- Venue
- Nottingham Trent University
- Location
- East Midlands
Curation
Nottingham Trent Fine Art Degree Show 2008
By Adrienne Deaville
Should there be a themed curated degree show? Should all the graduating artists have to create something brand new based on this theme set out? With so many pieces shown would a curation of this type make the experience easier or even more exhausting? Would students complain that a set out theme might go against their individual practices? Wouldn’t a theme be part of a normal curation process outside a university? What I see here are near to 100 individual shows scattered through tons of rooms and covering 3 floors. Each artist saying “This is mine”, “Oh! Look over here! This is my show!” Is this wrong? Is this such a bad thing? There is a space in room 118 occupied by Ashley Gallant and Tracy McMaster which seems to be working as a group show. Although all the videos, projections of mouths, pointing fingers, colours and light flying at me in all directions were a bit much for me to take in, the two seemed to mesh well, perhaps too well, as I couldn’t really tell which work was created by which artist! Similarities between the curation of this show and 2007’s are quite obvious—or the positioning of certain types of work in certain spaces—similar works to last year seem to end up in the same areas. For instance: Laura Clarke’s pieces of a glass-cased fantasy museum-type display with extensive written explanations about the fake species hung along side the work seem very similar to a piece put in the same space last year by a graduating student, who’s name, I’m sorry I can’t recall. Her piece was a fantasy landscape encased in a museum-like display case with extensive “research” and writing about the piece shown. How do you work well together and yet stand apart? Everyone wants to “stand apart”—especially in this situation. For some, this might be their last exhibition. Everyone wants to be bigger than they have ever been, everyone wants to be remembered. Remember? Often I’ll be referencing a piece from a degree show to another person and they can’t seem to recall it. There is a lot to take in– sometimes more than one piece by the same artist shown in a completely different area of the building—you stop and say “this looks very much like a piece I saw downstairs” and then you realize that it is and that it really seems to be saying nothing new to the other piece. It isn’t fun to be lost in the crowd in this sort of situation. It’s too important—too meaningful. How can we place ourselves where we will not let our work down—how will our work be something that will not let down the space? For instance if you put your small inconspicuous monitor playing something next to a buzzing box full of candy and a giant inflated rubbish bin bag you might not be too closely observed. Yet—this being contemporary art, you always stop yourself and say—“Well, maybe that’s what the artist intended.” I wonder how many here have been heavily influenced by their tutors or artists they have seen in lectures through the years. Madeleine Eggleston’s table cloth with wine-stains which are actually small red sequins on closer inspection bare a very close resemblance to the work of Susan Collis who I can recall uses everyday objects, like shabby old wooden furniture incrusting them with precious jewels that look like paint splatters from far away—always something different on closer inspection than you first thought. But, I can see where this comes from—in a university which places so much emphasis on “what is your art about?”, borrowing an established artists direction is safer—it makes it okay. It’s a scary world inside these university walls although I’m guessing it’s far scarier outside of them. Where do we place ourselves now? Good luck to all of those brave souls who will venture out and do there own thing (whether it’s been done before or not).Good luck to all of us.
