The artist's book, the collector and the collection at the museum: an an intersubjective itinerary of Paulo Herkenhoff's artist’s books collection at the Museu de Arte do Rio

Abstract

This paper discussed the condition of the collection of artist books formed by Paulo Herkenhoff throughout his subjective trajectory (in the hands of the collector) and doubly intersubjectivite, that is, on the one hand, recognized in the “hands of the donator” (once donated to the library of the Rio Art Museum in 2013), on the other hand, appropriated by the experience of this professional on the items. For this study, we presented the institution Museum of Art of Rio in its history, its mission and its architecture, followed by a brief biographical chronology of Paulo Herkenhoff. The methodological approach, as an exploratory research, used primary and bibliographic sources, including the interview with the collector himself and the reference to the theoretical basis of the artist's book, as well as to the library literature devoted to the theorizing of preservation practices and organization of the knowledge of special collections. As a result, the study demonstrated the complex and hybrid condition of the artist's book in its different space-time dimensions, from the conceptual plane to the institutional plane, having as empirical-subjective margin the need for recognition of the collector's trajectory. The conclusions pointed to the dilemma between the place of custody and the descriptive typologies as instances still open, recognized as categories that are complex and emergent for the debate about the artist’s book in the field.