About a month ago I visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery as part of my research into gallery and museum spaces. Something that interested me at the time, though I dismissed in my research as not related to gallery spaces as a whole, were the period style chairs and chests of drawers in the gallery. These pieces of furniture I assume date back to the beginning of the gallery and when it was first built as the first public art gallery in Britain. They feature mainly in the side galleries, along the main axis of the gallery there are large upholstered benches. You are allowed to sit on the benches – you are not allowed to sit on the period style chairs. It seemed a slightly ridiculous concept to me to have chairs that once were so obviously intended to be sat on made so redundant.
Last week I made a small piece of work in response to this using the chairs within the studio. It seemed to me that the idea translated quite well to the studio as it again expected that you can sit on any of the chairs. It is however quite a different environment to the gallery. The chairs in the gallery are obviously left in as an educational tool about the history of the gallery and of furnishings within the gallery.
I created my own notice to go on chairs asking people ‘please don’t sit here’. I then left this in the studio on one of the chairs. Apparently when I had later left the studio one of my coursemates saw that I had put this on a chair. His response was along the lines of ‘For F**** Sake…’ When I came back in on Monday my notice was on the floor.
I don’t know if this will lead me anywhere, except possibly to try this as an intervention in galleries I visit over Easter. But in terms of the degree show I see it more as something I really wanted to try out, and not something I am expecting to use within the show.
