GLAMi nomination: Shatter Rupture Break

Shatter Rupture Break is a digital catalogue that documents an experimental exhibition of the same name devoted to the theme of fragmentation in life and art in the modern age. The first in the Art Institute’s new Modern Series, the exhibition offered fresh and innovative ways to consider the collection, moving beyond standard curatorial and interpretive practices. (For more on the exhibition project, see here.) The same is true of  this publication, which features a unique design catered toward individual exploration. In addition to the interactive section of works and exhibition didactics, the catalogue features installation photographs, transcripts and videos of exhibition-related events, and a compilation of visitor reactions.

The design of the catalogue is intended to mimic the fragmented and experimental themes of the exhibition in order to give the reader a better sense of the exhibition experience. This is evidenced in the interactive gallery wall (link here), where readers can see all the works of art in the exhibition and click on an object to learn more, and also in the way we displayed the artworks on their own pages. In place of traditional wall labels, the exhibition featured quotes by the artists. In an attempt to capture this curatorial decision in the online catalogue, we have superimposed the accompanying quotes onto the images of the artworks and have enabled the reader to slide back and forth between the two. (See here.)

Audience reaction and perspectives from outside the museum were a very important part of the Shatter Rupture Break exhibition. For that reason, we brought in four professionals from other fields for gallery conversations and we engaged the consulting firm Peacock Nine to gauge visitor experience of the exhibition. All of the gallery conversations and excerpts from the Peacock Nine research are featured in the Reactions tab along with the transcript of the exhibition’s Study Day panel discussion.

This catalogue is the first in a series. The next exhibition, Go, is currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. We plan to release the second catalogue in this series this fall. The catalogues will have similar designs in order to identify them as a series, but each catalogue design will feature new elements that are specific to the theme of the accompanying exhibition.

Shatter Rupture Break was created using the OSCI Toolkit.