1stfans Twitter Art Feed Artist for August 2010: Danny Tuss

This month on the Twitter Art Feed, we’re presenting the work of Brooklyn Museum staff member, Danny Tuss. Danny is assistant to the Chief Curator and, on a daily basis, works as a curatorial assistant for all of the curatorial departments, managing projects that range from object research to new acquisitions and everything in between. While Danny’s work at the Museum is primarily collection-focused, he’s continually thinking of unique ways in which the Museum can continue to share undiscovered materials, engage visitors with the objects, and reveal the individuality and varied interests of our staff. Recently, Danny and I were chatting about the Brooklyn’s Finest segment on the blog-which spotlights a staff member every month-and he proposed a somewhat related photography project of his that will allow a completely different perspective on the people that work here. I’ll let him explain:

Despite popular belief, museums are not proverbial ivory towers situated high upon hills, filled with curators and staff meticulously tending to their objects in sterile offices worthy of forensic crime television. In fact the truth is quite the contrary: the offices of a museum are crowded, cluttered and storied places often as interesting and convoluted in appearance as objects in the collection.  Throughout August I will conduct an exposé, wherein “portraits” of various museum offices will be posted to twitter.

Danny’s “self-portrait”

This idea came about through a conversation with a friend about the Brooklyn Museum.  Without a museum background, this friend assumed, as I think many people do, that museums exist in a bubble.  It was clear that people’s perception of museums as clean whitewashed spaces full of beautiful, pristine objects protected by high security extended to the perception that curators and staff work in similarly pristine conditions. This project is an opportunity to show that the reality is quite different and that often the work spaces of the collectors can be as interesting as the objects they collect.”

Please feel free to tweet your own desk to compare.

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The 1stfans Twitter Art Feed is no longer a benefit of 1stfans membership, but the original feed in its entirety has been archived on the Brooklyn Museum website.