I’ve just had a tutorial so this post could be a little all over the place as I sort my ideas out. This tutorial was with our course leader Matthew Cornford (whose own work as part of Cornford and Cross is really interesting). We discussed whether my ‘rules’ need to be in leaflets. Leaflets are a throw away disposable form that can very easily be dismissed. Not only this but there are a lot of handouts being proposed in the show. This could mean that my leaflets become lost amongst the piles of paper people will collect in the show. The ‘rules’ become less likely to be read, let alone followed and reflected upon in the form of a leaflet.
I therefore need to find a way to elevate these rules from the normal and common to something that forces people to take notice. I have already begun this through writing down the actions and behaviours of people within a gallery space, but I need to take it further. These rules are prescribed by gallery space and so using something in the gallery space to elevate them above the norms could be a good way to force them upon visitors. I am considering several options at the moment, and I am going to brainstorm more ways to elevate these rules. The most prominent idea currently is to put them on to the wall. This would be done in a similar way to the wall text you see so commonly in a gallery. Anyway, I need to think this through a bit more, as I feel it needs something more than just going on the wall.
Elsewhere in degree show planning we have a rough floor plan and regulations for building that keep with our aesthetic. We are going to keep all the construction and structures very bare and open. Containing structures and walls are not going to be painting on the outside and the supporting structures will be left bare. This is to go along with our ideas about the construction of a group show and showing how we have come to each point along the way.
Just a quick update of our progress with the degree show. The title is still unfinished but by next week I hope to be able to let you all know (it’s exciting isn’t it…) In other areas, we now have a more detailed timetable of what needs to be done when, and a rough floor plan. Which means that it’s all really close, and really happening now.
As for my own work, I’m off to London for the day on Monday. I’m going to do some more filming in different galleries in order to try and pinpoint what behaviours are imbedded into us when we look around galleries. This will help me finalise my ‘rules’ for my handbook/guide. I’m still not sure what to call my leaflets. I am also working on the language used in them. I want it to be the same sort of language in the ‘for dummies’ series of books. I’ve started working on icons, such as ‘Rosie Says’ which you can see in my previous blog. This and a ‘Top Tip’ icon shall accompany the text in the leaflets.
Our show finally seems to be coming together. We’ve already had three very productive meetings this week and everything is becoming clearer. Our show relates a lot to the issues of putting together a group show. Particularly a show where each person’s work is so different and there is so little to link them. Our title looks at these difficulties further by not being just one title but several (I shall post it when it is finally finished). We’re tackling the issues of continuity through the use of an antechamber which will contain objects and books relating to our practices. The visitor to the show is then encouraged to create their own links between objects and work and therefore also between the art works.
There has been difficulty in creating a show with a theme than encompasses all of our practices. In previous years the concentration has been on the idea of the show symbolising an end, or a beginning. Two years ago this was done through calculating the groups collective debt, last year through the title ‘departures’. We wanted to avoid the concentrations being on us as students about to graduate. I have said before about the differences of my course with many others and the difficulty in explaining and presenting it to people, particularly as it encourages such different work from people. It is the difficulty of doing this that has made us want to create a show that uses our differences and plays on the hardships of creating a group show from such diverse practices.
I have begun to experiment with designing leaflets. I’m using a floor plan of our studio space, which will be where we display our work, as a cover design. The leaflets will be presented as a guide to the show and I’m also playing with instructions and rules that will go in the leaflets. I’m trying to use what I observed of people’s actions in the National Gallery to come up with rules that exaggerate element’s of people’s behaviour. For example, ‘please be sure to nod and smile at each piece of work’.
I have also thought about how the gallery is separate from the outside world, and have created rules related to this, such as, ‘please remove your shoes’. I am going to come up with lots of different rules and instructions and play with different combinations and ways of phrasing them.
Elsewhere, we haven’t really done much more with planning our show. We still haven’t got a title, hopefully that issue will be solved next week. I haven’t thought too much about which objects to choose as representation of my practice for the ante-chamber room. Probably lots of maps, gallery guides and books about the gallery.
I’ve been thinking more about the tutorial I had with my tutor a couple of weeks ago and how she saw my floor plan ideas as one sided and felt that my gallery guide idea was the stronger of the two. At the time I felt it was the other way around. But going around the galleries and looking at the film that I shot at the national gallery I think that she was right. Gallery guides and maps are where most of this work started from, and the floor plans seem to be moving away from what it was that really interested me, the control of the visitor within the gallery.
What is clear from looking at the film I took in the national gallery is that I was trying to focus on people’s actions in the gallery rather than the layout of the rooms. It doesn’t help that for our degree show there is a very strong feeling that what we show our work in is our studio and not really a gallery space. As well as this, the space is a lot smaller than the spaces I have looked at in my research. The floor plans just won’t quite work as part of the degree show.
What I can use to show my ideas though is the gallery guide. That would not be so out of place in the show as a design alluding to an actual gallery where there is none. They also have far more in common with the work I have done at the beginning of my third year and throughout my degree. There is a degree of participation about them that my work, and my dissertation, has often focused on, and the floor plans do not.
As it is people’s actions in the gallery that interest me then instructions and guides seem the way forward. I have been looking at artists such as Yoko Ono and Erwin Wurm who have both used instructions in their work. I’m thinking of linking these guides with the idea of the gallery as a secure place. I have touched briefly upon this in past blog entries, describing it as a safe place where people feel comfortable to follow a stranger’s instructions.
