This week was the opening of our collective pre-degree show exhibition, ‘Yoke’. For this show each student was asked to submit at least one object that was representative of their practice (after some deliberation, mentioned in a previous post, I chose to create a sign post pointing in many different directions). The show works as both a preview to our degree show, a way to generate interest, and a method of trying things out. It is not a large show, we had to fit it all into a cabinet that is outside our studios.
The title ‘Yoke’ came as a way in which we could explain the concept for our show. A yoke is a tool used on farms to harness together two animals in order to pull a heavy weight. The word also has connections in many languages to the idea of collection and connection.
I have mentioned before how the work produced on CFAP is all of a very different nature is hard to connect to one another. We chose to play with this idea of creating connections between the objects that were arbitrary and unimportant in the context of the work. We did this through an hour long discussion in which over 300 connections between the objects were offered up. These connections were displayed on a poster covering one half of the cabinet, with the objects in the other half. The objects are not labelled, though during our discussion they had been assigned letters which appear on the poster. It is up to the spectator to create their own connections in much the same way as we did.
For this show we split into three groups that fed back to the whole group. These were, curatiorial, promotional and practical. I was involved with the practical side, helping to source the materials we needed, building shelves, painting the space and working out any other practical issues. It’s been a great help for our degree show, and we all seem to have worked out which roles we are best suited to.
Last week I printed out and went back through all of my blog entries from this academic year. I did this as I was beginning to feel I had lost a sense of direction with my work and was in a lot of confusion as to what to do next. It was a really useful exercise and helped me to settle on two ideas I want to carry forward towards the degree show. These ideas involve the floor plans of my gallery designs, which I shall talk about in more depth in a later blog this week. And the use of gallery guides.
When I first began looking into the gallery space it was through gallery maps. I was thinking about the safety of the gallery, and the way in which the gallery space controlled and directed the visitor. I found the maps problematic, as my view of a museum or gallery was somewhere that should be wandered aimlessly and becoming immersed in the surroundings. Right at the beginning of my research I came up with the idea of a handbook for a gallery, telling you how to act and what to do within the space. I searched on the internet to find the right kind of text so that I could learn the language used in handbooks. I then stumbled across ‘Art for Dummies cheat sheet’ by a former director of the Metropolitan Museum New York, Thomas Hoving (see link below image of the book). This ‘cheat sheet’ seemed incredibly one sided and contained the jem, ‘art and politics never mix’ which being on a critical theory course made me laugh (this book is oblivious to Ranciere’s ‘Art and Politics’ in which he claims all art is political, or to Joseph Beuys’s role in founding the Green Party).
I then became distracted from this idea by my gallery designs. It was only when just over a week ago I was going through the mound of print-outs on my desk at uni that I rediscovered the cheatsheets. I have since bought the book ‘Art for Dummies’ and began reading it yesterday. I have used the cheat sheets to make a very rough mock-up of my idea to transform them into a gallery guide, looking like the maps that I have collected from galleries. I also want to make my own version and the two would be handed out together.
I am not yet sure what to do with my guides. Talking to my tutor yesterday has given me the idea that I could use them to make the visitor act in an abnormal way, such as taking their shoes off, walking backwards or not talking at all within the space. I quite like the idea of making them do the opposite of Hoving’s guide. I hope that I replicate the type of friendly and light hearted, yet slightly condescending language of the handbook.
About a month ago I visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery as part of my research into gallery and museum spaces. Something that interested me at the time, though I dismissed in my research as not related to gallery spaces as a whole, were the period style chairs and chests of drawers in the gallery. These pieces of furniture I assume date back to the beginning of the gallery and when it was first built as the first public art gallery in Britain. They feature mainly in the side galleries, along the main axis of the gallery there are large upholstered benches. You are allowed to sit on the benches – you are not allowed to sit on the period style chairs. It seemed a slightly ridiculous concept to me to have chairs that once were so obviously intended to be sat on made so redundant.
Last week I made a small piece of work in response to this using the chairs within the studio. It seemed to me that the idea translated quite well to the studio as it again expected that you can sit on any of the chairs. It is however quite a different environment to the gallery. The chairs in the gallery are obviously left in as an educational tool about the history of the gallery and of furnishings within the gallery.
I created my own notice to go on chairs asking people ‘please don’t sit here’. I then left this in the studio on one of the chairs. Apparently when I had later left the studio one of my coursemates saw that I had put this on a chair. His response was along the lines of ‘For F**** Sake…’ When I came back in on Monday my notice was on the floor.
I don’t know if this will lead me anywhere, except possibly to try this as an intervention in galleries I visit over Easter. But in terms of the degree show I see it more as something I really wanted to try out, and not something I am expecting to use within the show.
Our degree show at Brighton opens to the public on 9th June. We however, must have all our work installed and ready by 25th May, so that it can be marked by external examiners. Writing this out makes it seem more and more necessary that I sort out my practice, which is currently a bit all over the place.
The others on my course would like me to present a proposal on my work next week. My ideas all revolve around the gallery space and the way in which it is used by visitors. Some of my ideas involve manipulating the space, this will have implications for our entire show.
There are only 16 people on my course, but the nature of CFAP (critical fine art practice) means that everybody’s work is very different, in media as well as content. Our practice is informed by the theory we read, and everybody reads different things. This means that creating continuity in a group show is difficult.
Luckily we have the chance to experiment with our ‘preview show’ outside our studio in a cabinet. We have titled this show ‘Yoke’, and I will talk more about this next week after it has opened.
The issue with my more intrusive ideas, as well as it affecting other people’s work, is that I was planning to use just one of the two studios that will become our gallery. This of course affects the continuity of the entire show.
Basically, I am greatful to have kept this blog, and hopefully I can use this to come up with a proposal about my work.
My crit on Monday went pretty much as predicted. The major issue with the work that I presented was due to it being unfinished work presented as finished. This meant that there was a level of confusion over what was being looked at and how the work was supposed to be received. The title ‘Experiments With Gallery Design’ caused people to question if it was a proposal for work to come or was a fully resolved piece of work. There was more confusion caused by the floor plans on the wall, as the centre plan, which was of the structure that was partially built and partially marked out, was not in proportion to what was physically present.
I expected the work to be confusing. I do not see it as a resolved finished piece of work, more as a way for me to experiment with ideas. It was this that made it confusing. However, I have plenty of ideas to think about and lots of useful feedback on the presentation of my ideas that I can now continue to work on.
Over the next two weeks I want to look at two ideas that move away from physically altering a space and look at other aspects of the gallery that I have thought about during my research. These will be gallery guides and the chairs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
