23 March, 2010
They've done what?
Apparently, the New York Museum of Modern Art has 'acquired' the '@' symbol for its Architecture and Design collection.
The curator explains that:
... physical possession of an object as a requirement for an acquisition is no longer necessary, and therefore it sets curators free to tag the world and acknowledge things that 'cannot be had' – because they are too big (buildings, Boeing 747's, satellites), or because they are in the air and belong to everybody and to no-one...
Er. I can appreciate the concept, even the intellectual aspiration, but... sorry, it's either pretentious bollocks or a publicity stunt. MOMA simply hasn't 'acquired' a typographical symbol, in precisely the same way as I haven't 'acquired' the letter
'E'. The curators are free to celebrate its history (read the article) and significance to the modern world, but there's no meaningful sense in which it's become part of a specific museum's collection.
What's its catalogue number?
Posted by Ministry at 17:14
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