One of the most predominant ideas in my research has been the idea of discovery within a gallery or museum and the feeling of getting lost among the work (such as the Buren research mentioned in my last post). My favourite ideas for the design of our gallery space revolve around this idea. I love the idea of using corridors between rooms to make the visitor want to seek out the artwork. Currently I am thinking of creating rooms for each person to show their individual work in. These rooms would be painted in a light colour, though probably not white. Connecting these rooms would be corridors which would be narrow and painted dark to create a claustrophobic feeling. Entry to the lighter rooms with the art works would be like a type of relief from the corridors.
The corridors would also serve the purpose of separating the works. This would work well on a course such as mine where there many different types of practice to be displayed within the one degree show. We produce such a diverse amount of work between us that it has often been difficult in past exhibitions, and in past year’s degree shows, to display continuity between the works. The gallery layout that I am currently looking at would allow there to be an emphasis on the different nature of the work produced on Critical Fine Art Practice BA (CFAP).
Pictured are some of the layouts and colour schemes I have been exploring. I have paint samples in the post and will hopefully be building a mock up of two rooms separated by a corridor in our studios this week (Plan Pictured Below). I will make this mock up from cardboard and chipboard that we have in the studio, though the actual gallery would probably be all boards and not cardboard!
The main problem that I am trying to sort out is that of flooring. We have very scratched wooden floors in our studios; it is expensive and timely to try to change them. We will have two weeks to put up our exhibition, but I have to allow people exhibiting in my gallery space time to install their work.
