The Keeper

New Museum presents “The Keeper”, a reflection on the impulse to save both the most precious, the apparently valueless and the function and responsibility of museums.

Ydessa Hendeles, Partners (The Teddy Bear Project), 2002. Photograph by Robert Keziere

The Keeper is an exhibition dedicated to the act of preserving and collecting objects, artworks, and images. A reflection on the impulse to save both the most precious and the apparently valueless, the exhibition brings together a variety of imaginary museums, personal collections, and unusual assemblages, revealing the devotion with which artists, collectors, scholars, and hoarders have created sanctuaries for endangered images and artifacts. In surveying varied techniques of display, the exhibition also reflects on the function and responsibility of museums within multiple economies of desire.

Ed Atkins, The Trick Brain, 2013 (still). HD video, suono 5.1 surround, colori; 16:16 min. Courtesy l'artista; Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlino; e Cabinet Gallery, Londra — **Top:** Ydessa Hendeles, *Partners (The Teddy Bear Project)*, 2002. Photo Robert Keziere **Above:** Ed Atkins, *The Trick Brain*, 2013 (still). HD video, 5.1 surround sound, color; 16:16 min. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin and Cabinet Gallery, London

Through a series of studies and portraits that spans the twentieth century, The Keeper tells the stories of various individuals through the objects they chose to safeguard, exposing the diverse motivations that inspired them to endow both great and mundane things with exceptional significance. As responses to loss, chronicles of experience, subjective quests, and archives for the future, the unusual collections and personal museums presented range from staggeringly maximalist efforts to modest struggles charged with urgency.

Carol Bove, Cretaceous, 2014. Installation view: the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK. © Carol Bove/Carlo Scarpa. Courtesy the artist; Maccarone Gallery, New York/Los Angeles; David Zwirner, New York/London; and Museum Dhondt–Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium. Photo: Jerry Hardman-Jones — Carol Bove, *Cretaceous*, 2014. Installation view: the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK. © Carol Bove/Carlo Scarpa. Courtesy the artist; Maccarone Gallery, New York/Los Angeles; David Zwirner, New York/London and Museum Dhondt–Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium. Photo Jerry Hardman-Jones

Through this collection and others, the exhibition also emphasizes images and objects that testify to historical trauma or dramatic events, representing the act of preserving as a resolution to bear witness and to remember. Clandestine efforts to save or protect, often taken at great risk, attest to an indefatigable faith in the power of images to heal and comfort, and to a desire to honor what survives in spite of the effects of violence or time.

Oliver Croy e Oliver Elser, The 387 Houses of Peter Fritz (1916 –1992), Insurance Clerk da Vienna, 1993–2008 (dettaglio). Selezione di 126 modelli, dimensioni variabili. © Wien Museum e Peter Cox — Oliver Croy and Oliver Elser, *The 387 Houses of Peter Fritz (1916 –1992)*, Insurance Clerk from Vienna, 1993–2008 (detail). Selection of 126 mixed-medium models, dimensions variable. © Wien Museum and Peter Cox

As the specter of iconoclasm continues to resurface in current events, The Keeper presents the complex lives of images and objects that have escaped a tragic end alongside the existential adventures of individuals driven by unreasonable acts of iconophilia.

20 July – 25 September 2016
The Keeper
curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson (artistic director), Natalie Bell, Helga Christoffersen (assistant curators) and Margot Norton (associate curator)
New Museum
235 Bowery, New York

The Keeper

New Museum presents “The Keeper”, a reflection on the impulse to save both the most precious, the apparently valueless and the function and responsibility of museums.

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