Natalie Thompson Nielson and Dr. Michael Phillips, Humanities
I applied for the ORCA grant hoping to learn more about the contemporary artist Julia Jacquette. I had first discovered her work on the website for New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which was showing a few representative works from artists currently on display. Her work caught my interest because of its originality, its post-feminist themes, and most importantly, its interplay between word and image, and I decided to research her more thoroughly for my honors thesis. I had researched her as much as I could when I applied for this grant, and I was hoping that the grant would allow me the opportunity to do some travel research in order to discover more.
I had learned that the artist files in the Museum of Modern Art’s library contained information about Julia Jacquette but that it could not be accessed through any other means than by visiting it. The prospect of which seemed unlikely, and so I read all that had been written on Jacquette through interlibrary loan and long evenings in the microfiche room. By doing so, I created an even more complete bibliography on her than even her host gallery (the Holly Solomon Gallery) had. Through all this searching, though, I was unable to discover whether or not I had found the information that the MOMA’s artist files contained, and they refused to give me this information (including the actual artist files) because of a number of glitches and security precautions. I realized that the only way I could view these files would be within their library. Since my honors thesis argument depended on finding more critical reviews of her work, I decided to try to make this trip part of my honors research.
I completed the travel in January as soon as I discovered that I received the grant. I arranged for an appointment to see the files, but did not expect to have to pass through the heavy security to reach it. When I arrived, I was even asked to stay in a private viewing room. All of the precautions taken up to this point led me to believe that the holdings would be quite significant and would definitely be able to give me a good lead on my argument. When I actually sat down to view the folder, these precautions only made the situation seem entirely ironic.
The file was thin. No papers even showed from the edges of the manila folder. I opened the file and found only two items: a newspaper cutout of a Jacquette print, and a postcard printed on cardstock—an invitation to an openhouse. Neither scrap had any relevance to my research nor told me any more about the artist. The works shown weren’t even works that I hadn’t seen before.
I asked to see if there was possibly any more research on this artist in any other file, but the library had nothing more.
I figured that there was a slight chance that the gift shop held an old gallery guide or a book or even a poster of her work, but unfortunately, the gift shop had only a little more to offer than the library. I asked a checker about any of these type of materials, but as far as he and a couple of other checkers were concerned, they had no written material on Julia Jacquette, either in review or in collection. Consequently, I browsed for a while, and happened upon the sale stacks. I had read from a review that the MOMA had printed images of her paintings onto plates, cups, and napkins that they served in the café during the show, and that they sold in the gift shop. Still in the sale aisles were the last few paper products—the only significant find in this trip.
So, walking away from New York, I knew little more than I did when I came. I had a greater idea of the MOMA library, and I was disappointed to discover that they did not hold any printed material from their past shows. I was surprised also to find that many of the workers had no recollection or idea about past shown artists and their work.
As for my honors thesis, I decided to substantiate it more thoroughly through additional research in a cross-disciplinary field. Since Jacquette uses both the word and the image, I picked a literary supplement as both a compliment and a foil to her work. In doing so, I have learned more about what Jacquette’s work represents in a larger scope, as well as discovering the nuances of it.
As my mentor reminded me, research doesn’t always turn out the way we want. As I had to search for alternative ways to complete the study I started, I was able to use the research I had done in even more creative and inventive ways than I originally planned. In the end, I hope this will make the thesis full of even more provocative ideas and comparisons than would have occurred otherwise.