I have been working at the MCA for close to three years now. When I first started working here I was an Imaging Technician but now I work as a Rights and Images Assistant. What is that? Well, in the formal context:
Work with the Manager of Rights and Images to process, organize, catalog, and maintain traditional and digital photographic resources museum-wide; process internal and external image requests for research and publication; and negotiate and secure copyright clearances on behalf of the MCA. Also responsible for clerical and administrative department duties and supervising department interns.
But we also do a lot more than this. I would include that we also work as photo archivists, digital photo retouchers and Visual Resource Librarians.
There is a lot of back log within the photo archive and only now have we started going through thousands of negatives and identifying them. My co-worker Lauren proposed we take one day out of the month to go through our archive and I suggested we begin a Photo finding aid. It’s a very slow process and at times other department responsibilities take the front seat.
Ok, enough rambling. On to art books.
Part of my job is to help with creating catalogues that coincide with MCA current exhibitions. Depending on what type of exhibition it is, it can be all artworks by one artist, many artists or what we call “comparative illustrations,” which are images that accompany essays written by a curator or contributing author. These comparative illustrations range from being other artworks, photographs, magazine covers, books covers etc It takes creativity to research where the cover image of a 1952 book came from then find out who owns the copyright of the cover (more about this later). Keeping track of all this takes creativity in itself. We keep track off all email correspondence, loan forms, reproduction agreements etc in binders for each exhibition/catalogue.
Currently I am working on a catalogue for one of my favorite artists AND one who I first saw here at the MCA back in 2003/04: Kerry James Marshall.
Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an artist born in Birmingham, Alabama. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Chicago, where he previously taught at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Marshall is known for large-scale paintings, sculptures, and other objects that take African-American life and history as their subject matter. His work often deals with the effects of the Civil Rights movement on domestic life, in addition to working with elements of popular culture.
The first work of his I was most drawn to is titled Heirlooms and accessories, 2002 and I first saw it within the MCA’s exhibition, Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics in 2003. This work touches on violence, brutality, and the casualness with which a crowd watches a lynching in the 1930s. Here is a video interview with Kerry James Marshall where he speaks on the content of this piece.
And the fruits of my labor can be seen in the end credits of this catalogue! Whoooooo. I know this may seem like something insignificant to some but it means a lot to me to see my name here. I put a lot of work into this catalogue and it feels good to see my name there 🙂
