The Preliminary Model

The Preliminary Model

Notes on the Model

• In the Linked Art model, an Exhibition Concept is modeled in the as the CIDOC CRM entity Propositional Object (crm:E89_propositional_object), and is classified as (crm:P2_has_type) the Getty Art and Architecture term “exhibition (associated concept)” (aat:300417531). This has been replicated in the preliminary model.
• An exhibition activity - an instantiation or manifestation of an exhibition concept - is modeled by Linked Art as the CIDOC CRM entity Activity (crm:E7_Activity), and is classified as (crm:P2_has_type) the Getty Art and Architecture term “exhibitions (events)” (aat:300054766). This has been replicated in the preliminary model.
• Traveling exhibitions, or exhibitions at multiple venues, is also modeled as CIDOC CRM Activity (crm:E7_Activity), but is classified as (crm:P2_has_type) the Getty Art and Architecture term “traveling exhibition” (aat:300054773). "Traveling exhibition", as well as the thirteen other terms that are subclasses of the AAT term exhibition (event), are included in the model as additional ways to classify an art instantiation. It is recognized that the narrower terms for "exhibitions (events)" are not mutually exclusive. For example, it is possible for an art exhibition to be both a retrospective and a traveling exhibition. Therefore, it is allowable for multiple AAT terms to be associated with an art exhibition instance, should that be desired.
• At this point in time, it has not yet been solidified whether it would be useful to be able to classify the exhibition concept types (traveling, program, series, etc.) to the level of granularity available to an exhibition instance, or, rather, if the exhibition instance should be the only class to which exhibition type can be assigned. To this effect, purple text in the model denotes possible classes that could be established under a MoMA namespace.
• One of the most complex components of the model is are the various ways a person or organization can be related to an exhibition concept or an exhibition instance. The relationships included in the model were drawn from MoMA's existing relational database. A handful of these relationships already existed as predicates in various ontologies, but many were not. It is these relationships in purple text that denote possible predicates that could be established under a MoMA namespace. That said, it may come to pass that there are not enough instances of the more granular relationships (advisor, for example) to mint a new predicate, and it is possible that certain predicates could be excluded from future iterations of the model.
• As indicated in the background component of this report, most often, artists are related to objects, which are then related to exhibitions. While future instantiations of this model would be remiss not to include the class of art object, there still exists a need to be able to link an artist directly to an exhibition. The closest predicate that served this purpose was the music ontology's artist property which "relates a membership event (domain) with the corresponding artist (range)". A membership event is an event where "one or several people belongs to a group during a particular time period." This seemed like a general enough case that this property could be used in the MoMA model to relate an artist directly to an event. That said, it could also be beneficial for a predicate to be created in MoMA's namespace that more clearly establishes a relationship between an exhibition and an artist, such as "includesWorksBy" where an exhibition instance or concept is the domain rather than a "membership event".
• An overview of the domain and range of each of the selected predicates, as well as linked URIs for these predicates, can be found below for reference.

Domain and Range for MoMA Candidate Predicates