IDM 423 Group Assignment
Group F – Sue Clarke, Lynda Cornwall and Heather Kirkup
Our task is to research, plan and organise a hypothetical exhibition.
Format : Presentation to Curatorial Department at Tate Modern (Curator, Public Programmes, Curators, Interpretation)
In response to a competition seeking novel approaches to curating.
Good afternoon everyone, my name is Heather Kirkup and we are here today to present you with an outline of an exhibition for the Level 2 gallery at the Tate Modern which is proposed to run for three weeks in early 2008.
We would like to thank you very much for the opportunity to present today and we look forward to any questions you may have. Our presentation will last approximately 15 minutes.
Firstly, allow me to introduce the team which has worked on this proposal: -
We are all Post Graduate students at Kingston University, in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. I am a taking a Masters degree in the History of Art and Design and my colleagues, Susan Clarke and Lynda Cornwell are both practitioners from the Drawing as Process MA course.
OK, so let’s begin with the concept and a potential name for the exhibition :
Slide 1
THE FEELGOOD FACTOR/open up to art/
Our Exhibition’s guiding aim or concept is:
“ To explore the extent to which art and design can be experienced as much by the other senses as by sight ”
( HOW SUCCESSFUL CAN ALL THE SENSES BE IN INTERPRETING A WORK OF ART ?)
We are aiming to provide a way that elements in the Tate collection can be understood other than purely through visual or academic means.
Slide 2
Why have we chosen this topic ?
It is now clearly acknowledged that museums are no longer places where touch or other interaction by the spectator is entirely forbidden. Rather the reverse, it is now positively encouraged in many quarters.
So, in order to make collections more accessible to visitors new approaches are always needed. The British Museum’s handling tables were specifically designed to give a more direct, welcoming and intimate experience to the visitor. By offering members of the public the chance to touch objects related to those on display and to talk to people about these objects, a real sense of engagement and sharing is available to the visitor. Another example, The Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s Sensing Sculpture, created a permanent exhibition where, rather than it being taboo to touch, visitors are allowed to touch all the artworks on display.
This museum has itself an excellent track record of providing this type of exhibition, for example, the Raised Awareness exhibition in the summer of 2005, aimed at blind or visually impaired audiences. The Tate’s mission statement outlines the desire to “understand our audiences better, broaden their socio-economic and ethnic mix and improve the quality of the visitor experience”. Allied to this is the stated “ambition to communicate serious ideas accessibly” ( Tate Report, 2005 – 2006)
But we want to go beyond this with our concept, in three specific ways;
Slide 3
Exhibition Aims
1. To approach the artwork or design object from the perspective of the other senses, , ie touch, smell, sound. In other words to restore the balance, which over hundreds of years has privileged sight over any of the other senses.
2. To aim this at a general audience, not necessarily a visually impaired one or, for example, an audience of children.
3. The exhibition will be experiential, but backed up with scholarship, thus making the vital link between theory and practice. This will greatly aid the public’s understanding and appreciation of the artworks, as well as of the artistic process.
How will we achieve this?
1. By examining HOW the sensual qualities of art generate MEANING and RATIONAL THOUGHT. Providing exhibits and displays which CHALLENGE the classically VISUAL way we currently used to interpret and enjoy the visual arts.
2. Bring in work by artists which lends itself to this sensual approach. For example work by Richard Wentworth, Deborah Hart etc………. My colleagues will expand upon this in a few moments. We will also ask a number of the artists to appear with their works and EXPLAIN how the concept of sensuality was instrumental in creating their art or design works.
3. Incorporate work already in the Museum such as Carsten Holler’s Slides or Anish Kapoor’s Ishi’s Light.
In other words we will use the Level 2 gallery as a starting point and take the visitor on a tour of the museum using this sensory approach as a guide in looking at works spread throughout the galleries.
I will now hand you over to Sue Clarke to explore the specifics of the individual artists, the major themes and the works we wish to use. –
After that Lynda Cornwell will go over the project management, funding and other practical aspects of our proposal.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Planning the project
Crucial to holding an exhibition is project management. First one breaks down the project into individual tasks. In a real situation as opposed to this hyperthetical one some tasks would be broken down into smaller units. The diagram below shows a high-level plan and the interdependency of tasks, known as events.
The next stage would be to allocate timescales by deciding the duration of each event in the plan. Then the earliest start-time can be calculated for each event, and, working backwards from the final event, the latest start-time. When the earliest and latest start-times are the same that event is on the critical path. Any delay in an event/action that lies on the critical path will result in a delay on the whole project.
Our presentation on 28 March will be the application for funding, only the 6th task in the project. The diagram shows the remaining tasks to be done before the real project would be completed.
The next stage would be to allocate timescales by deciding the duration of each event in the plan. Then the earliest start-time can be calculated for each event, and, working backwards from the final event, the latest start-time. When the earliest and latest start-times are the same that event is on the critical path. Any delay in an event/action that lies on the critical path will result in a delay on the whole project.
Our presentation on 28 March will be the application for funding, only the 6th task in the project. The diagram shows the remaining tasks to be done before the real project would be completed.
Friday, March 9, 2007
transfers from Blackboard : 6
Discussion notes 07.03.07
Sue Clarke
Heather brought in an article by Fiona Candlin, from the ‘Journal of Visual Culture’, which discussed three recent exhibitions concerning touch. Candlin queried the thinking behind these exhibitions – she felt the connection hadn’t been made between what touch tells you, and what the art is about. She saw a need for further work along these lines, and that recent exhibitions hadn’t gone far enough in exploring the issues. The artist’s intention needed to be considered. The exampe of translating a line drawing into raised lines so they could be felt rather than seen, is going off at a different tangent to what the artists intended.
Guiding questions from this morning’s session:
- How succesful can touch be in interpreting a work of art?
- To what extent can an art (or design) exhibition be experienced as much by touch as by sight?
We discussed events, rather than exhibitions, where there’d be a bank of items, a selection of which would be taken out each day by volunteers, who would supervise visitors handling the work, and explaining the artists’ thinking. etc, etc.
Afternoon discussion
I felt that we needed to select some items that we were interested in showing, and then check them against our various guiding questions to see what fitted, in the hope that this would focus our minds. Lynda and I went through our list of works and tried to categorise them. We were both keen not to restrict this to touch issues alone because of the number of previous exhibitions on this theme. At this point we worked with one main guiding question:
- How might we curate an exhibition that allows for a fuller experience than sight alone provides?
with two sub-questions (which might correspond to dividing the exhibition into two separate spaces)
(a) How do we heighten visitors awareness of how much we rely on sight?
(b) How can we encourage visitors to use their other senses?
So we divided the works into (a) examples of vision disorientating you, and (b) artworks that encouraged use of other senses.
Because a number of the works were quite large, and were already held by the Tate, ours could be a relatively small, inexpensive exhibition, and we could have handouts which would refer visitors to other works within galleries at the Tate. So our exhibition would be the root of the idea, but it would also serve to encourage visitors to look anew at exhibits they could see elsewhere in the gallery. Two of our very large pieces might be appropriate for the Turbine hall.
Presentation ideas
Snappy pitch as if to Tate trustees (check this) to propose our exhibition within their space;
followed by explanation of how we arrived at this proposal.
- Reluctant to use Blackboard as it’s been slowing us up throughout the module.
- Possibility of setting up a weblog so that we would have images ready organised for the presentation
Jobs
Lynda to compile images on weblog
Heather to think of a title
Sue to write up ideas (above)
All three of us to work on presentation ideas
14/03/07 need to check the technical facilities in MLT and compatability with our weblog
Sue Clarke
Heather brought in an article by Fiona Candlin, from the ‘Journal of Visual Culture’, which discussed three recent exhibitions concerning touch. Candlin queried the thinking behind these exhibitions – she felt the connection hadn’t been made between what touch tells you, and what the art is about. She saw a need for further work along these lines, and that recent exhibitions hadn’t gone far enough in exploring the issues. The artist’s intention needed to be considered. The exampe of translating a line drawing into raised lines so they could be felt rather than seen, is going off at a different tangent to what the artists intended.
Guiding questions from this morning’s session:
- How succesful can touch be in interpreting a work of art?
- To what extent can an art (or design) exhibition be experienced as much by touch as by sight?
We discussed events, rather than exhibitions, where there’d be a bank of items, a selection of which would be taken out each day by volunteers, who would supervise visitors handling the work, and explaining the artists’ thinking. etc, etc.
Afternoon discussion
I felt that we needed to select some items that we were interested in showing, and then check them against our various guiding questions to see what fitted, in the hope that this would focus our minds. Lynda and I went through our list of works and tried to categorise them. We were both keen not to restrict this to touch issues alone because of the number of previous exhibitions on this theme. At this point we worked with one main guiding question:
- How might we curate an exhibition that allows for a fuller experience than sight alone provides?
with two sub-questions (which might correspond to dividing the exhibition into two separate spaces)
(a) How do we heighten visitors awareness of how much we rely on sight?
(b) How can we encourage visitors to use their other senses?
So we divided the works into (a) examples of vision disorientating you, and (b) artworks that encouraged use of other senses.
Because a number of the works were quite large, and were already held by the Tate, ours could be a relatively small, inexpensive exhibition, and we could have handouts which would refer visitors to other works within galleries at the Tate. So our exhibition would be the root of the idea, but it would also serve to encourage visitors to look anew at exhibits they could see elsewhere in the gallery. Two of our very large pieces might be appropriate for the Turbine hall.
Presentation ideas
Snappy pitch as if to Tate trustees (check this) to propose our exhibition within their space;
followed by explanation of how we arrived at this proposal.
- Reluctant to use Blackboard as it’s been slowing us up throughout the module.
- Possibility of setting up a weblog so that we would have images ready organised for the presentation
Jobs
Lynda to compile images on weblog
Heather to think of a title
Sue to write up ideas (above)
All three of us to work on presentation ideas
14/03/07 need to check the technical facilities in MLT and compatability with our weblog
transfers from Blackboard : 5
Further thoughts on guiding questions, prior to Wednesday’s meeting
Sue Clarke
It’s feeling too ambitious basically! Liz Ellis’s points about the staffing and health & safety issues are spot on. We’d realised we had to consider these things (see notes from 28/02), but looking at them in detail, the plan has quite a few problems.
I think we could maybe narrow down our question to:
Is sight intrinsic to the experience and enjoyment of art?
Can we set up an exhibition that allows for a more intimate experience of art than is usually experienced in a gallery/museum space? (This presupposes we’re going to use a gallery/museum space – not a sitting room, etc. Think we have decided on this?)
That would move us away from several previous exhibitions that have emphasised the tactile, and the hands-on, interactive experiences aimed at families and children.
But, are we able to include artwork that can be appreciated by smell / taste / sound?? The ‘touch’ idea keeps bringing to mind handle-able items, but we’re thinking of things you can sit on? slide down? walk on, or inside? Maybe it is about the sense of touch, but more about a whole body experience?
I’m not convinced by our ‘drawing on’ idea, and perhaps not our ‘removing items’ idea, although some sort of freebies/catalogue/postcard seems appropriate – just not removing any of the artwork itself. But then who’s to say the freebies/ catalogue/postcard isn’t a work of art in itself?!
Sue Clarke
It’s feeling too ambitious basically! Liz Ellis’s points about the staffing and health & safety issues are spot on. We’d realised we had to consider these things (see notes from 28/02), but looking at them in detail, the plan has quite a few problems.
I think we could maybe narrow down our question to:
Is sight intrinsic to the experience and enjoyment of art?
Can we set up an exhibition that allows for a more intimate experience of art than is usually experienced in a gallery/museum space? (This presupposes we’re going to use a gallery/museum space – not a sitting room, etc. Think we have decided on this?)
That would move us away from several previous exhibitions that have emphasised the tactile, and the hands-on, interactive experiences aimed at families and children.
But, are we able to include artwork that can be appreciated by smell / taste / sound?? The ‘touch’ idea keeps bringing to mind handle-able items, but we’re thinking of things you can sit on? slide down? walk on, or inside? Maybe it is about the sense of touch, but more about a whole body experience?
I’m not convinced by our ‘drawing on’ idea, and perhaps not our ‘removing items’ idea, although some sort of freebies/catalogue/postcard seems appropriate – just not removing any of the artwork itself. But then who’s to say the freebies/ catalogue/postcard isn’t a work of art in itself?!
transfers from Blackboard : 4
Attempt at guiding questions
Sue Clarke
Have had a go. I think we've reached a point where we need to refine them further on Wednesday. This is as far as I think we’ve got.
First, decide on a topic for a hypothetical exhibition that interests us.
Our initial thought was to set up an exhibition that questions the dominance of sight in gallery spaces, and to try to curate one that involved other senses. This related to my interest in books and textiles – both of which can be experienced by touch, weight, solidity, etc; and Lynda’s interest in light and how that can be experienced in other ways than by sight. At this stage, Heather hadn’t joined our group.
Try to sharpen the focus, so that it becomes an enquiry.
To what extent can an exhibition be experienced by senses other than sight? We found a number of examples of ‘tactile opportunities’ and ‘object handling’ in galleries and museums, often targetted at visually impaired visitors. Similarly, a number of hands-on and interactive exhibitions, often targetted at families and children. We didn’t want to duplicate these ideas and so refined our question further. Possibilities include:
How can we encourage visitors to an exhibition to use more of their senses than just sight?
How might we allow visitors to experience artworks in other ways than by sight?
How might we heighten visitors’ awareness of how much we rely on our eyes, and how little we use our other senses?
What taboos relating to exhibition spaces might we [reasonably] be able to break?
The questions still seem to be quite broad and could do with being focussed even more.
We need to decide whether:
a) people are drawn in by being able to experience artworks by touch, smell, sound; or
b) people are drawn in by the possibility of being able to contribute to, or have an effect on, the actual artworks.
To be discussed Wednesday 7 March, so that we can refine the concept further!
Sue Clarke
Have had a go. I think we've reached a point where we need to refine them further on Wednesday. This is as far as I think we’ve got.
First, decide on a topic for a hypothetical exhibition that interests us.
Our initial thought was to set up an exhibition that questions the dominance of sight in gallery spaces, and to try to curate one that involved other senses. This related to my interest in books and textiles – both of which can be experienced by touch, weight, solidity, etc; and Lynda’s interest in light and how that can be experienced in other ways than by sight. At this stage, Heather hadn’t joined our group.
Try to sharpen the focus, so that it becomes an enquiry.
To what extent can an exhibition be experienced by senses other than sight? We found a number of examples of ‘tactile opportunities’ and ‘object handling’ in galleries and museums, often targetted at visually impaired visitors. Similarly, a number of hands-on and interactive exhibitions, often targetted at families and children. We didn’t want to duplicate these ideas and so refined our question further. Possibilities include:
How can we encourage visitors to an exhibition to use more of their senses than just sight?
How might we allow visitors to experience artworks in other ways than by sight?
How might we heighten visitors’ awareness of how much we rely on our eyes, and how little we use our other senses?
What taboos relating to exhibition spaces might we [reasonably] be able to break?
The questions still seem to be quite broad and could do with being focussed even more.
We need to decide whether:
a) people are drawn in by being able to experience artworks by touch, smell, sound; or
b) people are drawn in by the possibility of being able to contribute to, or have an effect on, the actual artworks.
To be discussed Wednesday 7 March, so that we can refine the concept further!
transfers from Blackboard : 3
Response from Tate Modern
Lynda Cornwell
After our discussion last week I took some of Sue's write-up and emailed Liz Ellis, artist/educator at Tate Modern to see if she had any suggestions, comments etc. Below is my original email and her response.
Hi Liz
This is Lynda Cornwell – we met on a book art course you ran with Tracey last year. I am a postgrad student at Kingston Uni and I wonder if you could help me with a current project?
We have to plan a hypothetical exhibition and present it to peers. We don’t have to get real costings etc and we don’t need the detail, more to show we have thought it through I think.
Our thoughts are to create a small exhibition where visitors can actually do all (or almost all) the things which are usually taboo, such as touching exhibits, photographing them etc. For this we identified the space at Tate Modern where Simryn Gill had her works last year – is it the Level 2 gallery?
The help I am asking for is just any information or advice on this that we may not have considered owing to inexperience/ignorance of planning and curating. Any suggestions for artists to include?
I thought of you because of the connection with education - I hope you don't mind. If you can spare the time I’d very much appreciate the input.
Best regards
Lynda
Below is a very brief outline of our thinking so far…
Is it allowing people to touch exhibits that they wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch? Or is it about heightening awareness of how much we use our eyes and how little we use our other senses? An exhibition that allows the visitor (not the viewer!) to do all the things that are normally not allowed in an exhibition space. It would go outside the boundaries of usual behaviour where we are
- not allowed to photograph
- not allowed to video
- not allowed to sit on the exhibits
- not allowed to get too close
- not allowed to touch artworks/frames
- not allowed to deface the work
- not allowed food or drink
- not allowed to remove anything (maybe we could have someone making origami birds, that could be taken away; maybe on the last day you could take the exhibits away, so the exhibition disappears? Art as an event, rather than art as an exhibition?)
- Timeline - long lead up for planning and need to apply for funding
- We are not aiming this exhibition exclusively at any group, but at all. ie not just the visually impaired, not just children etc
- We shall approach 6-10 artists to contribute a piece then call for submissions for the remaining exhibits.
- Passing traffic is desirable but promotion/marketing is also required
- There would be a catalogue with introduction by well-known artist (who? Carsten Holler?)
- Insurance
- Health and Safety considerations/implications
- Staffing for collection/selection of works, preparing the space, during the exhibition, and clean up
hi Lynda,
good to hear from you! This sounds great, it is hectic here at the moment so I won't respond at length but just a few points
what are your boundaries in show re touching/taking exhibits away etc? For example with Thomas Hirschhorn in 'Commonwealth' in 2004 gallery staff found they endlessly had to 'police' behaviour even though/because it was more relaxed environment with lounge area and text multiples to take away. So people wanted to destroy/take all the work, how do you decide the limits as you as a team of artists and curators will need to agree in advance!
costing for staff (plus training time if necessary) to engage visitors to discuss why work is displayed in way it is rather than just 'police' it. Some gallery staff hated being in position where they felt 'bad' gallery behaviour in one part of the gallery was encouraged and then when it wasn't in the rest of the building, the visitors were confused and at times abusive to them.
how do you express these boundaries (eg do you allow all types of food and drink in ?!)
the aim of the exhibition is unclear to me, you need to have a few examples of artists to help me with this. I think of Felix Gonsalez Torres work where sweets/poster multiples were available for audience to take, is this the lines you are thinking of?
have you heard one woman is sueing Tate Modern because she hurt her hand on the slides? So despite this being an activity she undertook at her own risk, voluntarily, with lots of health and safety info she insists TM are negligent. So think about issues of safety/public liability in your costings. Even at our Open Studios events (rather than exhibition)we have to take these issues very seriously.....
how do different visitors needs get balanced? for example what happens if the visitor on day 6 can't see the work because it has got so dirty/broken on days 1-5?
hope this helps a bit! good luck with it all.....
cheers Liz
Lynda Cornwell
After our discussion last week I took some of Sue's write-up and emailed Liz Ellis, artist/educator at Tate Modern to see if she had any suggestions, comments etc. Below is my original email and her response.
Hi Liz
This is Lynda Cornwell – we met on a book art course you ran with Tracey last year. I am a postgrad student at Kingston Uni and I wonder if you could help me with a current project?
We have to plan a hypothetical exhibition and present it to peers. We don’t have to get real costings etc and we don’t need the detail, more to show we have thought it through I think.
Our thoughts are to create a small exhibition where visitors can actually do all (or almost all) the things which are usually taboo, such as touching exhibits, photographing them etc. For this we identified the space at Tate Modern where Simryn Gill had her works last year – is it the Level 2 gallery?
The help I am asking for is just any information or advice on this that we may not have considered owing to inexperience/ignorance of planning and curating. Any suggestions for artists to include?
I thought of you because of the connection with education - I hope you don't mind. If you can spare the time I’d very much appreciate the input.
Best regards
Lynda
Below is a very brief outline of our thinking so far…
Is it allowing people to touch exhibits that they wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch? Or is it about heightening awareness of how much we use our eyes and how little we use our other senses? An exhibition that allows the visitor (not the viewer!) to do all the things that are normally not allowed in an exhibition space. It would go outside the boundaries of usual behaviour where we are
- not allowed to photograph
- not allowed to video
- not allowed to sit on the exhibits
- not allowed to get too close
- not allowed to touch artworks/frames
- not allowed to deface the work
- not allowed food or drink
- not allowed to remove anything (maybe we could have someone making origami birds, that could be taken away; maybe on the last day you could take the exhibits away, so the exhibition disappears? Art as an event, rather than art as an exhibition?)
- Timeline - long lead up for planning and need to apply for funding
- We are not aiming this exhibition exclusively at any group, but at all. ie not just the visually impaired, not just children etc
- We shall approach 6-10 artists to contribute a piece then call for submissions for the remaining exhibits.
- Passing traffic is desirable but promotion/marketing is also required
- There would be a catalogue with introduction by well-known artist (who? Carsten Holler?)
- Insurance
- Health and Safety considerations/implications
- Staffing for collection/selection of works, preparing the space, during the exhibition, and clean up
hi Lynda,
good to hear from you! This sounds great, it is hectic here at the moment so I won't respond at length but just a few points
what are your boundaries in show re touching/taking exhibits away etc? For example with Thomas Hirschhorn in 'Commonwealth' in 2004 gallery staff found they endlessly had to 'police' behaviour even though/because it was more relaxed environment with lounge area and text multiples to take away. So people wanted to destroy/take all the work, how do you decide the limits as you as a team of artists and curators will need to agree in advance!
costing for staff (plus training time if necessary) to engage visitors to discuss why work is displayed in way it is rather than just 'police' it. Some gallery staff hated being in position where they felt 'bad' gallery behaviour in one part of the gallery was encouraged and then when it wasn't in the rest of the building, the visitors were confused and at times abusive to them.
how do you express these boundaries (eg do you allow all types of food and drink in ?!)
the aim of the exhibition is unclear to me, you need to have a few examples of artists to help me with this. I think of Felix Gonsalez Torres work where sweets/poster multiples were available for audience to take, is this the lines you are thinking of?
have you heard one woman is sueing Tate Modern because she hurt her hand on the slides? So despite this being an activity she undertook at her own risk, voluntarily, with lots of health and safety info she insists TM are negligent. So think about issues of safety/public liability in your costings. Even at our Open Studios events (rather than exhibition)we have to take these issues very seriously.....
how do different visitors needs get balanced? for example what happens if the visitor on day 6 can't see the work because it has got so dirty/broken on days 1-5?
hope this helps a bit! good luck with it all.....
cheers Liz
transfers from Blackboard : 2
Brainstorming 28.02.07
Sue Clarke
This is a summary of our conversation this morning - Lynda, Heather and Sue. It was a throwing-ideas-around sort of session, the first time we'd met together face to face. I'm recording it all here in case there are ideas that we discount now, but which may become relevant again later.
Everyone had done some initial trawling through Google, Wilson Web and library catalogues, searching under 'touch', 'haptic', 'object handling', 'feel', etc. This had produced references to previous exhibitions and galleries – Birmingham's In Touch Gallery, Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, Please Touch at the University Museum of Natural History in Oxford, and the Science Museum in London. We also found case studies of best practice of access for blind and partially sited people in museums, galleries and heritage sites. Also a series of workshops funded by AHRC about 'Touch and the value of object handling' - which included names of invited speakers.
In terms of exhibitions, we were already aware of Sense and Sensuality 2006 at the Bankside Gallery, two of us having visited last year. The submissions criteria and list of judges are still on their website [www.blindart.org] and might be useful as reference.
Literature-wise, we'd found abstracts of articles about tactile opportunities in museums and galleries, which we can follow up. We were also aware of the divide between art historians tending not to like people touching artwork (damaging, destructive), and how families/children love it. Heather had found reviews of ‘Touch this’ at the V&A last year which we need to read. We could also find reviews of Sense and Sensuality from last year to see the response to that.
[At the moment we’ve just been gathering resources, prior to meeting up to throw ideas around.]
One significant work might be Caravaggio’s ‘Doubting Thomas’ painting (1602-03), an instance of vision not being adequate to convince.
So … we talked about how many sites had moved away from a rigid separation between the art and the viewer - about places where you can move around and behind the work [eg Madame Tussauds]. Similarly there are hands-on and interactive exhibits at the Science Museum. But we didn’t feel that pursuing this path would make for an original exhibition unless it was done on a very major scale, with very sophisticated facilities and this was beyond what we were envisaging.
We want therefore to narrow down our audience:
- not specifically targeted at children and families, although they would be welcome
- not specifically targeted at blind or visually impaired people, although hey would also be welcome.
It would be more a specialised exhibition which drew attention to the way we predominantly rely on our eyes for information. So we’d want to encourage experiencing the exhibits by touch - weight, temperature, solidity, etc.
We talked about the space we might like to use. A side room of the Tate was suggested, as being the right sort of size. The Lisson Gallery was another possibility - initially not favoured because it was a bit out of the way and would need a special trip. But then perhaps in favour again because people would come specifically for the exhibition and we might use this to our advantage to dissuade ‘passing trade’. The Serpentine was also considered. Also, outside space, maybe a marquee in the summer. Maybe the garden at the V&A. The outside possibility seemed to restrict the sort of work we could show – probably not books, fabrics, but mainly sculpture, and so we abandoned this idea. We had previously discussed a mobile show, but have now discounted that.
We wondered if we could tie the exhibition into something that was already happening or planned - the Olympics? Mulling this over - nothing triggered as yet.
Dividing the exhibition into different environments or themes was an idea that cropped up. It might allow us to think more specifically about our exhibits. A previous show had divided into domestic, garden and darkness. We thought it might be a good plan to try this when we come to more specific organising.
This led on to us thinking about the exhibits again and to exactly what we’re trying to say. Is it allowing people to touch exhibits that they wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch? Or is it about heightening awareness of how much we use our eyes and how little we use our other senses? This was the breakthrough we were after - an exhibition that allows the visitor (not the viewer!) to do all the things that are normally not allowed in an exhibition space. It would go outside the boundaries of usual behaviour. We brainstormed the things you can’t usually do.
- not allowed to photograph
- not allowed to video
- not allowed to sit on the exhibits
- not allowed to get too close
- not allowed to touch artworks/frames
- not allowed to deface the work
- not allowed food or drink
- not allowed to remove anything (maybe we could have someone making origami birds, that could be taken away; maybe on the last day you could take the exhibits away, so the exhibition disappears? Art as an event, rather than art as an exhibition?)
So we’ll look at taboos in the gallery space.
How will we acquire work for this sort of show?
Several names sprang to mind:
- Susan Collis. Paintspots and scratches on furniture that are deliberately worked to be deceptive. Things being not what they seem if you only use your eyes. Also James Turrell’s light pieces. Richard Wentworth’s black plastic bag?
- Carsten Holler’s slides at the Tate. We thought that this might extend the sensory idea behind Holler’s Tate slides; maybe we would invite him to write an essay or a foreword to our programme.
- Anish Kapoor’s piles of pigments. Clearing up powder would be a nightmare and it would rapidly descend into a mess?)
- The lumosphere. A sphere containing coloured light that you can put on your head - a strange experience because you really can’t tell where the light is, how far away, what it’s made of, etc.
- furniture to sit on? Allen Jones’ tables?
- Deborah Harty’s chocolate drawings?
- Simryn Gill’s books, displayed at the Tate last year. These were presented in such a way that you could turn the pages.
- Visit the Contemporary Textiles Fair in Teddington (10-11 March) where they’re going to have a ‘sensory area’ and see how they tackle it.
Try to invite 6-10 artists to show existing work - or possibly commission new work. And the rest will be submissions for the show.
We could ask selected artists if they would allow us to show work on the understanding that the work would be used/handled. To supplement this, we would invite submissions, clearly stating that the work would be touchable / useable / possibly not returnable. But equally the artwork might be added to? We could invite people to add to work? We’d be interested to see if the visitors would deface the work or if people would be too inhibited – probably depends alot on the space that we use for the show (white gallery walls/tatty warehouse). If we left a musical instrument in the corner, would anyone play it?
Where would we advertise for submissions?
- an magazine, art monthly, art newspaper
- circulate document to all art schools for student submissions
- artists’ forums / websites
- open studios - is there a central mailing address that would go out to all groups for distributing?
- local radio/TV?
How broadly should we advertise - UK, Europe, world-wide? Outside the UK, the issues of transport and cost become more significant so this will depend on the funding we have available.
We would have to brief the staff about how the show would be stewarded, since it would be contrary to usual practice in a gallery space. We would need to investigate health and safety issues/ public liability insurance, etc.
How long would the exhibition run for? If works are going to be interfered with, would we have a clean up at the end of each day and put it all back to the beginning again? Or maybe it could just be on for one day? Or just for a weekend? So it would become more of an event than an exhibition – a big, brief splash. Maybe it could run as part of an education programme, as a short event/exhibition? Lynda volunteered to contact Liz Ellis, art educator at Tate Modern, to see if this might fit in with her programme.
If this worked and we could run the event under the Tate’s auspices, we would hopefully be able to use the side room that we’ve already hopefully earmarked. (This would be ideal for passing trade, and the exhibition may not be huge so perhaps better than having to come to a space solely for this event.) We would be able to call upon them for funding? And for borrowing any works that they already hold? And for help in running an education programme about sensory experiences in relation to galleries? And for publicity? It might be a co-operative venture between us and them. So our pitch on 28 March could be as if it were to the Tate, to see if they’d want to collaborate on this project as part of their education programme.
Other thoughts:
Timescale - Lynda to do exhibition plan. We’re thinking of next summer.
Programme - something more interesting and tactile than your average leaflet/booklet. Fabric? Hole punched? Raised ink? Embossed? Or just audio - on CD? Sue to investigate.
Curation - Heather to look into this.
One question we need to resolve:
Are people to be drawn in by things to look at?
Or are they drawn in by having things to do?
Sue Clarke
This is a summary of our conversation this morning - Lynda, Heather and Sue. It was a throwing-ideas-around sort of session, the first time we'd met together face to face. I'm recording it all here in case there are ideas that we discount now, but which may become relevant again later.
Everyone had done some initial trawling through Google, Wilson Web and library catalogues, searching under 'touch', 'haptic', 'object handling', 'feel', etc. This had produced references to previous exhibitions and galleries – Birmingham's In Touch Gallery, Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, Please Touch at the University Museum of Natural History in Oxford, and the Science Museum in London. We also found case studies of best practice of access for blind and partially sited people in museums, galleries and heritage sites. Also a series of workshops funded by AHRC about 'Touch and the value of object handling' - which included names of invited speakers.
In terms of exhibitions, we were already aware of Sense and Sensuality 2006 at the Bankside Gallery, two of us having visited last year. The submissions criteria and list of judges are still on their website [www.blindart.org] and might be useful as reference.
Literature-wise, we'd found abstracts of articles about tactile opportunities in museums and galleries, which we can follow up. We were also aware of the divide between art historians tending not to like people touching artwork (damaging, destructive), and how families/children love it. Heather had found reviews of ‘Touch this’ at the V&A last year which we need to read. We could also find reviews of Sense and Sensuality from last year to see the response to that.
[At the moment we’ve just been gathering resources, prior to meeting up to throw ideas around.]
One significant work might be Caravaggio’s ‘Doubting Thomas’ painting (1602-03), an instance of vision not being adequate to convince.
So … we talked about how many sites had moved away from a rigid separation between the art and the viewer - about places where you can move around and behind the work [eg Madame Tussauds]. Similarly there are hands-on and interactive exhibits at the Science Museum. But we didn’t feel that pursuing this path would make for an original exhibition unless it was done on a very major scale, with very sophisticated facilities and this was beyond what we were envisaging.
We want therefore to narrow down our audience:
- not specifically targeted at children and families, although they would be welcome
- not specifically targeted at blind or visually impaired people, although hey would also be welcome.
It would be more a specialised exhibition which drew attention to the way we predominantly rely on our eyes for information. So we’d want to encourage experiencing the exhibits by touch - weight, temperature, solidity, etc.
We talked about the space we might like to use. A side room of the Tate was suggested, as being the right sort of size. The Lisson Gallery was another possibility - initially not favoured because it was a bit out of the way and would need a special trip. But then perhaps in favour again because people would come specifically for the exhibition and we might use this to our advantage to dissuade ‘passing trade’. The Serpentine was also considered. Also, outside space, maybe a marquee in the summer. Maybe the garden at the V&A. The outside possibility seemed to restrict the sort of work we could show – probably not books, fabrics, but mainly sculpture, and so we abandoned this idea. We had previously discussed a mobile show, but have now discounted that.
We wondered if we could tie the exhibition into something that was already happening or planned - the Olympics? Mulling this over - nothing triggered as yet.
Dividing the exhibition into different environments or themes was an idea that cropped up. It might allow us to think more specifically about our exhibits. A previous show had divided into domestic, garden and darkness. We thought it might be a good plan to try this when we come to more specific organising.
This led on to us thinking about the exhibits again and to exactly what we’re trying to say. Is it allowing people to touch exhibits that they wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch? Or is it about heightening awareness of how much we use our eyes and how little we use our other senses? This was the breakthrough we were after - an exhibition that allows the visitor (not the viewer!) to do all the things that are normally not allowed in an exhibition space. It would go outside the boundaries of usual behaviour. We brainstormed the things you can’t usually do.
- not allowed to photograph
- not allowed to video
- not allowed to sit on the exhibits
- not allowed to get too close
- not allowed to touch artworks/frames
- not allowed to deface the work
- not allowed food or drink
- not allowed to remove anything (maybe we could have someone making origami birds, that could be taken away; maybe on the last day you could take the exhibits away, so the exhibition disappears? Art as an event, rather than art as an exhibition?)
So we’ll look at taboos in the gallery space.
How will we acquire work for this sort of show?
Several names sprang to mind:
- Susan Collis. Paintspots and scratches on furniture that are deliberately worked to be deceptive. Things being not what they seem if you only use your eyes. Also James Turrell’s light pieces. Richard Wentworth’s black plastic bag?
- Carsten Holler’s slides at the Tate. We thought that this might extend the sensory idea behind Holler’s Tate slides; maybe we would invite him to write an essay or a foreword to our programme.
- Anish Kapoor’s piles of pigments. Clearing up powder would be a nightmare and it would rapidly descend into a mess?)
- The lumosphere. A sphere containing coloured light that you can put on your head - a strange experience because you really can’t tell where the light is, how far away, what it’s made of, etc.
- furniture to sit on? Allen Jones’ tables?
- Deborah Harty’s chocolate drawings?
- Simryn Gill’s books, displayed at the Tate last year. These were presented in such a way that you could turn the pages.
- Visit the Contemporary Textiles Fair in Teddington (10-11 March) where they’re going to have a ‘sensory area’ and see how they tackle it.
Try to invite 6-10 artists to show existing work - or possibly commission new work. And the rest will be submissions for the show.
We could ask selected artists if they would allow us to show work on the understanding that the work would be used/handled. To supplement this, we would invite submissions, clearly stating that the work would be touchable / useable / possibly not returnable. But equally the artwork might be added to? We could invite people to add to work? We’d be interested to see if the visitors would deface the work or if people would be too inhibited – probably depends alot on the space that we use for the show (white gallery walls/tatty warehouse). If we left a musical instrument in the corner, would anyone play it?
Where would we advertise for submissions?
- an magazine, art monthly, art newspaper
- circulate document to all art schools for student submissions
- artists’ forums / websites
- open studios - is there a central mailing address that would go out to all groups for distributing?
- local radio/TV?
How broadly should we advertise - UK, Europe, world-wide? Outside the UK, the issues of transport and cost become more significant so this will depend on the funding we have available.
We would have to brief the staff about how the show would be stewarded, since it would be contrary to usual practice in a gallery space. We would need to investigate health and safety issues/ public liability insurance, etc.
How long would the exhibition run for? If works are going to be interfered with, would we have a clean up at the end of each day and put it all back to the beginning again? Or maybe it could just be on for one day? Or just for a weekend? So it would become more of an event than an exhibition – a big, brief splash. Maybe it could run as part of an education programme, as a short event/exhibition? Lynda volunteered to contact Liz Ellis, art educator at Tate Modern, to see if this might fit in with her programme.
If this worked and we could run the event under the Tate’s auspices, we would hopefully be able to use the side room that we’ve already hopefully earmarked. (This would be ideal for passing trade, and the exhibition may not be huge so perhaps better than having to come to a space solely for this event.) We would be able to call upon them for funding? And for borrowing any works that they already hold? And for help in running an education programme about sensory experiences in relation to galleries? And for publicity? It might be a co-operative venture between us and them. So our pitch on 28 March could be as if it were to the Tate, to see if they’d want to collaborate on this project as part of their education programme.
Other thoughts:
Timescale - Lynda to do exhibition plan. We’re thinking of next summer.
Programme - something more interesting and tactile than your average leaflet/booklet. Fabric? Hole punched? Raised ink? Embossed? Or just audio - on CD? Sue to investigate.
Curation - Heather to look into this.
One question we need to resolve:
Are people to be drawn in by things to look at?
Or are they drawn in by having things to do?
transfers from Blackboard : 1
Initial ideas for our theoretical exhibition
Lynda Cornwell
Exhibition of “handleable” materials/ experiential materials?
Things to consider in no particular order…
Content
All things handleable to create an intimate experience. Even if the items are non-precious (in that we are allowed to handle them and examine them closely in a way that most galleries/museums do not allow today) they may become precious because we feel privileged to touch them.
Books…
- Handmade or multiple artists’ books or facsimile sketchbooks
- Made into sculpture/intervened with in such a way that they are no longer legible – a whole library of unreadable books!
Packages…
- To open
- To look at and guess the contents but not open
‘Toys’…
- To learn from
- To play with
Sculpture…
- Walk on pieces eg Carl André
- Works to touch and move
Drawing/Painting…
- Collaborative work
Venue/situation
Cormfortable lounge? Rather than an austere gallery or museum, somewhere more intimate.
Artist-designed furniture?
Travelling exh space?
Audience
Invited guests?
People passing by?
Gallery goers or ordinary people?
Adults or children or both?
Funding/costs
Venue, staffing, insurance, travel?, catalogue, packaging, transport of items, promotion
Timing
Time of year (coincide with other events?), duration, weekdays? weekends? both?
Marketing/promotion
Catalogue
Opening
Dates/hours/private view/staffing/press pack
Timescale
Pert network/diagram/workflow to estimate planning time, installation and take-down time etc
Lynda Cornwell
Exhibition of “handleable” materials/ experiential materials?
Things to consider in no particular order…
Content
All things handleable to create an intimate experience. Even if the items are non-precious (in that we are allowed to handle them and examine them closely in a way that most galleries/museums do not allow today) they may become precious because we feel privileged to touch them.
Books…
- Handmade or multiple artists’ books or facsimile sketchbooks
- Made into sculpture/intervened with in such a way that they are no longer legible – a whole library of unreadable books!
Packages…
- To open
- To look at and guess the contents but not open
‘Toys’…
- To learn from
- To play with
Sculpture…
- Walk on pieces eg Carl André
- Works to touch and move
Drawing/Painting…
- Collaborative work
Venue/situation
Cormfortable lounge? Rather than an austere gallery or museum, somewhere more intimate.
Artist-designed furniture?
Travelling exh space?
Audience
Invited guests?
People passing by?
Gallery goers or ordinary people?
Adults or children or both?
Funding/costs
Venue, staffing, insurance, travel?, catalogue, packaging, transport of items, promotion
Timing
Time of year (coincide with other events?), duration, weekdays? weekends? both?
Marketing/promotion
Catalogue
Opening
Dates/hours/private view/staffing/press pack
Timescale
Pert network/diagram/workflow to estimate planning time, installation and take-down time etc
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Pictures at an exhibition
This post was intended to be visual but it became increasingly difficult to find suitable images - and slowly it dawned that of course it was - we are looking for artworks that do not rely on the visual, so we fall back on language to explain them in the absence of the work itself!
Carsten Holler's slides at Tate Modern are art to be experienced. 'For Carsten Höller, the experience of sliding is best summed up in a phrase by the French writer Roger Caillois as a 'voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind'. The slides are impressive sculptures in their own right, and you don't have to hurtle down them to appreciate this artwork. What interests Höller, however, is both the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the 'inner spectacle' experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that you enter as you descend.' [www.tate.org.uk] His Sliding Doors at Tate Modern also relies on the visitor to interact with the piece.
Anish Kapoor's Ishi's Light
also at Tate Modern is a sculpture that you want to stand inside. 'An egg-like structure opens to reveal a dark red interior. Kapoor has related this work to Barnett Newman’s paintings, in which a vertical stripe represents the creation of the universe. In Kapoor’s sculpture, a column of light appears at the centre, produced by reflections from the curved interior. ‘The column of light is like a virtual object’ he has said. ‘It isn’t simply on the surface’' [www.tate.org.uk]Also appropriate to our sensory exhibition would be these installations (no pictures are available):
Eureka/Blindhotland is an installation by the Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles that explores ideas of sensory perception and the physical properties of objects.
The installation draws our attention to non-visual properties such as sound and weight, which are normally considered only as an implicit aspect of sculpture. There are four principal parts: Eureka, Blindhotland, Expeso (a soundtrack) and Inserções. Eureka consists of two pieces of wood and a cross, placed on a set of scales. The title, meaning ‘I have found it’, is the word exclaimed by the Greek mathematician Archimedes when he observed the displacement of water in his bathtub. Blindhotland consists of 201 black rubber balls of identical size, but varying weights. The soundtrack is the noise made by the balls being dropped from different heights and different distances from the microphone. The combined title, then, refers to the reciprocal impact of a body entering a given space, as well as the 'blind’ mathematical principles and physical properties with which the artist is fascinated. The final element, Inserções, is the insertion of four images into newspapers, with no explanatory text, which takes place one day while the work is on display.
A pioneer of installation art, Meireles was influenced by the Neo-Concretist generation of Brazilian artists, such as Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, whose works often involve the participation of the viewer. ’Blindhotland’ is a generic name given to a series of his works, which incorporate the perception of sound, heat, taste, smell and so forth.
Curated by Ann Coxon [www.tate.org.uk]
The installation draws our attention to non-visual properties such as sound and weight, which are normally considered only as an implicit aspect of sculpture. There are four principal parts: Eureka, Blindhotland, Expeso (a soundtrack) and Inserções. Eureka consists of two pieces of wood and a cross, placed on a set of scales. The title, meaning ‘I have found it’, is the word exclaimed by the Greek mathematician Archimedes when he observed the displacement of water in his bathtub. Blindhotland consists of 201 black rubber balls of identical size, but varying weights. The soundtrack is the noise made by the balls being dropped from different heights and different distances from the microphone. The combined title, then, refers to the reciprocal impact of a body entering a given space, as well as the 'blind’ mathematical principles and physical properties with which the artist is fascinated. The final element, Inserções, is the insertion of four images into newspapers, with no explanatory text, which takes place one day while the work is on display.
A pioneer of installation art, Meireles was influenced by the Neo-Concretist generation of Brazilian artists, such as Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, whose works often involve the participation of the viewer. ’Blindhotland’ is a generic name given to a series of his works, which incorporate the perception of sound, heat, taste, smell and so forth.
Curated by Ann Coxon [www.tate.org.uk]
Susan Collis
The pieces all use different types of trompe-l'oeil effects in order to investigate issues concerning identity, craft, value and labour. Everyday objects, etched, splattered and stained with the marks of work and wear & tear, are seen, at a first glance to be the secondary results of a primary activity seemingly worthless and easily ignored. I am interested in the shift in perception that takes place upon discovery that they are, instead, the primary activity themselves.
Rose Finn-Kelcey
Rose Finn-Kelcey describes herself as wary of imagery, seeking in her work to produce atmospheres which suggest psychological states with universal rather than specific significance. Her two pieces Steam Installation and The Royal Box, now in the collection of Charles Saatchi and shown as part of the "Young British Artists II" exhibition which ran until August at the Saatchi Gallery, were both commissioned for very different settings. The idea for the second, however, drew directly on the experience of creating the first. This, the steam installation, was conceived for the Chisenhale Gallery, where it was exhibited a year ago. The inspiration for the piece was the inhospitable nature of the gallery--windowless, cold and damp. The desire to give the space some sort of warmth produced the concept of using steam to bring an active life force into an enclosed, forbidding interior.
With the help of a heating engineer, a metal tank was devised and constructed. Steam from the water heated in the floor-based container is drawn upward by a fan concealed in a metal hood. The turbulent cloud is prevented from escaping outward into the gallery space by invisible "curtains" of cold air. The steam thus creates a dynamic cube, suspended in light, forming and reforming as the cold air delicately controls the rising vapor. In the Saatchi space, the atmosphere was peaceful, with the spectators' shadows projected on the walls and on the cloud itself as they contemplated this friendly monster, whose power, as the artist intended, filled the space with warmth and fight.
In total contrast, entering The Royal Box literally chills the blood. From the outside, the refrigerated cabinet resembles a Minirealist sculpture, carefully proportioned, pristinely white. Only a businesslike door suggests that this simple-seeming object might have a function as well as a form. Once inside, the spectator enters another world. In the center of the space, a U-shaped pillar, constructed from ice cubes, rises almost to the roof. Enclosed on three sides by its thick ice walls, which gleam in the bright electric light, the spectator feels safe, at peace. In fact, however, the threat of death is imminent. The temperature, at minus 24 degrees centigrade, is cold enough to freeze the blood after only a few minutes.
Finn-Kelcey's work, which has the most direct physical effect upon the spectator, is also the most universal in its resonance. The two installations are like landscapes for the modern age, re-creating natural phenomena as spectacles within controlled urban settings. They do not suggest the specifically human frailties and failings which Cross and Hatoum choose to explore, but rather the universal vulnerability of humankind in the face of the power of nature. The lovely billowing steam can scald, the gleaming ice can only be made manifest in an environment fatal to those of warm blood. Stepping out of The Royal Box into the warmth of the sun-filled gallery, the spectators find that their clothing momentarily retains the chill of the tomb, while within its immaculate container the ice itself is vanishing as the water which forms it, imperceptibly slowly but inevitably, evaporates.
Taken from Uneasy rooms - installation art; Dorothy Cross at Camden Arts Centre, Mona Haroum at Arnolfini Gallery and Rose Finn-Kelcey at Saatchi Gallery, all in London, England
Art in America, Oct, 1993 by Lynn MacRitchie
[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_n10_v81/ai_14565415/pg_2]
Jenny Cordy's Chromosphere - as you pull the sphere over your head you lose all sense of space and distance - it is disorientating in the extreme, yet not uncomfortable because you are in control of raising and lowering the sphere.
Carl Andre's bricks
- many of Carl Andre's works are almost flat on the floor and a challenge to 'viewers' who are unsure whether they should walk on them or not. Years ago when the concept of a museum was first realised, exhibits were meant to be handled, but more recently to touch an exhibit has become taboo. Many works today are breaking down these barriers.Kevin Hunt's Soft Toy Chair - this chair is totally composed of soft toys, and one wonders should I sit on it or just look at it? When I saw this in an exhibition recently I did not sit on it, and nor did anyone else there at that time - the old taboos linger even when they are removed.
Martin Creed's work appeals to many senses, many of them incorporating sound, such as the music that accompanied the lift in ascending tones [Hauser & Wirth ] - the images below are his visual representation of half the air in a given space and Balls ...
Michael Landy's work Costermonger Stall No 3 is a riot of colour but it also engages our sense of smell...
These might be some artists and artworks that we could consider for our exhibition.
These might be some artists and artworks that we could consider for our exhibition.
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