Museum of Capitalism: Archive of the Present
The Museum of Capitalism is an institution dedicated to educating this generation and future generations about the ideology, history, and legacy of capitalism, through exhibitions, research, publication, collecting and preserving material evidence, art, and artifacts of capitalism, and a variety of public programming.
Museum of Capitalism: Archive of the Present gathers materials from the first few years of the museum’s existence, including many never-before-seen images and unpublished writings. As the ongoing project takes many forms, involving public-facing programming as well as behind-the-scenes organizing, it leaves many traces—of drafts, plans, notes, and other fragments which, assembled in the round in a kind of panorama, give an expansive sense of its past as well as its future.
The archive features research documents, proposals, wall labels, correspondence with advisors and collaborators, and other texts, press clippings and records of audience responses and visitor feedback, and visual documentation from the museum’s artifacts and exhibits, its public architecture competition and donation events, and various exhibitions and displays, including works created by dozens of artists and designers who help bring the museum to life.
The exhibition’s title references the museum’s controversial present-day memorialization of capitalism, as well as the intention for its own archiving to be a process of making present: of making the writing of history—including its own—more immediately accessible, and of caring as much for relationships between people and places as for physical objects in long-term storage or on temporary display. Despite inevitable exclusions and erasures, this archive represents the most comprehensive survey of the museum’s activities assembled in one place.
Exhibition photos (c) das weisse haus - Carmen Alber
Featuring original documentation of artworks, exhibits, and artifacts created and donated by Ben Bigelow, Bernard Marszalek, Blake Fall Conroy, Calum Storrie, Center for Tactical Magic, Cheyenne Concepcion (Borderlands Archive), Cheyenne Concepcion and Oscar Romo, Chip Lord, Christy Chow, CoClimate, Dr. Jeffrey Caren, Dread Scott, EG Crichton, Elora Cuenco, Evan Desmond Yee, Finger Pointing Worker / Kota Takeuchi, Fran Ilich, Gelare Khoshgozaran, James Mcanally, Janaki Jagannath (Marigold Society), Jasper Waters, Jennifer Dalton, Jessica Kingdon, Jordan Bennett, Kambui Olujimi, Kate Haug, Kelly Jazvac, Kyle Henderson, Maia Chao, Marc Fischer, Michele de la Vega, Mr. Charles Brown, Naomi Lee, Packard Jennings, Sayler / Morris, Stevanne Auerbach (International Toy Museum), Superflex, Tara Shi, Taraneh Hemami, Walmart and Banksy, Won Cha and Rob Ungar, et al
Duration: January 29 – April 04, 2020
Opening: January 28, 2020, 7pm