rock collector

Caillois ... called stones l’orée du songe—the shore of dreaming—and he amassed a wonderful collection, which he left to the Museum of National History in Paris where you can go and look at them; he also wrote two luminous books about stones. These are not about precious stones such as diamonds and rubies but about dendrites, agates, Chinese scholars’ stones—pebbles and rocks that look like nothing much at first but can open up wonders under contemplation ... They lead him to understanding the physical make-up of the world, its 'algebra, vertigo, and order.' He exults in their inscrutability and their lack of affect, their silence, their sheer stoniness. 

Marina Warner, "The Writing of Stones." Cabinet, Issue 29 Sloth Spring 2008.

This essay is crammed with good things — right now (maybe as always) I am drawn to the idea that magic is not something nebulous or other; it is grounded in the world, in the miracle of rocks and trees and clouds and waves and stars. 

Bookmarked for further reading: the idea of re-enchantment.

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Caillois' stones are part of the collections on display in The Keeper; my favorite stone in Caillois' collection, originally posted back in 2013.

Images found at but does it float; more at 50 Watts.

'what, then, to make of objects?'

What, then, to make of objects? In a culture being redefined by the way it consumes, what to make of people who collect things, who keep things? What to make of the personal archives, the private universes, the physical stabs at permanence and immortality that collectors create? ... Why do we keep? 

William L. Hamilton, "Object Lessons: The New Museum Explores Why We Keep Things." NYT 7/14/2016.

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“The Keeper” is an exhibition dedicated to the act of preserving objects, artworks, and images, and to the passions that inspire this undertaking. A reflection on the impulse to save both the most precious and the apparently valueless, it 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.

The New Museum 

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Collections vary in their intentionality; many of us have hundreds of plastic bags stuffed beneath the sink; thousands of casual snapshots dormant in overfull hard-drives. We look happily upon such cached keepsakes even as we consign them to oblivion, sure that someday we will be grateful that we were prepared, that we haven’t forgotten. Museums and archives bear more purposeful gatherings, charting the suppositions that we call science and the mythologies that we dub history in reliquary records and documentary artifacts. Such are the gestures of archives: holding on, making infinite, and striving beyond material mass to reach for answers to the perennial questions of how to remember and how to know.

Nicole Kaack,  "Adding One to Infinity: The Keeper at The New Museum." SFAQ 8/10/2016.

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Truly sad I am not getting to see this exhibit in person; I've been devouring online images and the catalog is on my birthday list.