Charlotte Moorman and Archives
Apr. 15th, 2016 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogDanae and I were at an exhibit that made me think of working with the archivist at Parkside. The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University has an exhibit on Charlotte Moorman and her avant-garde art and music. Part of the exhibit was a selection of items from a large archive of her papers and posessions. Bits and pieces of her life, both in the arts and out, put on display and contextualized.
The things that touched me deepest were some of the documents that speak of her relationship with her husband. "Please do not ticket; wife has bone cancer and am helping her down stairs" read a note that her husband wrote to leave on his dashboard to placate traffic police. In another case was a piece of official press release stationary on which Charlotte had written "I love you. I love you. I love you, " over and over to fill the entire body of the note other than the name of its recipient. They made me think of the kinds of stories that only archives, and those who work with them, can tell. And then, one wall of the room was full of shelves of boxes of her archived materials, seemingly in the process of processing. I was on campus to get a document notarized, and Danae and I happened to stop in to the museum afterward. It was really worthwhile; I would enjoy seeing more exhibits like that. I also want to look into Charlotte Moorman a bit more. She was a an avant-garde string musician in New York at the same time as Laurie Anderson was busy there; I feel like they must have worked together at some point and that would be fantastic to see.
The things that touched me deepest were some of the documents that speak of her relationship with her husband. "Please do not ticket; wife has bone cancer and am helping her down stairs" read a note that her husband wrote to leave on his dashboard to placate traffic police. In another case was a piece of official press release stationary on which Charlotte had written "I love you. I love you. I love you, " over and over to fill the entire body of the note other than the name of its recipient. They made me think of the kinds of stories that only archives, and those who work with them, can tell. And then, one wall of the room was full of shelves of boxes of her archived materials, seemingly in the process of processing. I was on campus to get a document notarized, and Danae and I happened to stop in to the museum afterward. It was really worthwhile; I would enjoy seeing more exhibits like that. I also want to look into Charlotte Moorman a bit more. She was a an avant-garde string musician in New York at the same time as Laurie Anderson was busy there; I feel like they must have worked together at some point and that would be fantastic to see.
