They are building a new museum in Puerto Rico to house their national art
collection.  You might want to contact the project director - it is an
excellent, well-though-out project.

Ms. Adlin Rios Rigau, Project Director
Museum of Art of Puerto Rico
P.O. Box 42001
Sam Juan, Puerto Rico 00940-2001

On Tue, 3 Sep 1996, Sheridan wrote:

> Hi - I'm new to this group and am interested to see how useful it is for
> research and information distribution.
>
> I am about to begin an essay on National collecting.  To keep the focus
> narrow I will be limiting my discussion to art collecting but am interested
> in the issue as a whole. The questions I'll be discussing include:
>
> What is a National Collection?  Or, perhaps more to the point, what should
> a National Collection consist of?  Should it be of objects which have been
> produced solely by inhabitants of the Nation?  Or should it be
> international, leaving the collection of nationally/locally produced items
> to the "regional" museums?
>
> Or should it consist of any objects which are perceived as having some kind
> of relationship to the Nation regardless of their origin?  Perhaps a
> National Collection should attempt to collect only objects of an exemplary
> nature (competing with all the other institutions in the world who are
> trying to do the same thing)?
>
> Why do museums collect?  Why not just have large exhibitions spaces, solely
> devoted to "public programming" which are reliant on institutions such as
> Universities for the supply of - and research into - objects?
>
> I'm sure many of you have been involved in these kinds of discussions and
> there must be a heap of papers out there which have been produced as a
> result.  My focus for this (smallish) assignment will be on the development
> of a small painting collection so I am particularly interested in anything
> related to this specifically.  However - who knows what it could develop in
> to!
>
> Please send me any comments, references or papers which could help me
> define my ideas and spark off some new avenues of inquiry....
>
> thanks,
> [log in to unmask]
>