Lacma’s new Collator platform allows visitors to create their own catalogues

“Sometimes you go into a museum and you think: 'Wow what if I was curating this show, what would I do?'” says Lisa Mark, the head of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Publications. She hopes that Collator, a new print-on-demand platform for art books now available in beta-testing, will allow museum-goers to do just that. The project, sponsored by Hyundai, allows users to choose from 1,000 high-res images of works of art in the museum’s collection, by artists like Ed Ruscha, Frida Kahlo, Hokusai, Mary Cassatt and more, as well as customise a dedication, theme and title. Mark says the image quality is “easily as good” as the art books they sell in their gift shop, thanks to recent advances in digital printing. “I’ve heard many people over the years saying they wish they could curate a show; they wish they could dance through the collection and put things together.” Now, for $18.95, not including shipping, anyone can create a softcover, 24-page book that allows them to do (something like) that.