Michael Kimmelman the Art of Collecting Light Bulbs

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A collection is an ensemble of objects put together by a collector in order to make sense of a simple accumulation of items. The text the art of collecting light bulbs, written by Michael Kimmelman, analyzes the identity of the collectors and how it is reflected by the items the collected and their collections themselves. A collection is an ensemble of objects put together by a collector in order to make sense of a simple accumulation of items. In fact the worth a collection is the result of the symbolic value given by the collector and the identity shared by the many items that compose it; thus she item collected is valued the most when itis a part of a collection and a collection is united in diversity. A collector is nothing more than an individual who collects. He is defined by the function he performs, same as his work is defined by him. Psychologically speaking one could say that “collecting is, among other things, more or less a form of displaced childhood in which the collector longs for parental comfort” (225) or a way to find themselves on the objects they collect, “a way to define some idiosyncratic niche for the collector.”(217) So this fixation to a certain object, this willingness to dispose time and effort on finding it and classifying it is nothing but the collector’s memory controlling him in some way, for example “(the light bulb collector’s) mother noticed one day that he was bored with his toys so for some reason she gave him an old light bulb to play with” (217) after that incident he began a lifelong obsession with light bulbs. But collection is more than a childhood trauma, as a matter of fact many collector are mentally stable and most just collect for simple fact of collecting. To make an art out accumulation, “Some collect because collecting can be great art if earnestly engage in.”(217). The object that is collected can be just about
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