IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

Museum collecting practices are often understood to be strategic and formalised. Aligning to institutional collecting strategies, museum curators justify new and potential acquisitions by considering objects already in their collections: new acquisitions may complement existing materials, or be used to address or fill collection gaps. These practices, moreover, are documented in museum records that reflect an objective or neutral set of internal processes. This paper will draw on the case of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to explore museum collecting as outcomes of serendipity and of haphazard encounters, rather than of strictly structured practice. The paper will focus on the V&A’s acquisition of Korean art and design in the early 1990s, when this museum was preparing to open its first gallery devoted to Korean heritage. The gallery curator was Beth McKillop, a China specialist, who drew on a wide professional network (of experts based in South Korea, United Kingdom, and elsewhere) to efficiently source objects representative of “Korea”. Details of this professional network have been recovered through oral histories for the first time in academic scholarship. This study will demonstrate that while agency and power within and across such networks are not evenly distributed – as echoed in their lack of representation in printed museum records – collecting and curating (at the V&A) was facilitated by these collaborative sets of relations, sometimes unexpectedly formed. Ultimately, the paper will situate museum curating within a broader set of entanglements, comprising both people and things, which are in constant dialogue and flux.