Before the beginnings of the Easter break I had a tutorial about my plans for the degree show. My tutor suggested that I needed to go galleries over the holiday and work out what it was that really interested me or annoyed me about gallery spaces. I hoped that doing this would help me focus on the intent of my work and choose between ideas for the degree show.
On Friday I went to the Gillian Wearing show at Whitechapel Gallery, Jeremy Deller and David Shrigley shows at Hayward Gallery and to the National Gallery. I will go over the first two shows later. While at the National Gallery I decided to secretly film people looking at the work (not sure if this is actually allowed…). This is meant as a form of research and not as a piece of work. It was interesting to compare different groups of people, tourists, school groups, lone visitors and groups of visitors. I have not reviewed the footage very much yet but I want to compare these groups, how much time they spend looking at work and what they look at.
Whilst at the gallery I decided to follow the advice in Thomas Hoving’s book so that I was visiting the gallery ‘the way the pros do’. I went straight to the shop and bought a postcard of Holbien’s The Ambassadors which I at one point ‘waved’ at a guard to find directions. I also looked at what I didn’t like and listened to music. Hoving even recommends what music to listen to, so I might repeat this exercise keeping more strictly to Hoving’s guidelines. I filmed myself asking the guard directions. Hopefully I can use this footage as a way to find focus in my work.
