User:Ontologicalmuseum/Sandbox

Ontological Museum

The Ontological Museum - Est. 1996 by Cecil Touchon is located in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. The museum offers occasional exhibitions, publications, educational programs and workshops. The Museum's central public venue is the internet that provides an excellent and low cost platform for presenting the museum's collection and for advancing its programs which are oriented toward the communities of contemporary artists and art groups which the museum maintains contact with - The International Post-Dogmatist Group, The Massurrealist Society, The FluxNexus, The Neoist Society and The International Society of Collage and Assemblage Artists.

The Ontological Museum is an experimental artwork that could be called a Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art) and is also inspired by the idea of a Kunstkammer (art room) or Wunderkammer (wonders room) or Cabinet of Curiosities. The museum has several wings that specialize in specific types of artworks. The mission of the museum is to create an art collection that is gathered together like a scientific museum that, for instance, collects rocks or bugs or might be likened to an anthropological museum. It is a cultural record of contemporary art that is unique in that the works entering the collection are unmediated but rather determined by the artists who contribute them. It is an artist oriented museum developed around living connections to artists all over the world primarily through the internet. The works that come into the collection are donated by the artists as independent gifts or in response to a particular project or exhibition. The collection contains thousands of items with more added continuously.

The International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction
The IMCAC - begun in 1998 is focused on Collage/Assemblage art as well as studio documentary materials such as donated sketchbooks, scrapbooks, hand made books, diaries, collections of papers, dossiers, photographs, ephemera; all of those things that surround the creative process of collage, assemblage and construction. The museum's interest is in constructed art as it began in the early 20th century around photography, film, advertising, printing, computers, mass media, etc.

The Fluxmuseum
FLUXmUSeum was founded in 2006 with the intention of documenting 21st century Fluxus artists. The Fluxmuseum is dedicated to the collection, performance, production, publishing, promotion, exhibition, documentation and safekeeping of Fluxus works. The Fluxmuseum is an inclusive venture inviting any artist who feels a connection to Fluxus to participate in museum projects and to contribute works to the collection.

The Archives of the Eternal Network
The AEN invites mail artists to send samples of their work and/or to donate their collections of accumulated correspondence to the Archives. The Archives contains a variety of Assemblings such as Bambu, Tensetendoned, Brain Cell, Artistamps and correspondence art.

The Department of Linguistic Records
The DLR collects language related works such as visual poetry, concrete poetry, collage poetry, asemic writing and other related items as well as small and independent press publications.

List of Exhibitions

 * 1) White on White at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas (2007)
 * 2) Fluxhibition #2 - New and Improved Fluxus at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas (2008)
 * 3) Under the Influence at The Longview Art Museum, Longview Texas (2008)
 * 4) Fluxhibition #3 - Thinking Inside of the Box - The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas (2009)
 * 5) Fluxhibition #4 - Fluxus Amusements, Diversions, Games, Tricks and Puzzles at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Center (2010)
 * 6) Flux4.1 - Briefcase exhibit at the Stendhal Gallery in New York City (2010)
 * 7) Contemporary Collage: Paper’s Many Forms at Emily Amy Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (2010)
 * 8) Flux4.3 - Briefcase exhibit at the Nuart Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico (2010)
 * 9) FLUXface in Space! In Outer Space and at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas  (2010)
 * 10) A Book About Death at the Fluxmuseum at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas (2010)
 * 11) Fluxhibition #5 - Jubilee Jamboree (50 Years of Fluxus)
 * 12) Flux5.1 - Fluxfest Chicago during 'Without You I’m Nothing: Art and Its Audience' at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago(2011)
 * 13) Flux5.2 The Intricacies of the Heart and Its Chambers – The Collage Art of Hope Kroll (and Fluxcase Micro Museum) at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas (2011)
 * 14) Flux5.3 Summer Open House at the Archives Fort Worth, Texas (2011)
 * 15) Flux5.4 Fluxfest Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Il. (2012)
 * 16) Assemblings from the Archives of the Eternal Network at the Ontological Museum, Pagosa Springs, Colorado