This is in response to email posted on July 6 by
 David A. Penney
 The Baltimore Museum of Art
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who wrote:
>I was surprised the other week that no one corrected Mindy Lehrman Cameron's
>statement (unless they did so off the list):

 <<Fred Wilson is an artist who has curated with museums to tell a story
using
their collections. I saw a show of his called "Mining the  Museum" at the
Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, Maryland in which he told a history
of African Americans.  In it, for example, he had a vitrine filled with
silver
objects from around the mid-nineteenth century (i.e., the Civil War). There
were  cream pitchers and silverware and then there was a slave shackle also
made of silver just there simply among the artifacts.>>  (quoted in Lee
Boyko's message yesterday)

 >I believe that if Mindy and Lee look more closely at the documentation of
>Wilson's "Mining the Museum" show they will find that a genuine (i.e. iron)
>slave shackle was used in the section "Metalwork."  It's my opinion that the
>installation was a success because it used genuine objects from the
Historical
>Society's collection, and did not fabricate such fantasy pieces as silver
>shackles, which would not create the frisson of the real thing.

Thank you.  I did understand that all of the objects in the show were from
the Society's collection and not fabricated for the show.  If the shackles
were not silver, I stand corrected. I was speaking from a distant memory of
visiting the exhibition and not after having consulted any documentation of
it.  I was impressed and thought it was worth mentioning in the context.

"...which would not create the frisson of the real thing..." ???

"Frisson"? "Shiver; chill, such as often precedes a fever; hence,
figuratively, thrill; shudder; quiver; emotional excitement." Webster's New
International Dictionary, Second Edition.
What ever do you mean?

Mindy Lehrman Cameron
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