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.