Modeling Series and Edition in Linked Art

[Rae Egan]

Hi everyone,

I've been working on a semantic data model for time-based media artworks for TRANSFER Data Trust and have conducted a gap analysis against Linked Art and other descriptive metadata standards for art documentation. I've encountered two concepts that seem important across many art documentation contexts, but don't appear to have clear representations in the current model: series and editions. I wanted to open a discussion about whether these are gaps others have encountered and how the community thinks about addressing them.

Context

I'm developing JSON-LD templates for the TRANSFER Data Trust, which focuses on time-based media, but also needs to handle related sculptural, installation, and hybrid works. Through mapping our requirements to Linked Art, I've identified several areas where the model provides excellent coverage, and a few where I'm uncertain about the best approach.

Series

We want to capture conceptual groupings of related, but distinct, artworks that may share thematic, formal, or procedural continuity and are typically conceived of by artists, like Rubens’ Marie de’ Medici Cycle, Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings, or Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Roberta Breitmore Series. The Getty AAT recognizes series as a distinct concept (AAT 300027349), but I'm not clear on how this maps to Linked Art.

The Set class seems like it might work, although it appears to be designed primarily for institutional groupings based on the documentation examples (e.g., museum collections, exhibitions, auction lots). Series feel conceptually and semantically different, defined by artistic intent and often develop over extended time periods, with individual works maintaining their identities while participating in the larger series.

Questions:

1. Have others encountered the need to document artistic series?

2. If so, what approaches have been taken with Linked Art?

3. Would a distinct Series concept be valuable? If so, where would it fit in Linked Art?

Editions

The CDWA mapping documentation mentions that Linked Art doesn't currently have an Edition entity, which affects documentation of prints, photographs, sculptural multiples, and really any artwork that exists numbered, limited, open, or unique editions.

For time-based media, edition structures can be quite complex. An artist might create a limited edition of 5 with 2 artist proofs, where each edition number might have different variants (e.g., projection vs. monitor-based), or where pricing and rights differ between edition numbers.

Questions:

1. Have others encountered the need to document editions?

2. If so, what approaches have been taken with Linked Art?

3. Would a distinct Edition concept be valuable? If so, where would it fit in Linked Art?

Collaboration Interests

I've documented these areas in my analysis and have some initial thoughts on how these might be modeled. TRANSFER and I are interested in understanding how the community approaches these questions and whether there's already work happening in these areas.

We are happy to:

• Share more detailed use cases and requirements

• Contribute to any existing efforts around these concepts

• Participate in working groups or discussions

• Help develop implementation patterns if the community sees value in addressing these gaps

I'd really appreciate any thoughts, pointers to existing discussions, or insights into how others are handling similar documentation needs.

Thanks!

Rae Egan

Ontology & Data Modeling Specialist, TRANSFER Data Trust

[Robert Sanderson]

Hi Rae,

Great questions, thank you!

If you're available, feel free to join a community call (every other Wednesday at 11am Eastern) and we can discuss further.

My thoughts:

* Series.

I think this is a Set. Sets are children of Propositional Objects  -- e.g. they can be 'about' something. So we use Sets also for archival hierarchies and other conceptual groupings that are more than just a mathematical construct.

The options for modeling are, in general, partitioning (e.g. each wall drawing is a constituent *part of* something) or membership (e.g. each wall is a member of a Set). 

Of the two, partitioning is more restrictive, as the classes of the parts must be the same (or descendents of) the class of the whole. For example you can have an activity that is part of a period, but you cannot have an Object that is part of a Period. Conversely you can have mixed classes as members of a Set, as membership is different from a part hierarchy.

CDWA recommends at
https://www.getty.edu/publications/categories-description-works-art/categories/object-architecture-group/20/: 

It is critical to record whole/part relationships between a group and its subgroups or items. Collections, sets, series and their parts should also be recorded with whole/part relationships.

[my emph]

Note that CDWA merges membership and parthood here -- Group/Subgroup/Item is membership in Linked Art.

As a reductio ad absurdum argument, a series of prints are physical objects. They would then need to be part of some other physical object to use partitioning. I could create a new "part" of this strange physical object by creating a print that would be part of the series, even though the initial creator of the physical aggregate was long dead. If all of the parts of the series were destroyed, that would then destroy the series. However surely the series continues to exist -- it is a conceptual thing, not a physical thing. Which is the crux of the matter.

(Note - CIDOC-CRM allows for artificial aggregates like this (see the scope note for E19: https://ontome.net/class/19/namespace/1 ), but Linked Art does not in favor of Set for the absurd situations it results in.)

Conversely Set is abstract, but can have physical (or digital, or spatial, or any other) members. The members do not have to be consistent classes. This gives us flexibility and keeps physical partitioning as ... well ... physical partitioning.

* Editions

Yes. Similar in some ways to Series, but with the extra complexity you mention. For the reasons above, I would first look at Set again and give it a different classified_as to distinguish between Series, Editions and other types of Set.

What are the sorts of things you would want to say about Series and Editions, independently of the items that are part of/members of them? That typically makes it clear as to the sort of class we need :)

Rob

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Rob Sanderson

Senior Director for Digital Cultural Heritage

Yale University

[Rae Egan]

Hi Rob,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Here are some thoughts on your question about what we’d want to say about Series and Editions at minimum:

Series

• Identifying information → title/name, description

• Temporal scope → when the series began, when the series ended, whether it is ongoing or closed, etc.

• Attribution → the artist(s) who conceived the series and any additional roles relevant to the series production context

• Membership history → which works currently belong to the series, and potentially which works may have been formerly considered part of it, if it is a meaningful distinction for the artist and understanding of the series

Editions (at the Edition level)

• Edition type → e.g., open, limited, unique

• Edition description → e.g., edition of 5 + 2 APs

• Total edition size → all exemplars that will ever exist under this edition structure. In the above example, it would be 7

Editions (at the individual level)

• Impression number → e.g., AP 1

Editions (at both the Edition level and individual level)

• Provenance & ownership → the entire edition may have a collective ownership history, which is the case for most TRANSFER works. However, we recognize there are many instances where individual exemplars have their own provenance and chain of custody

• Rights → rights may be defined at the edition level, but licensed or transferred per exemplar

• Monetary value → editions may have overall market value or pricing structure, while individual exemplars have specific sale prices and valuations

I'm happy to share more detailed use cases if helpful, and I'll look at joining an upcoming call.

Best,

Rae

[Rae Egan]

Correction: Provenance & ownership → the entire edition may have a collective ownership history, which is not the case for most TRANSFER works. There are many instances where individual exemplars have their own provenance and chain of custody