Cottage Industry: John Erickson Museum of Art

For decades artists have had a love-hate relationship with museums. Ed Ruscha set one on fire. Michael Asher wanted to re-organize collections and Fred Wilson wanted to re-contextualize their collections. The John Erickson Museum of Art wants to pack 'em up and move 'em around. Which would seem profound and contrary to everything that museums do... except that museums are already doing it. (There are plenty of other examples, as surfable here in a 1999 MoMA show about artists and museums.)

As a result JEMA -- which is included in the Baltimore Contemporary Museum's Cottage Industry show -- is a wry commentary on how museums are behaving themselves of late. There is the Louvre, which plans to pack up part of itself, to plant it in the United Arab Emirates and to emerge as the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Guggenheim has been trying the same sort of thing for years, with extremely limited success. The Art Institute of Chicago is renting out a chunk of its collection to the Kimbell Art Museum. Apparently museum directors have excellent relationships with FedEx.

In an effort to make mobility a little easier on museo-C-suiters, JEMA has created a "portable and thrifty" museum that comes in its own shipping box. If the Los Angeles County Museum catches fire (again), JEMA has a ready solution. (Above.) Sean Miller, the artist behind JEMA, describes:

JEMA's mission is to display and collect innovative and provocative con-temporary art and/or offer exhibitions that allow people to think differently about the nature of art and art practice. JEMA's design allows it to perform and embody numerous aspects of art and art practice in a simultaneous manner. JEMA is a museum, display case, crate, exhibition space, sculpture, photographic series, performance, installation, site-specific project, collaboration and web-based project. In fact, in its operation JEMA exhibits and demonstrates almost all media associated with visual art (sometimes simultaneously). In addition, it involves nearly all the realms of art practice and the business of art, revitalizing the roles of curator, artist, and viewer.

At the Baltimore Contemporary JEMA comes off as tight and cutting. Its JEMA 'mailroom' is a witty take on the silly art world cliche of 'encouraging dialogue' (whatever that is) and how museums love to solicit comments that inevitably end up in the round file. But Miller's WWW presentation of his project meanders -- kind of like a new museum that's trying to figure out what to do with this new thing it's found. The more specific JEMA's critique, the stronger the project is.