Annie Leibovitz
A photographers life 1990-2005
16th October 2008- 1 February 2009
National Portrait Gallery
Nearest Tube: Leicester Square/ Charring Cross
I was quite stricken by the lackadaisical approach to the hanging or structure of the photographs; their layout in relation to their subject matter. They were a mix of Annie's work pictures (for magazines and photoshoots) and a collection of her own personal photographs, documenting her life throughout her career. As I said I was shocked; there were photographs of war beside smiling pictures of her family. I wasn't sure but gave it a chance, took my time and walked around, following her father and mother young(ish) and quite agile smiling on the beack to her fathers illness, witnessed his deterioration and finally death onto the birth of her first born and later twins. By the end of the visit I had laughed out loud and cried. It was a masterful job at arranging the photographs to put her own life beside Claudia schiffer, Vivienne Westwood etc. visually worked well.
http://www.npg.org.uk/annieleibovitz/exhib.htm

Thomas Husein
Bastards
22 Herald Street
This was related to the work I was doing at the time. A large human-like structure is the first thing you are greeted with upon enetering the gallery. there are two rooms. some work are on the walls and two sculptutre pieces in the main room. It's all very white, plaster wood and metal are his main materials. It is not an overloaded space, if anything it's quite simple. I enjoyed it, it was not threatening, I thought it gave you space to look around and take your time. The gallery has a little bookshop aswell, where between the books there are magazines, leaflets and more of the artists work on the walls, a cosy and welcoming space.

The Importance of Background in Gallery Spaces

I went to the Cold War Modern Design 1945 – 1970 exhibition at the V&A last week, followed by The Saatchi Gallery. I just want to express the differences in Curation between the two exhibitions. The Cold War Modern is an exhibition of art and design made just after the Second World War to the mid 1970’s. It showcases the way in which art and design played a central role in representing and also challenging the dominant social and political ideas of the age. I feel the Curation of the exhibition was very well thought about. There was a huge amount of quantity and variety of media on show in a number of different rooms. I felt engaged in the exhibition the whole time and never felt exhausted or overwhelmed by the amount of things to look at. I feel the exhibition was successful for a number of reasons. Firstly the space wasn’t a stark white canvas, which is the format in a lot of galleries. It was softly lit similar to some museum exhibitions. This made the space easy on the eye and comforting to walk around. Secondly the wide variety of displays, from design objects to video to objects in boxes and large-scale models and sculptures helped to break up the space and made the rooms more interesting. Lastly there was a limited amount of text in each room with a to the point explanation of each area as you entered the room. This meant that you weren’t inundated with long-winded text about everything and you where free to take in the work yourself. Their where items of text with specific facts and explanations but you could walk around and understand the exhibition without reading everything. These things made for a good experience and were extremely successful in showcasing the theme of the exhibition.

           

            I next went to see the Saatchi gallery in Sloane Square. The work there was by young artists from all over the world who are generally unknown in the UK and internationally known artists who rarely or have never exhibited in the UK before. The work there was very interesting with a range of installation, painting and sculpture, which was all hugely varied. The work itself was amazing but the space it was in made looking around quite exhausting. There are around 14 different rooms in the gallery all of which are white walled and wood floored. None of the work had much more than a title next to it, which I liked because I prefer to make my own opinion of the work first before reading what the artist has said about it. So without walking round with the gallery catalogue which contained all the blurbs abut each artist and there work you where free to look at the work yourself and draw out your own meaning. The work was a lot more intellectual and made you think more than the exhibition at the V&A. This as well as the stark spaces the work was in resulted in my exhaustion. I enjoyed being able to come my own conclusions about the work and taking time to think about it but I feel the space kept you constantly on edge and unable to relax as your eyes where never comfortable in the harsh white space. This is where I feel that the Cold War Modern exhibition was more successful curatoraly as because the thought about the background to the work as much as the work itself. This meant that even walking round and seeing a large amount of work at one time didn’t feel draining on the mind or exhausting on the eye like the Saatchi exhibition was. I t me a lot more aware of the importance of curation and not only where the work is displayed but also the scene or background it is placed into.

 

 

 

 

GALLERY V NON-GALLERY?

I was doing some reading for an essay and came across an essay in a book about Artangel, who recently produced the Roger Hiorns' installation Seizure at Harper Rd Flats, Elephant & Castle and have in the past funded projects such as Rachel Whiteread's House, Matthew Barney's Cremaster 4, Stephan Balkenhol's Figure On A Buoy and many more. They are particularly interested in commissioning artwork that takes place outside of a gallery setting, sometimes not even inside any kind of building. This kind of practice really interests me and I think is relevant to the project my group is proposing. 

This essay talks about how two of the main things that setting art outside of a traditional sterile gallery environment does is a. activate spectatorship and b. decentre the viewer by encouraging interaction and experience and not insisting upon an ideal point to view the art from, instead encouraging them to move around and experience multiple views. The essay concentrates on the practice of Allan Kaprow, who was an artist and curator who was a major mover in using non gallery locations in the mid 20th century. He was influenced heavily by the writings of philosopher John Dewey who proposed human development could only happen as a result of active inquiry and interaction with the environment, one way this could come about would be through art.

'This thinking also explained Kaprow's preference for siting his environments in non-gallery venues: the transformative potential of experience was simply not possible in a place where viewing was inhibited by ingrained responses. The pristine gallery was synonymous with the eternal and the canonical - in other words, the predictable. Hence Kaprow's insistence on flux, change and development: the space should be "dirty" and "rough", filling the viewer with "tense excitement" and a sense of "risk and fear" '

Although I'm not a follower of Dewey's philosophy I agree that by taking art out of the traditional four white walls of a gallery it can throw people slightly and that could be a desirable effect to destabilise the audience and enhance the experience of the art. Or has this practice been going on for so long that we are used to it and do not feel the same effect. Sorry for going on!  What do people think? 

'Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects' 2002, in the library if anyone wants to read the essay.

Liz

exhibitions/events to visit

This new strand is for exhibitions which may be relevant to your course and learning.
Please add exhibitions you want to recommend to others, and write about those you have seen.

Tonight- Wednesday 12th November, there is an event as part of Implicasphere curation, Smoke, at The Pumphouse- http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/LeisureandTourism/Pumphousegallery/exhibshome.htm
The event takes place at The Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, WC1N 3At
This exhibition and event are strongly recommended, especially to those of you whose proposals include non-artists as well as artists, multi-media work, collections, historic venues and work shown outside of gallery venues.

Purple Group

This post is to allow for a place for us to expand our ideas regarding 'our' show/event etc.

Purple group so far consists of 3 people... week 1 there was 1. week 2 there was 2. week 3 etc. so hoping for a new member today!  A list of the individuals involved can be found in the comments section in the future.[we are happy to disclose who we are]

Our initial remit had been event based and outside of the traditional gallery space.  

So... to this end it looks like we are going to put on an exhibition in a space which may well turn out to be a gallery.

As the project stands.  We are hoping to work with Alumni of Camberwell College of arts.  Take one year (if not many students then maybe a couple of different years could be selected) and show what they are doing now...(this doesn't have to be art based practice)... the obvious place for such an exhibition is the Foyer at Peckham rd.  

Issues to be resolved are firstly to do with audience... who will find this interesting? is it inclusive of different groups and local populations? should it be?  Should we try and work outside of college? Would we be able to get additional funding from Southwark Council and/or Camberwell itself (Recruitment?).

White Group

For our exhibition we have picked three artists that we like and think would complement each other. They are:

Eloise Fornieles does performance based installations, we are particularly interested in her work which involves audience participation such as her piece The Oyster Bar, which was a week-long performance "where people were invited to come into the space one at a time and sip champagne while they were asked to exchange a tale of loss for an oyster (or an orange if they’d rather)".

Kate Hawkins mostly does paintings, video and performance pieces. She has previously collaborated with Eloise Fornieles on a performance based installation, so we are sure they would be willing to either collaborate again or be exhibited together. One of her works that we found interesting is her series of spray paint on canvas paintings called Napkin Paintings. 

Eloise Calandre is a photographer but she also works with videos and performances/installations. A recent work of hers is a collection of photographs, installations, drawings and videos which "explore the possible nature of an invisibility made manifest", we also fell for a video piece she made called Shortcut. 


The venue selection came rather easily to us, half the group thought of the same gallery, The Red Gate Gallery on Coldharbour Lane, so we decided to go with it, especially since it seems like a space that will fit well with these artists.  

Red Group

Hi, 

We had a lot of ideas and thoughts regarding our artists and venues and we managed to narrow down the artists and we have started to think 0f a theme and venue. The artists and designers we chose all had interaction in common, each has worked actively with the public engaging them directly with the work they produce. The artists we chose are, Fabiane Perella, Richard Shed, Matt & Ross and Miltos Manetas. The theme we have chosen is based on the senses, each artist has involved senses in their work; be it touch, sight, sound etc. We aim to create an interactive event involving the public based on doing something fun and collaborative. We have begun to discuss possible venues and one that we discussed was a place called Dex next to Brixton tube which is a members club and bar that contains function rooms and roof terraces. This could be a possible venue as Iliana knows the managers. This is where we are at so far. I will post some photos of the artists work and gallery spaces when I find out how to.

Thanks

Yellow Group

Hey Girlies,

Not really sure what to say, as we covered alot on friday...
So we are all agreed on the Crypt St.Giles for the venue, brilliant for the location and audience, also it's lived in because of the events that it hosts. I'd just like to point out though, that with artists we chose it may seem in a way like we are just furnishing a place rather that putting on an exhibition. Although that may even be a good thing, what do you think? Either way we definately need to dicuss how we will display work (cabinates, etc.).

Ellie

'Curating in the 21st Century'

Whilst looking through the following book from our reading list i discovered a point of interest which i wanted to highlight to you all...

' As a curator do you look after the art or the audience...'

Brown Group

Brown Group hello to you all...

there has been lots of discussions about what we are proposing to do for our show/ exhibition etc, i thought that i would set up this new post as an easy way for us all to communicate and get are ideas across between elective classes on fridays.

I think that the artists we have decided to include are really exciting, especially that we have decided to include a designer (Stuart Haygarth), hopefully this will make are target audience a lot widier.

Last friday's session we were brain storming regarding sites where are exhibition could be held, i think that the way in which we have been thinking out side of the box is working well, but we do need to do some heavy research on the implications of having an exhibition in a public space and the safety measures which will need to be looked into as a result of this.

looking forward to seeing you all this week

please discuss...

Grey Group

We have decided to do a site specific exhibition using a market as a starting point for the artists to react to. Suggestions for the market have been Borough market as first choice and Greenwich indoor market and Deptford market as alternatives. For next week we are each going to choose artists from our own discipline; sculpture, painting, drawing and illustration that would suit the venue. During the week we will also be thinking about possible themes that the artists could work with relating to the space. We have loosely discussed display and materials.

...I also talked ot one of the curators and asked him why he curates, and asked if its because he likes art and space and putting things, or arranging things in a space...he said 'yeah, pretty much'
Finn.

so, found the day on friday 18th very interesting, really for the contrasts between the two art fairs. i love that there were loads of homeless people queing to get art and hope it happens every yeas, the homeless people make money and someone who actually wants the art gets it. at the frieze art fair i dropped my hat, it fell and created an (i'll admit) odd shape on the ground, i turned around and noticed a group of young girls had gatherd around it and seemed to be validating it, i bent to pick it up and they laughed, and said they were wondering if it was a piece of art, i offered it to them for £15,000...
Finn.

men and women blogging

Hello all,
It's very interesting to read what you are all saying on this blog. I've never blogged before and like the way that different strands of conversation can develop.
Having read that more women blog than men, I wonder why that isn't happening with our group? Especially as there are more women in the elective than men. Any ideas?

Giving Away Money

Hello.

I was talking to Kieren (who waited so valliantly all night at the Free Art Fair queue) and he was talking about some of the people he met there. Apparently there was a some homeless people, and they got ten grands worth of artwork between them. Although I think that this is brilliant and am first to congratulate artistic appreciation and inginuity amongst tramps, the idea that alot of this "free" art is going to be immediatly sold does seem in my eyes to taint old Jasper's vision. I mean the art is free as it is given from the artist to the person in the queue, but much of it then loses this unique status and is sold on. I suppose there's no way of controlling what people do with something that you give away for free, but rather than removing money from the art business, as the Free Art Fair aims to do, it seems to have just delayed the financial element of dealing with art. Oh well, I hope some people kept the things that they got.

Tom

FREE ART FAIR? FAYRE?

One thing that stood out in my mind from friday is this:

I feel as though Jasper still has flaws in his process of ''free,affordable'' art. With the huge pieces on offer; people do make a commitment to the artwork because of the size. However, this commitment costs. The only way you'll be able to, literally, house that piece is to RENT,OWN,BUY a lorry (££££££) and have a massive space to keep it in your mansion.

Basically, what i'm trying to say is if you have lots of money, you can afford to transport and hang the bigger pieces.

Jade Bridgwood

Temporary Contemporary

We're visiting Anthony Gross of Temporary Contemporary on Friday 21st November, here is some info about their latest project-
www.royalacademy.org.uk
I hope some of you will have a chance to go to this before we visit Anthony, we'll be meeting him in Camberwell, not at the Royal Academy.

Hannah Barry Gallery article in Independent newspaper today, 20.10.08

There's a double page article about the Hannah Barry Gallery on page 16 of The Independent, Life section, by Alice Jones.

Why Do All Shows Look the Same?

Does it have something to do with the Consensus Curator ?

The Father of Independent Curating

Apparently it is Harald Szeemann. Any thoughts?

what does independent curating involve?

From our first session last Friday, your answers were- the way in which the work is shown, communication, influencing people by showing work in certain ways, criticism, organisation, delegation, organising people to come to one place, collaboration, thinking up concepts, interaction, display, philosophy, confidence, liasing with artists/funders/audience/venue/press, flexibility, people skills, communication/negotiation, press, aesthetics, party, managing collections, selection, compromise, concept, research, politics, management, imagination, promotion/P.R., fundraising and budgets, curating as practice, submitting work, deadline, networking.

Did we leave any out?

FREE ART FAIR vs FRIEZE ART FAIR

SESSION 2

Meet at 12noon-5pm Friday 17th October 2008
16 Seymour Place, Portman Village, London W1H.
Curators Talk: Jasper Joffe talks about Free Art Fair.
http://www.freeartfair.com/

2pm Guided Tour: Frieze Art Fair (ask for subsidised entrance fee).
http://www.frieze.com/

Oh and if we have time we will pop into http://www.zooartfair.com/

As you look around these events look out for artist works you like and consider how their location affects the work.