Object, concept, experience? What is it we’re collecting?

I think it is all of those things, but objects are still prioritised,  they are more straightforward for museums to deal with. It becomes complicated when all of those things are not neatly bound in a stable object that can be bought, stored and moved around.

Wouldn't it be so good for Paul Astbury to have that long awaited Retrospective? 

How do you evaluate an ephemeral work versus an actual physical object that could be purchased and collected

In the context of working with clay in the expanded field, often the work includes the object, the process, and resonance. 

In the collectibility context, object is easiest to collect yet the object itself does not incapsulate all that there is in the work. The process can be documented by the artist and becomes part of the collection. But resonance is the most transient and ephemeral  of all and the most difficult to collect - the resonance coming from the psyche of the viewer and the maker and the collective. 

maybe in the end one  has to acknowledge not all can be collected - in a way , that is also the beauty. One has to experience it in the work’s time …