Accession Number

Between 1960 and 1962, 396 works of art came into the museum. As with all objects that enter the collection, ancient Egyptian amulets, Chinese Qing dynasty vases, and William Morris Hunt’s majestic painting of Niagara Falls were catalogued with an accession number, a code that records both the year and order of acquisition. 

Using this coding system as a display strategy, Accession Number poses several questions: What did the museum prioritize, why, and what did it overlook? Why was the art given? Which works of art do we value today? And finally, how do we infer meaning from this or any archive? Explore this question in an accompanying installation that invites the public to curate their own digital display.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website