My my, it has been a while (again)
Now… what’s been going on in Pretty Vacant land since my last update… Well, we’ve had another show, this time in the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton as part of Wolverhampton’s “Art at the Centre” festival, which was very successful. This show was a very different experience to that we’re used to; being part of a larger event and being part of the buzz was something very exciting.
I think we felt the difference most in the planning stages of the show… we’re normally out there on our own; negotiating with property owners and centre managers ourselves. So it was quite alien to have that part of the process in someone else’s hands. We had assumed that this would give us a nice little rest from the stressful bit, and have a nice easy show where we just turn up with the work and do the fun bit of hanging the show. This wasn’t so much the case, because, being the worry worms we are, having the reins in someone else’s hands was a tad stressful. I guess we’ve been spoilt in our earlier shows by being so very in control of the whole process; and now we found ourselves waiting on other’s decisions, and not knowing exactly what was going on. (Needless to say the stress was all needless in the end, as stress usually is)
This experience though, was invaluable. Realistically, we’re not always going to be “out there on our own”, so working with others is a skill we need to have really well honed – this event was a great start.
The other detail that set this show apart was our use of the space; the walls of our unit were entirely covered in Slat wall panels. Our usual approach is to convert the shop into as much of a white cube gallery as we can manage. This unit didn’t allow us to do that, and this, combined with the festival theme of retail and shopping meant our white cube approach had to change. We embraced the shop-ness of the shop and decided to use it as a feature (cunningly meeting the brief of the festival at the same time). We acquired lots of shop fittings – hooks, prongs and shelves – and used these to hang the work. The result was a very different look to our previous shows, but it was interesting nonetheless. This is the first show where we really usurped the role of the high street retailer; adapting merchandising principals and imitating the language of retail in our catalogue. (“New Season” “Sale” “Grab a bargain”). Instead of setting ourselves apart from the rest of the high street, we were blending in, becoming one of them. In terms of us interfacing with the general public, people who would normally run a mile from an art gallery, maybe this is the right approach? Perhaps art has to change, or already is changing? Maybe not. I’ve not decided yet.
