Week 6 Exhibition Guidance
This week looked at different ideas and considerations for the right installation for your work. The activity this week encouraged us to seek an ‘alternative space’ to exhibit out work instead of the traditional white walls of gallery. I looked at Mark Kessell and his daguerreotypes in a series called Specimen Box.
Kessell says about his work/installation “Individuality among animals has the same limitless variety as it does among humans but to see it, we must draw close. Presented in a uniform size and palette of colors this installation offers animals of every category an equal opportunity – scale no longer matters. Everything depends on who is looking at whom.” (http://www.studiocyberia.com/index.php?OL=OL) For me the concept of stepping into a closed manufactured space is interesting, being surrounded by images and being bombarded by them. Could leave the audience confused where to start viewing but I don’t think is necessary a bad point, each viewer would be drawn in by a particular image and would graze over the rest of the space. This box intensifies the viewers experience of the series and the viewing box could be put up anywhere, a portable gallery.
I also viewed one of the recordings from the guest lectures page, from Carrie Thompson and her body of work Notes From My Therapist. The photobook is about Thompson’s 3 years spent in therapy in which she exhibited her book in full scale recreation of her therapist’s waiting room. By creating the waiting room she is creating an experience for her audience not just somewhere you view her work. Thompson says in the interview that her work is about recording the act of going to therapy not that this art was for therapy. Which by viewing her work in the therapist’s waiting room only intensifies that experience, possible feelings and emotions that could be associated with going to therapy. This approach could work for me, I could set up an ‘experience’ for my audience maybe viewed in a hangar or military building. It is certainly something to consider and could be a good alternative for a white walled gallery but at this point I’m happy to display in a gallery or digitally.
http://carriethompson.com/buy/pre-order-notes-from-my-therapist
Critical Research Journal 