Jonathan Schneider | Date: 6/9/2011
"Each year our awards stand as the high-water mark for acknowledging the exemplary work of curators from across North America, “ says Sally Block, Executive Director of the Association of Art Museum Curators, “What is most impressive is the these are the only awards given to curators by their peers.” In the field of publications, the AAMC has honored Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art as the Outstanding Catalogue based on a Permanent Collection. Edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz, the catalogue includes essays from forty- eight contributing authors. “Modern Women is a refreshing and innovative model for rethinking what a collection catalogue can be,” says Austen Barron Bailly, prize juror and Associate Curator of American Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “With its impressive range of voices and self-conscious approach to documenting the women artists in MoMA’s collection, this well-designed and thoughtfully researched book makes a vital contribution to art history and sets a new standard for the permanent collection catalogue.”
   
The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, also published by the Museum of Modern Art, took the top award for Outstanding Catalogue based on an Exhibition. “The Original Copy represents a ground-breaking contribution to the study of photography,” says Jay Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and AAMC prize jury chair, “Its conceptual frame invites the reader to reconsider the photography of sculpture and indeed to question the genres of sculpture and performance all together. The authors approach what could be overly dense theoretical material in clear and insightful ways. The forward-looking yet user-friendly methodology of the text is paired with an equally clean and elegant book design.”
Above, spreads from The Original Copy.
To see the rest of the recipients and runners up please click here.
For further reading on Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture 1839 to Today visit Thomas’ At First Sight ARTBOOK blog post.
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