19 November 2022
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Podcast: An Interview With Stephanie Stebich
Stuff You Missed in History Class
This episode (24/04/2019) might not have much to do with LPs specifically, but it’s certainly worth a listen. Stebich, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 55acknowledges the role of the collector within a minute of her interview, but, interestingly, cites them as creative individuals. I say interesting because collectors are rarely credited for their work, and when they are considered, people don’t tend to describe their practices as creative.
In To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting, Philipp Blom discusses the importance of collectors to museum history. Blom notes that collections were a source of knowledge, of power… of magic (if you were wealthy and lucky enough to obtain that mystical unicorn horn).
This, perhaps, becomes most evident in The Hallwyl Museum. The Hallwyl Museum is located in Stockholm – it is my absolute favourite museum – and it is entirely based on the personal collection of Wilhelmina von Hallwyl.
The suggestion that collecting is a creative endeavour was what really piqued my interest, though. I must admit that I generally don’t have much time for gushings over ‘creativity’ and the ‘creative genius’ – it’s my abrasive post-modern side shining through – but I recognise that most people do believe in creativity (I’ll believe in the unicorn’s horn instead), and to have collectors identified as creative individuals alongside artists was remarkable. I don’t know much about Stebich, but I’m pretty certain she’s one of my people.
