>>The Whitney Museum NYC (echonyc.com) offers some interesting
>>historical data, a year by year summary of the museum, a list
>>of exhibits, etc.  But these are essentially text documents.
 
The Whitney is just beginning to explore the possibilities of what it can
offer online to the public and is taking the position, a smart one, that
the public will want to do more than search databases and download
images to make screen savers. By growing their project out of the
ECHO BBS the director, David Ross, is learning a thing or two about
building communities online. One of the reasons they are putting the
Race Issues item on the gopher is because one of the major threads
in that item has been about finding new ways to discuss race and
because they have an exhibit opening soon about the Black male
image in art.
 
A museum has two collections: the objects on view and in storage;
and the knowledge and interpretation gained because of those objects
and the people, inside and out of the institution, who take those
objects under consideration.
 
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ROBBIN MURPHY                                   [log in to unmask]
Managing Editor, ArtNet
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