Exhibition Visit
Choose a project/body of work from all of the exhibitions that you find challenging and/or most interesting and write about what draws you to the work. Discuss aspects like subject matter, title, selection/edit of images and presentation.
The exhibition that I found more interesting was the retrospective about Saul Leiter in The Photographers’ Gallery. It was the very first one I visited and I had never heard about the artist before, but walking by the images I found myself captured by the beauty of his work at once. What attracted me was the elegance of the composition and the use of colour which stood out from the white frame. I also really enjoyed his work of fashion photography in relation with some of his sketches. The general presentation was very effective: every picture was quite big with a small black or white frame hang on white walls. I believe that a simple and clear composition is the best way to make the photographs the real protagonists. I appreciate the fact that there were different projects each of which occupied its own space separated from the others; in this way I got a general fair idea from the beginning and I had the opportunity to know this great photographer.
Please consider the presentation of the exhibited images (i.e. size, format, framing, hanging, mounting, positioning on wall and in relation to each other, text panels etc) in the various exhibitions. Which presentation form did you find the most successful in relation to the work?
By and large there was a great difference between the presentation from one exhibition to another. Starting from “The Photographers’ Gallery”, there were some similarities between two exhibition: “ The Easter Rising 1916 Sean Sexton Collection” and “Saul Leiter Curated by Ingo Taubhorn and Brigitte Woischnik”. Both display the images in a basic frame (black or white) and their position on the wall is linear. Moreover, the photographs are accompanied by other sources, such as drawings and writings. While in the second exhibition the pictures were shown in different sizes, in the first one they were quite small. Furthermore “The Easter Rising” is about an historical event and the entire room gave a sense of austerity. Moving to “Rosângela Rennó: Rio-Montevideo”, the disposition of the works was very peculiar: every photograph was presented by a slide projector which was activated by the audience in the room. The images were quite big and the interaction between the public and the work displayed made this particular exhibition very interesting. The second gallery, “Edel Assanti Gallery”, hosted two different exhibitions: “Under Suspicion, Mykola Ridnyi”, on the lower floor, was composed by two large videos projected in a small and very dark room; the first one was in the middle of the room and created a sort of wall behind which there was the second video. “People sometimes, die – curated by Jesse Hlebo”, on the ground floor, was a collection of works made by different artists. There were some independent art works (sculptures and drawings) and three videos: two of them displayed on screen, the other was projected on a wall covered by thick black bags which made the images very blurred. The last gallery was the “Frith Street Gallery” where “Bridget Smith: The Eye Needs A Horizon” was displayed. The large room was minimalistic, on each wall there were one or two enormous canvas and a video composed by four screen. Each work occupied a vast part of the wall and there was a considerable space between them. I can say that every exhibition was well represented by the galley where they were hosted.
How does the presentation of the different bodies of work influence your perception of the work?
In ““The Photographers’ Gallery”, both exhibition ”The Easter Rising” and “Saul Leiter” were shown in a clear and objective way: they were supposed to be collection of documents regarding an historical event and an artist and that’s exactly what they did; the public was given the opportunity to explore the works in a simple but effective way. The absence of a whatsoever frame in “Rio-Montevideo” gave every single picture its importance and the resolution of the images projected on the wall gave the audience the idea of archive which was the artist source for this project. Taking in to consideration the “Under Suspicion” exhibition, the idea of paranoia and anxiety behind the videos stood out and people were hit by this concept. In “People Sometimes, Die”, on the contrary, nobody was sure about what he/she was looking at; I found the works and the choice of display them very confusing and that made me feel quite uncomfortable. The work of Bridget Smith was about the horizon and its vastness; this idea was well represented by the largeness of the canvases and the almost completely empty room.
How do the text panels/info and titles in the exhibitions influence or change your perception of the images/work? Comment on the nature of the text panels in the various exhibitions.
While in “The Photographers’ Gallery” there were clear text panels and plenty of information about the exhibitions, in “Edel Assanti” and “Frith Street” galleries there were not. Both of them required the help of someone who could explain the works and this aspect often provokes a loss of interest in the audience.
Please discuss the differences between the exhibitions with regard to their purpose, context and the audience.
The purpose of “The Easter Rising” and “Saul Leiter” exhibitions was kind of informative; in general the “The Photographers’ Gallery” way of presenting the images gave the idea of “museum exhibition”, meaning that people were supposed to go there only to see the artists’ works. On the other hand, in “Edel Assanti” and “Frith Street” galleries was more evident that their purpose was to sell the works. In this way, clearly, even the audience is very different: from people only passionate by photography and art, to potential purchasers.
