What follows is the edited text of an interview conducted by Lauren Sorensen (Spotlight Service team member) on 23 February 2024 with Vanessa Kam, University Librarian at Emily Carr University of Art & Design (former Head of Bowes Library at Stanford University) and Anneliis Beadnell, Head Researcher and Archivist to the Estates of Carolee Schneemann, David Wojnarowicz, and Martin Wong at P·P·O·W Gallery. Vanessa and Anneliis are on the editorial team for the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné project and exhibit. This interview was completed as part of a set of activities by the Stanford Libraries Spotlight Service Team to celebrate both the 10-year anniversary of the first Spotlight application launch and the publication milestone of 150 Spotlight exhibits.
About Martin Wong: “Raised in San Francisco and educated in California, Martin Wong came of age during the heyday of the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. He relocated to New York City in 1978 where he soon began exhibiting widely and quickly became a leading figure of the 1980s downtown arts scene. He was diagnosed with AIDS and returned to San Francisco in 1994 before his death at age 53. His work has been the subject of multiple solo retrospective exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of museums including Chicago Art Institute, M+ Museum in Hong Kong, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Yale University Art Gallery. P·P·O·W began exhibiting Wong’s artwork in the early ’90s and continues to be the primary gallery representing his works today.
“The Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné is a free online resource featuring the paintings, drawings, poetry, and ceramics of artist Martin Wong (1946–99). In addition to detailed records of over 800 works of art, the project features new essays by scholars and curators, a comprehensive illustrated chronology, and a wealth of primary source material including revealing interviews, a 1991 recording of Wong speaking about his work, and a film portrait from the last decade of his life.”
Lauren Sorensen: Could you both give a brief introduction about who you are, what your institution is, and your relationship to the Martin Wong project and to the Catalogue Raisonné?
Vanessa Kam: I’m Vanessa Kam. Currently, I'm the University Librarian at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada, and prior to that, I was at Stanford University as the Head of the Bowes Library from 2016 to 2021. My involvement started while I was working at Stanford and I actually continued after I transitioned to the position in Vancouver. So I've been working on it for a number of years. As a co-editor of the project, my work involved things like facilitating the quality assurance meetings that happened pretty regularly with the editorial team, contributing an introductory essay, and helping with metadata input, particularly around related publications. But also working with a proofreader to make sure all the metadata was acceptable.
Anneliis Beadnell: I had been with P·P·O·W Gallery, which represents Martin Wong’s artwork in New York, as a senior director for the last decade and since transitioned into art historical and archival work, and collaborating with the Martin Wong Foundation, based in San Francisco, more closely. Martin was born and raised on the West Coast, so working with Stanford Libraries was a perfect fit. I had been tracking Martin's work through my involvement in his representation at the gallery, and through assisting with exhibitions of Martin's work domestically and abroad, like Human Instamatic, an exhibit that took place in 2016 at the Bronx Museum, and traveled to Berkeley BAMPFA (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) and to the Wexner Center in Ohio and recently, Malicious Mischief, which was Wong’s first European Survey that traveled to Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Madrid; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Camden Art Centre, London and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. I assist with catalogs and archival processes for the gallery and am updating the digital Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné on an almost weekly basis, which has been incredible. It has been a pleasure becoming a co-editor of the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné project and a colleague of the amazing Vanessa Kam, and learning so much through the process of building out metadata for Wong’s artistic work. We are trying to work on the exhibit as much as we can for research and accessibility, while also simultaneously digitizing his archive. This work really led to enriching illustrations of Martin's life on Spotlight. Creating the exhibit was an amazing part of this project.
Lauren Sorensen: What you're talking about with context and seeing the archival material alongside the actual artworks involved in the project: was that something that came about organically? Or was that a particular decision that you made at some point in preparing for the exhibit?
Anneliis Beadnell: I think it was always a conversation with all of the co-editors. Everything on Spotlight, I feel confident in saying, was a conversation among Vanessa, Mark Johnson (Professor Emeritus of Art at San Francisco State University, advisor to the Stanford Asian American Art Initiative, Martin Wong Foundation board), Marci Kwon (Co-Director of the Asian American Art Initiative and Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at Stanford University) and Gary Ware (President of the Martin Wong Foundation). So certainly, when images became available that was amazing and would give depth to a certain period of Martin’s life. Then we all discussed it, and a lot of times it became a no brainer to be able to share access as much as we could on this platform.
Vanessa Kam: I think Anneliis is totally right in that. The discussions around archival material for Martin happen pretty organically with the editorial team, but I think it aligns really brilliantly with the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI), an initiative spearheaded by the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Because they really see the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné as the inaugural research project of the AAAI. This initiative encompasses a range of activities, including collecting and exhibiting works of Asian and Asian American diaspora artists. So, we're talking about actual artworks, but we are also concerned with preserving archival materials, fostering undergraduate and graduate education, cultivating community collaboration and dialogue through public programming. And so I really see from a librarian perspective, well, whenever we can relate archives to actual artworks, from the same artist, why not? Why not do that? And that exponentially expands the field of materials that a researcher could consult if they wanted a comprehensive view of an artist, and what could be better than seeing an actual artwork? In the Cantor, or even in the Stanford Libraries, some of the artists’ archives that we have contain artworks, drawings, prints, and things like that, and you couple that with a really rich archive collection, with all sorts of papers that document the artist's life, and the business around their life, whatever it is – I think that combination creates a much more cohesive picture of the artist for the researcher. So I see that grouping as really wonderfully in line with the vision of the AAAI.
“Based at the Cantor Arts Center, The Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) is dedicated to the study of artists and makers of Asian descent. The AAAI encompasses a range of activities, including: collecting and exhibiting works of Asian American/diaspora artists; preserving archival materials; fostering undergraduate and graduate education; and cultivating community collaboration and dialogue through public programming.”
Lauren Sorensen: Can you tell me a bit about the impetus, or the background for initially wanting to create this catalogue raisonné, the exhibit, and the involvement of Stanford Libraries and Spotlight?
Vanessa Kam: I can start by saying how initially it came across my desk. If my memory serves me correctly, Marci Kwon approached me while I was head of the Bowes Library at Stanford, and she is an assistant professor in art history, who teaches American art, and is really strong in Asian American art. She approached me with an idea of a Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné. She approached me and was trying to figure out if the Stanford Libraries could be a partner in a project like this. And I thought, “Wow, intriguing idea.” I learned a bit about Martin, and so I thought about it, and I first approached the Stanford University Press to see if they would be interested in it because they had a fairly new digital platform that they'd added to their services and vision and so, after discussing what it could look like to them, we felt like it wasn't exactly a match for where they wanted to go with their digital platform.
By then, I had been liaising pretty regularly with María Matienzo (formerly Assistant Director for Digital Strategy and Access), who was at Stanford Libraries’ Digital Library Systems & Services at the time, and I raised the idea with her. We kept talking about it, and we thought Spotlight could be a platform we can utilize. Other curators at Stanford Libraries were using it for exhibits, and we felt it could work. I'm curious to know what Annelis thinks about it.
Anneliis Beadnell: I was really only brought in after the ball was rolling as support. Because I met with María and Gary Geisler (former User Experience Designer at Stanford Libraries) and they told me that this could be a potential collaboration. That's when I had the wonderful opportunity to fly out and meet in person pre-Covid, which was wonderful. I got to see the enthusiasm of the team, visited the Libraries and things started getting into motion. I was very happy to support however I could.
Lauren Sorensen: The exhibit, the catalogue raisonné, is it part of a larger context, like an initiative or a program? Or is it basically a standalone project from the Foundation, Stanford Libraries, and P·P·O·W? Do you see it as a part of something larger?
Vanessa Kam: It’s really a part of the AAAI at the Cantor. They really do see it as the inaugural research project of the initiative, and it aligns nicely with their vision and the range of their vision.
Anneliis Beadnell: It's a wonderful way to keep what is a traditionally inherent form of cataloging an artist's work alive. With Spotlight, we're able to add, change and track as we go, and as for Martin’s individual artworks that are represented, exhibited and published, all of that kind of material gets updated which really offers a lot for scholars and curators. Since it's free access, so many people outside of the art world realm are coming to see the site. People that just love Martin Wong are coming to the site to enjoy and learn more. I think that there's a lot of outreach that it's been able to provide to a lot of different audiences, and lends a wider context that way.
Vanessa Kam: Actually, I'm glad that you raise the whole catalogue raisonné topic. I have training in art history, and catalogue raisonnés are a traditional way of providing a comprehensive overview of an artist's work. And they are typically printed. And they're typically incredibly expensive because depending on the artist, it could be multiple volumes, and it takes a ton of work, because the idea behind it is to document every single work of an artist, or perhaps just their finished work or mature work; there are different parameters set for the scope. But if we're doing a catalog raisonné of Picasso, for example, it needs to capture every single painting, every single drawing, every single print he did, etc. But not only that, it has to be that each object is reproduced in high resolution, and has accompanying information. Sometimes there are essays that are written to accompany each image. So you have to hire a team of art historians to do this. But not only that, the raisonné has information like the exhibition history of the piece, the work’s provenance (who owned it over time, and where did it go once it traded hands), and related publications. Aside from the nuts and bolts, things like what are the dimensions of this work? What's the medium? And so you can imagine if you're talking about a really prolific artist, this takes years and years, and then when you print it, it is in a fixed form. So if you're talking about an artist who's still alive and producing, how are you going to update that? How are you going to raise the funds for printing costs of these amazing color reproductions on every page? And so an online platform like Spotlight affords us so much more flexibility. Like Anneliis was saying, this catalogue raisonné for Martin Wong is updated weekly – you can't do that in print.
With Spotlight, there is an indexing of the subjects and other information associated with the work that can happen, too. So if you look at the left sidebar facets, there are filters that you can click on if you want groupings of particular topics like a date range or a keyword that we added about the content. But then you've got the browse categories that nicely group together similar works, whether they'd be by medium, series, and so on. Martin did work with series, and these types of works are easy to group together in Spotlight. We can even create new browse categories on the fly.
I think those groupings can change how art history is researched, because how else could you so easily see all of Martin's works that have to do with, for instance, eight balls or ducks. You can make all kinds of arguments when you have a grouping like that in front of you. With ease, you can look at and compare among other works. Compared to a printed catalogue raisonné, you can't do that.
Anneliis Beadnell: And with the Spotlight platform we can also include new scholarship, and add more essays. There's an ability to have a larger conversation, and make the work more accessible to a broad audience, to an artist that was very active during the 1980s. It is really important, I think, for scholars and curators to be able to browse categories like exhibitions, so that we could show what work Martin exhibited, and what artworks were a part of a checklist for an exhibition. Knowing the work that he exhibited in his lifetime is also extremely informative. The exhibit shows how he presented certain bodies of work, and enables an understanding of his work and creative process without students then having to dig for archival paper in boxes that may not exist anymore from, say, a 1985 exhibition at Semaphore Gallery. It's so great to have researchers be able to peruse the digital records and enjoy, without having to go on a mystery hunt. But that being said, Martin was such a complex person. Amazing artists like him have many layers, and I feel like there is still discovery to be had about his work. I get excited about Spotlight's allowance for broad accessibility because it really does encourage new and ongoing conversations. We're going to see new exhibitions done or even Martin being included in exhibitions that he wasn't considered for previously, because curators may not have previously understood the range and depth to his work. There are all these hopes, and with time and accessibility the sky's the limit to more conversations around his work.
Vanessa Kam: It sounds like people from the community are piping up and saying, “Oh, I have a certain fact about an event that Martin was at that we wrote about somewhere” to potentially include in the catalogue raisonné, maybe in an essay, or a work that hasn't been captured yet. So it is creating this wellspring opportunity for community members to contact us and speak about what they know about Martin. That's really, really exciting.
One more thing about the catalogue raisonné, and I'm raising it as something to think about. In my experience in Art History, a lot of the catalogue raisonnés were focused on Western European artists. I don't know how many catalogue raisonnés that focus on artists of color. So I think [the Wong Catalogue Raisonné project] is providing an opportunity for a kind of diversification of this genre of art publication.
Lauren Sorensen: As a follow on from talking about the material that is being added on a weekly basis that you mentioned before, I'm just curious if there are items that were recently uploaded or updated that you are excited about, or seemed interesting, and a brief description.
Anneliis Beadnell: Yes, the co-editors have a batch of new images of artworks of Martin’s that will be added into the image catalog after we go through a process of quality assurance and checking the metadata, and that is about 70 new artwork records including Martin Wong's sketchbooks, some of which are upwards of 80 pages.
It's these incredible illustrations that Martin did both when he was doing set design for the [performance art group] Angels of Light Free Theater, and after he had gone back to Eureka, California to teach at Humboldt State University. That is the new material to come, but on a weekly basis what really gets updated more religiously is the exhibition history and related publications metadata. And what's upcoming in 2024 for Martin, as those exhibitions open, those dates are added. We don't add entries until the show happens. Bibliographic records have been updated on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.
Lauren Sorensen: I’m curious about selection of content and how you go about deciding what is on the platform. I’m wondering if you have any more to say about what the process was for selecting the images, or other content.
Anneliis Beadnell: Well, this is our first batch outside of the initial upload of over 800 artworks when we originally launched the project. So this is our first quality assurance process for an additional batch. Most of these items are still coming in from the estate directly. So in regards to the co-editors vetting those artworks, it’s pretty much a one to one ratio. We know the provenance and it is crystal clear that a lot of works that are being added now are artworks that had never been photographed, or were not accessible previously. So it’s another advantage, that the digital platform has given us an opportunity to make sure that these high resolution images that are zoomable, are high quality TIFF (image file format) files, that will go into the Stanford Digital Repository. We're able to take our time and make sure that the best image possible is there, representing the work. We already know the artworks that are needing to be added, it's just getting the highest quality possible source for those records, because otherwise we have to re-do it. And that's not something that we want to be asking Cathy [Aster, Spotlight Service Manager] and you all to be doing remediation for us.
Vanessa Kam: Early on when the editorial team started working, we determined that we weren't going to include works of Martin Wong’s that we considered juvenilia. We were more interested in what we considered mature works. Even still, if you look at some of the archival collections of Florence, Martin's mother, documenting his work when he was a child, these works look pretty amazing, far more impressive than a typical eight-year-old. We decided not to include those in the Catalogue Raisonné in a formal way, but some of them are captured as a part of the timeline entries on his page.
Lauren Sorensen: I'm wondering if you have gotten any feedback, or if you've heard of anyone using the exhibit in an educational setting, for research or writing and the like.
Anneliis Beadnell: I've gotten a lot of different feedback from all types of people. From artists that are huge fans of Martin's work, to curators. In one instance when we looked at the analytics, we were seeing that, for example, when an exhibit was on in Berlin we were seeing the analytics spike in Germany, or wherever Martin’s show was traveling, in Amsterdam and other places. We were seeing a lot of activity kick up because people wanted to see more than just the exhibit, which is really fascinating to me, because the exhibit was paired with a very traditional catalog, and certainly not a small catalog by any means, but folks still wanted more. So, that's the kind of feedback that I find to be really exciting, that the Catalogue Raisonné is filling people's appetite for more Martin Wong. They couldn't get enough in an exhibition catalog, and needed more.
Lauren Sorensen: In terms of art history, or an associated research community, have you seen any references to the exhibit? And I realize it's a fairly new exhibit, so there might not be scholars that are publishing papers quite yet, and citing the exhibit. But just curious if you'd heard anything in the wind about that.
Anneliis Beadnell: Not yet, but I imagine we'll get there at some point.
Vanessa Kam: Yes, I think it's a matter of time. I personally haven't seen it, but I'm a little further away from it at this stage. I do know that publications like Art Asia Pacific announced [the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné] publication which was really great. So I think it's just a matter of time.
Lauren Sorensen: Is there anything else that you wanted to share about your experience working with Spotlight or the exhibit?
Vanessa Kam: It was just super exciting, fulfilling and wonderful working with the team, and with Cathy Aster, Arcadia Falcone (Metadata Coordinator at Stanford Libraries), and Gary Geisler, all the people who helped at Stanford Libraries, and María Matienzo initially. An exciting collaboration that put forth a beautiful object of study on the web, that is so accessible to people.
Anneliis Beadnell: I agree, super fulfilling. The co-editors are like family to me. We were all working so hard on this during Covid. So there was a little bit of a lifeline in working on this project. I don't want to be so bold as to speak for other people, but it was palpable how important it felt to be able to be as privileged as we were to do this work for the artist and his legacy. And I get really excited thinking about the big picture and the ripple effect of a lot of young people out there who need accessibility to Martin and his story, and may find some of themselves in what he went through as an artist and a human on this earth.