Library hosted the Black Lunch Table to conduct such an event, focusing on Afrodiasporic artists with special attention paid to those based in Philly. It was the first of a series of edit-a-thons to highlight minority artists, the second dedicated to Latin American artists (this Friday, April 12th), and the third to cis and trans women artists (next Friday, April 19th). While encouraging women and people of color to become editors is a goal, the larger mission is to amend discursive practices, gain visibility for marginalized artists, and combat bias – something that necessitates everyone’s participation. Needless to say, the events welcome editors from all backgrounds, not just those in their respective scopes.
Editors, artists, and librarians arrived at Fisher’s foyer last Friday afternoon for a training session conducted by BLT founder Heather Hart, who walked participants through the history of BLT, the 5 pillars of Wikipedia, bias on the site, and how to become an editor to start making things right. For a few hours, the Fine Arts Library broke all of its own rules to transform its regal foyer into a lunch table; attendees got to work, fueled by caffeine, snacks, music, good vibes, and the motivation to bring recognition to Black artists living, working, and embedded in our community.
Several local artists were in attendance to have their portraits taken by Penn junior Mary Osunlana for their own Wikipedia entries (another of BLT’s initiatives is to put faces to articles to literally increase artists’ visibility). Her portraits from the event can be found here along with other documentation of the event and Fisher thanks her for contributing her time and skill.
Philadelphia-based artist Erlin Geffrard poses for a portrait to accompany his newly-minted Wikipedia entry. Photo by Mary Osunlane.
Although BLT has packed up and Heather has headed to her next meet-up, the edit-a-thon is far from over. The list of artists whose entries need creation or expansion will remain on the meet-up page for editors to work on them on their own time. Each of the two remaining edit-a-thons will kick off with a training session like the one at BLT; so if you couldn’t make it last Friday, there is still opportunity for you to fill in gaps of documentation for Black artists in Philly, as well as the Latin American artists and cis and trans women artists in focus on 4/12 and 4/19, respectively.
Please consider joining us for the remainder of the Month of Wiki to help help us mobilize our communities' collective knowledge for the arts!
Click on the image to read about the Ed Bacon Photo Project featured in Hidden City Philadelphia!
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We are pleased to announce Fisher Fine Arts Library’s Month of Wiki!
During the month of April, we invite you to participate in a series of three edit-a-thons to improve the coverage of marginalized artists and cultures and combat racial and gender bias on Wikipedia. Less than 10% of Wikipedia editors identify as women. Less information is known on the racial demographics of its editors: The Wikipedia page for “Wikipedians”does not provide this information, nor does the oft-cited 2011 Wikimedia Foundation reportinclude this analysis. Although the report does indicate a lack in diversity of its editors: “The data from the survey shows that the majority of Wikipedians hail from North America or Europe…” As Wikipedia remains the most popular general reference tool on the internet, this glaring omission of marginalized groups silences their voices, narratives, and histories.
Let’s change that.
Join us for our three-part edit-a-thon series on the following consecutive Fridays in the foyer of the Fisher Fine Arts Library. Each edit-a-thon will focus on illuminating the art and artists from African American communities and the African Diaspora; Latin America; and cis and transgender women and non-binary folks respectively.
4/5 1-4PM Black Lunch Table @Fisher
The Black Lunch Table (BLT) is a New-York based oral-history archiving project, and their “primary aim is the production of discursive sites, wherein cultural producers engage in dialogue on a variety of critical issues.” Join BLT for a communal updating of entries to improve representation of African American impact and history in the arts on Wikipedia.
Read more about BLT Wikipedia Edit-a-thons.
The #WikiArte (Wiki Arte y Cultura Latinoamerica) edit-a-thon is a global campaign to improve coverage of Latin American arts and culture and to counter geocultural systemic bias on Wikipedia. This event is co-sponsored with Penn’s La Casa Latina.
Read more about the WikiArte campaign initiative.
Art+Feminism is a global campaign to improve the coverage of cis and transgender women, non-binary folks, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia. Since its establishment in 2013, the Art+Feminism movement has grown exponentially with 500+ events taking place around the world. This year, the project has been expanded to include correcting and developing the histories of gender non-binary artists and activists on Wikipedia. This event is co-sponsored by both the Penn’s Women Center and the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women.
Read more about the Art+Feminism 2019 campaign.
These events are free and open to the public. All are welcome. No experience necessary; we will provide the training and reference materials! Please bring a charged laptop and power cord, ideas for entries that need updating or creation, and if possible, create a user account beforehand. Stay for part or all of the time. Attend one, two, or all three edit-a-thons!
Snacks, music, camaraderie, and good vibes will be provided!
Black Lunch Table has also inspired us to offer free portraits for local artists, which we’ll be providing in our Hechtman Recording Studio. Stay tuned for exact times!
We hope you will join us to help mobilize our communities’ collective knowledge of the arts!
*Guest post by Meaghan Moody, Teaching & Learning Librarian, Penn Libraries*
The Fisher Fine Arts Library provides two Artec 3D scanners to anyone interested in checking out the technology. Orientations are required before someone may use the scanner for a project. You will be introduced to the scanning technology, scanning workflows, and how to render an object using the scanners and the Artec Studio software. (These devices are not exactly "point-and-shoot" devices!)
All are welcome to attend but please register in advance.
When: March 28th & April 11th, 9am to 11am
Where: Fisher Fine Arts B-Level Seminar Room (Lower Level)
This exhibition celebrates the intertwined facets of history and imagination in the Alhambra’s later reception through plaster casts used in restoration efforts beginning in the late nineteenth century through the 1970s. Donated to the Fisher Fine Arts Library by Edward Kirk Long, the casts are a masterclass in historic preservation and architectural modeling that reveal a complex and, at times, contradictory history of neglect, repair, and restoration. Moreover, the casts make fitting guide to the orientalist interpretations that transformed and diffused the image of the Alhambra for audiences far beyond the borders of Spain. The exhibition affords us the opportunity to revisit the Alhambra’s place in the collective imagination of nineteenth-century artists, writers, and architects, such as Irving, Owen Jones, and Richard Ford. Through these casts and prints, we hope to draw visitors into the acclaimed spaces of the Alhambra while illustrating its history as a medley of loss, recovery, and restoration.
Please join us at the opening reception next Monday, March 11th, at 4:30 in the Fisher Fine Arts Foyer.
]]>The catch? This valuable material is not published in heavy tomes or nestled within special collections, but instead accessed via the web.
The National Forum on Advancing Art Libraries and Curated Web Archives took place on February 11-12 with the purpose of encouraging collaboration among art librarians that are ready to take action as more of their collections migrate online. The event was hosted by the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) and the Internet Archive’s Archive-It group, and generously funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
I had the opportunity to represent Penn Libraries during the panel discussion of curating web archives at various scales. I presented alongside Ivy Plus Libraries’ Samantha Abrams and the Clark Art Institute’s Andrea Puccio on the web archiving programs at our respective institutions.
During the panel, I answered questions pertaining to the Fisher Fine Arts Library web archive. Fisher’s program was the brainchild of our Assistant University Librarian for Humanities & Fine Arts Libraries, Hannah Bennett, who recognized the need for “acquiring” fugitive and ephemeral online material--a crucial step for 21st century collection building.
I'm so thankful to be at this convening of great Web Archiving thinkers and practitioners. Pictured: excellent discussion between @artlibrariannyc, @smbrms, Andrea Puccio, & @boriarchivista #webarchiving #artlibrarians pic.twitter.com/M26nVy4XHy
— J.E. Molly Seegers (@archivalgold) February 12, 2019
Our pilot program is focused on archiving the websites of small galleries and other independent, and therefore vulnerable, sites that tell the story of the rich arts and historic preservation scene in Philadelphia. However, we recognize the importance of eventually scaling our program to preserve more arts resources published online, such as the extended web version of zines in our library. As our collections exist beyond our stacks and move to the digital sphere, we need to maintain constant vigilance in order to adequately serve our present and future patrons.
One component that made Fisher’s web archiving program stand out from the others is that it has a pedagogical approach. Through the “Websites at Risk” series and by teaching guest lectures at Penn, I’m able to critically engage our students, staff, and faculty about the ephemerality of the web and what it means to have so much of our historical record on a rapidly changing digital medium prone to obsolescence and that is for the most part proprietary.
Our program is in its first year, and as with any nascent project, technological and ethical challenges arise. However, I was very honored to participate at the National Forum on Advancing Art Libraries and Curated Web Archives. It was very illuminating talking and sharing strategies with other art librarians tackling similar issues in the same space. Even though my work entails the digital, nothing beats meeting others with innovative ideas face to face.
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