In 2022, we were introduced to Norman Kattleman, well posthumous. The Norman Kattleman archive is a research project working to getting “to know” Norman through his extensive collection. What we do know is Norman was the owner of two properties on Dayton Street in Cincinnati Ohio. Dayton Street at one time was THE place for the elite of Cincinnati to build their custom homes. The craftsmanship along this street is exemplary and since the 1950’s Norman has used one of these homes as storage for his vast collection of antiques. His intention was fix up the home, live in it, have guests over to enjoy the drawing room and host garden parties as he worked as an antiques dealer. The house became a capsule for the accumulation.
The research here focus’ on questioning what is an archive, a collection and/or what is a pile of junk left behind once we transcend? Our items become a portrait of who we are in life, some have significance, some don’t, some represent known and anonymous past generations, some items find their way to a place with intention to be used in further thinking and doing, some are dumped and discarded due to their lack of intention or use. Needless to say, Norman had quite the future intention mapped out and the small act of consistent accumulation gives way to this project, getting to know who Norman was through his items and the legacy he left behind with the people he interacted with.
To be clear, we are not attempting to tell all of Norman’s story, we are simply providing vignettes into his life through his objects and the stories as-told by his circle of people. We invite you, the viewer and reader to make your own connections and participate by the simple enjoyment of the object. What is it like to “know” someone by how they live, what and who they surround themselves with and how we begin to categorize someone or something based on their associations.
This project will culminate as a book and will live in the Archive of Creative Culture’s Library. And an accompanying exhibition included curator Sso-rha Kang, Mark Albain, Linnea Gartin, Wendy Taylor, Daniel Reidy and Lacey Haslam.
Special thanks to FotoFocus who contributed to the funding for this project in collaboration with the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial World Record. And this project couldn’t have happened without Sarah Thomas and Chris Pohlar, many thank you’s!
