Originally conceived in 1995, the Spence Collection has been in a state of perpetual stasis ever since. The Spence Collection has won international plaudits for its impressive coherence, unique vision, and anarchic disposition; yet the Collection Website has none of these qualities.
Still, to this day, the website is a satisfying way to get together and celebrate something about this art collection; a life's work that still retains some of its unique qualities fifty years after it was begun.
Gifted from a young age with the ability to call John Baldessari "Kenny Rogers," Ted has been awash in art from a young age. At first he fought it, then he made fun of it, but over time he grew to appreciate the parts that spoke to him.
Although the Spence Collection website does not contribute financially to anyone's benefit, it is a unique way to preserve the complex relationships that have gone into artworks both powerful and silly over the years, and the ways in which we've enjoyed them.
This website is developed in Java 1.6 using Tomcat, SpringSource, and the MVC pattern. It is descended from a prior website built in PHP which used some very silly database-style object relationship patterns.
But of course this website first came into existence in 1995 as static HTML and frames - ugh! Frames! Yet, nice things can grow from awkward beginnings.