MoMA: Rudy Burckhardt

The MoMA in NYC presents a photography exhibit called "Rudy Burckhardt: An Afternoon in Astoria" (http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2002/burckhardt). The collection consists of about 35 black and white photographs displayed in a Flash-based "album" that allows the viewer to flip through virtual pages and zoom in on individual photographs.

1) Selection decisions:
From the text associated with the exhibit it appears the entire photograph collection was digitized. Burckhardt had created his own album titled "An Afternoon in Astoria" so any selection decisions were made earlier in the process by the artist himself.

2) Metadata:
Metadata for this collection is rather minimal. I found no data regarding the size, date, subject, or anything else having to do with the photographs. There is an introduction to the collection as a whole, but even determining when the photos were taken is difficult (1940?), much less how they were developed and what type of prints they are.

3) Object Characteristics:
The entire digital collection is presented in Flash. To me I feel that this secures the authenticity of the collection since it prevents (or at least inhibits) users from manipulating the information. However, that does mean the user has less information about the photographs themselves as individual objects since they are presented cohesively as one large Flash presentation. From the page source I could see that the digital collection was labeled as 2002: Burckhardt.

4) Intended Audience:
The intended audience is probably not a researcher or anyone else who might need details regarding the photographs. The collection seems to be presented for the casual art patron who might be browsing the MoMA Web site and wants to see what kind of exhibits they have/had available. I wonder if it is some part of the contract with the artist regarding longterm access or presentation... This collection was last physically exhibited at the MoMA in 2002. There is no information about how long the digital collection will remain available.