Every Thursday, 7-8pm, Ann Haubrich and Jane Ellen Ibur give KDHX 88.1FM listeners Literature for the Halibut, an hour of readings, interviews, and discussions on Literature. Last week they read newly-published poems of St. Louis-born poet Frederick Seidel, but this week they’re rewinding a couple millennia for–you guessed it–Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Special guests tonight include our very own Senior Curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra and Kress Interpretive Fellow Hannah Fullgraf as well as St. Louis Poetry Center Consultant Lorin Cuoco. They, along with Haubrich and Ellen Ibur, will read sections of the Classic and talk about next weekend’s A Marathon Metamorphoses. 

Ann Haubrich will be reading at the marathon, so you might think of the show as an auditory preview. If you haven’t checked out the A Marathon Metamorphoses blog lately, read today’s slant on Ovid from St. Louis Magazine’s Culture Editor Stefene Russell, who will also be reading next weekend and has helped host Literature for the Halibut in the past.

Two great posts I just finished reading about social media (which reminds me that I still want to do a major recap of what I’ve learned from Museums and the Web…).

This article from NPR discusses the shift from the web being page-based (and focused on displaying past information) to a constant stream of active information (a la Twitter) and what that says about our society today.  The Pulitzer has a Twitter page and participates in this “stream” – do you?  And do you think this type of constant information will eventually replace static information on the web?  Which also ties in with something else I heard on NPR this morning – will these musings online have any hope for longevity?  What will our version of Shakespeare’s sonnets be?

The other piece I just finished reading was by Kimberly from the Kemper.  She wrote about social media and art on the Saint Louis Art Map and discussed how what we do on the web as museums needs to relate back to our mission and audience.  It reminded me of the paper Nina Simon presented at Museums and the Web, which takes this idea one step further.  She discussed how our approach to an online presence – with it’s emphasis on accessibility and the interactions with Web 2.0 – and how we should bring these ideas back inside the galleries.  As she calls it, “going analog”.  It’s an interesting read -check it out here.

I’m back in St. Louis, and full of ideas from Museums and the Web.  More to come on that soon.  In the meantime, I’d like to talk about my love of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

I’ve written before about how much I admire their approach to museum transparency, but this was my first opportunity to visit in person.  The new Davis Lab gave me ideas for the presentation of our own in-gallery kiosk and the surrounding 150 acres of gardens (with prompts to post your photos on Flickr – nice) was perfect after being cooped up inside hotel conference rooms for days. Their director, Max Anderson, gave an inspiring opening address to the conference, which set the tone for all the great ideas that were to follow. Watch his intro here (ah yes, Art Babble – another reason to love the IMA!).

To add to this always-growing list – here’s a blog post about the “Indy Culture Matters” rally they participated in yesterday and the associated website. Reminded me of Amy’s post a few months back on visiting Jefferson City  (and also here) and how important it is to keep the arts at the forefront and convey their importance to our community leaders.

I’m in Indianapolis, ensconced in my hotel, and ready for tomorrow’s sessions at the Museums and the Web conference.  The program looks great, I can’t wait to meet the people behind so many of the sites I admire, I get to talk web for 3 days straight, and finally I’ll get a chance to visit the Indianapolis Museum of Art!  In conclusion: I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.  I’ll try to tweet updates on the Pulitzer’s Twitter account (follow us here: http://twitter.com/thepulitzer) as much as I can and maaaaaybe a blog post, if there’s time.  But expect a full update when I’m back next week.

The Old Masters exhibition is a unique to the Pulitzer for many reasons.  For one, it takes us away from the modern and contemporary art we typically show.  For another, the research conducted for both the print and web catalogues was more extensive than ever before.  We privileged source material written as close as possible to the lifetime of each artist.  We focused on information about the artists lives and stories about the subjects of the paintings.  Beyond that, we have two curatorial roundtable discussions about the exhibition itself, and the decisions behind it.  All of these are available in a print catalogue that’s available at the Pulitzer (because it’s also our biggest print catalogue yet, this one costs $5).  And now online: oldmasters.pulitzerarts.org.

The web catalogue also includes features that only the web will allow – gallery 360 views, zooms on certain works, a virtual walk into the Cube Gallery, videos of each curator talking, and opportunities to submit questions to each of them directly.  See what you think!

I’ve been meaning to link to this article for awhile now, and the Contemporary’s recent post about the deletion of their Facebook profile (that happened to us too!) reminded me. Courtesy of Kimberly at WUSTL’s Kemper Art Museum, this article helped clarify some of the confusion I had about what to use when if you’re representing an institution on Facebook, as well as some pitfalls to keep in mind. Check it out here.

As a way to generate interaction with our PFA Myspace/Facebook pages, I’ve been asking people to email me photos and drawings made from Pulitzer visits, to put in albums currently titled “Visitors’ Images.” This is so average guests can showcase their creativity and have a visual discussion of what they see at the Pulitzer.

Today is the opening at this online gallery. Here is some of what is being exhibited:

If you have something you would like to submit, you can email it to me at web@pulitzerarts.org.

Something I’ve blogged about a few times before, but worth mentioning again:  our approach to web and print catalogues at the Pulitzer is unique.  Because the interaction between the art and architecture is such a huge part of every exhibition, it’s essential to include full installation photos within our exhibition catalogues.  This means we can’t start photography until everything is completely installed.  Which in most cases is the week of the opening.  This photography, in addition to the accompanying text (something that also always has a unique slant – more on that later), is compiled shortly after the opening.  HOWEVER: the Old Masters exhibition is a whole new ballgame.  The natural light in the galleries and how it affects your perception of the artworks (read Bonetti’s write-up on this here) means trying to capture this unique viewing experience through our exhibition photography as well.  Top that off with unusually cloudy days lately (SIGH), and you can see why the timeline for this catalogue has been extended.

So what do we do in the meantime?  At our front desk, you can find a complete checklist of all the works within the exhibition.  We also have a previously blogged about in-gallery kiosk (my favorite!).

While the web catalogue is in development, we’ve launched a pretty fantastic holding page.  It includes the curator videos available on the in-gallery kiosk, and a place for the curators to post answers to your questions.  You can submit these questions either on the kiosk in our galleries or on this holding page at home.  They’re smart, these curators, so be sure to ask them some tough ones. And while you do, we pledge to keep this “in the meantime” phase interesting for you, so keep your questions and feedback coming.

Day 2, Post-Election

This is my first post on 2buildings1blog. After a few weeks as the PFA web communications intern, I’m still getting used to e-journaling to unknown faces. Connecting to another world from a desk and metal folding chair is unbelievable, and how to be successful at it is still in question.

For a class this week, I was assigned to write a short summary of what makes a good blog, using “research” from the Internet. If you google the topic, here’s what a few sites suggest people want in their blogs: a distinctive voice, focused obsessions, use of paragraphs, weirdness, effort, controversy, links, frequent updates, intriguing titles, advice on being successful. And substantive content is sometimes nice.

Since webloging is a relatively new form of writing, it seems like the definition of what’s good is still up for grabs. What do you think makes a good blog? In particular, what qualities do you look for in an institution’s blog? What is the role of a blog, and what do you think web communications accomplishes in general?

We now have a – *drum roll please* – computer kiosk in our galleries. At the Pulitzer there are no labels, so there isn’t anything interrupting your viewing experience with the works of art. Instead, we provide information on the exhibition as an added option – whether that be with gallery guides, exhibition booklets, or web catalogues. The kiosk is the newest addition to this list. Along with an introduction on the Old Masters exhibition and an object list of all the works, the kiosk includes videos from each curator involved. But my favorite part – while you’re watching the video, you can submit a question to the curator. Their answers will be posted on our web catalogue for Old Masters (currently being developed, the holding page is here: oldmasters.pulitzerarts.org).

And in case you’re not in town (or if you are, and want a peek from home) here’s one of the videos of Judith Mann, Curator of European Art to 1800 at the Saint Louis Art Museum, speaking about the works in the Entrance Gallery: