On Gray Paper, Evil Faxes

Published in

Glass Cube

3 min readApr 9, 2019

We invited our student Collections Assistants to produce an exhibition from our archive for Museum Records & Research, a site for inquiry and file-storage. Gray Paper, Evil Faxes presented photos, notes, and leftover artifacts found deep within MCAM’s archives that would normally be disregarded.

MCAM: First of all, why did you call this exhibition Gray Paper Evil Faxes? Why are the faxes evil?!

Carmen Wiley: A long time ago someone decided to label a folder “Gray Paper” and “Evil Faxes”. Somehow the labels ended up together and floated around the archive for awhile. We saw them together and thought, “that would be a great title for this installation!”

MCAM: Why did you select these particular images and documents for this specific space?

CW: We chose images and documents that had an apparent personality or life to them. The ultimate goal of the installation was to humanize the history of the museum and archive. Most of the images we used have people interacting with the various exhibitions, attending events and doing, otherwise, very human things. The documents all reflect the personalities of past staff and artists. For example, one document is a correspondence between the museum’s founding director, Roi Partridge and another museum curator, reflected Roi’s particularly sassy attitude. We also tried to select images and documents spanning the museum’s entire history. When spending time in the archive, one can see how the institution evolved through the years.

MCAM: In looking through the chronological span of the photographs what do you takeaway from Mills culture then as compared to now? Is there a momentum from previous decades you would like to see revived?

CW: In the 30s and 40s, the museum had a much different approach to showing works. Shows were shorter and more frequent. In many ways, the museum operated more like a gallery. I think that the slower pace of exhibition turnover allows for more input by the artist, curatorial thought, and audience rumination.