#kentridge.william

[aamjp]

La Fondation Louis Vuitton, Art/Afrique: Le Nouvel Atelier

site of the fondation is near the childhood playground of Proust 

another Frank Gehry museum > this one’s more amenable to art than the Guggenheim in Bilbao, however not as spectacular // rooftop terraces are strange in that they deny a view of Paris, excepting the canopy of the surrounding gardens // his sketches are great

William Kentridge > Other Faces, saw this at QUT a few years ago alongside his working drawings // Notes Towards a Model Opera > three-channel video // frenetic mix of music, percussion, 1950s swing and , singing and spoken word // pages from Journal Officual (French Republic, Le Commune), notebooks, maps of China Chinese ideograms > over which are laid videos of black African men and women dancing, carrying slogans (woman is dancing in ballet flats, an inky bird is animated and changes from a Chinese character to a flapping bird)

Text as an abstraction Meleko Mokgosi > “The adjacent text is written in Setswana –  a language of South Africa and Votswana. Deliberately left untranslated, it is only accessible to speakers of this language and can be considered an abstraction for others.” // bad paintings, though...

Kemang Wa Lehulere > mural on wall, chalk on black paint > grad show?

[aamjp]

QUT Art Museum

Visited William Kentridge: Drawn from Africa and Tutus Reimagined at the QUT Art Museum in class last week, where we received a brief talk from Megan Williams, curator of public programs, on the behind-the-scenes workings of the QUT gallery and then a tour of visiting Kentridge exhibition.

The QUT Art Museum opened in 2000 to house QUT’s collection of approximately 2,500 objects of sculpture, paintings, digital media, et cetera. It was interesting to hear, in a rather candid voice, the institutional motivations which guide the gallery’s programme; Williams stated that the exhibitions are intended intended to engage with the university and broader populations, as both a teaching resource and an inducement to prospective students.

The gallery employs two curatorial staff – a small team, typical of university galleries – who undertake approximately eight exhibitions annually, planned two years in advance, comprised in approximately equal proportions of works from the QUT collection; touring exhibitions; and in-house curated projects conforming to a particular theme and typically focussed on Queensland-based art and artists.   

Williams stated that “ideally” it takes about two years to curate a single exhibition, requiring initial research, contacting the artist, writing of didactical plates and educational texts, negotiating loans from the artist, galleries representing the artist, private collectors, and other institutions, obtainment of insurance (valuation, hey! haha, jokes), quarantine, logistics et cetera, et cetera, et cetera and so forth. As such, given the small curatorial team of QUT gallery, touring exhibitions are necessary to alleviate the workload. These are pre-packaged and curated exhibitions, for which all texts, loans, logistics are organised for a fee, and usually include accompanying support staff.  

(To investigate further: ‘International Museum Standards’)

Incidentally, I’m starting my volunteering at the QCA galleries this weekend!