exhibitions research
1, TATE MODERN
Houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art. Currently resides inside the impressive looking former Bankside Power Station -since 2000. It is directly across the river from St Paul's Cathedral. Almost as if the building is intended to be a "cathedral of arts", which was my initial impression of it.
The Blavatnik building and the Natalie Bell Building are connected by a bridge over the immense space of Turbine Hall; there is a chimney tower. The whole building gives a strong (maybe even threating) impression before entering.
Hyundai Commission. Mire Lee - Open Wound
The Turbine Hall is without doubt the most impressive part of the exhibition space. Once housed the electricity generators of the old power station. It is used to display large specially-commissioned works by contemporary artists (as well as large scale events).
Its dimensions according to the website:
- Height from ground level: 26m (85ft).
- Size of area where works of art can be shown: 3,300 m2 (35,520 sq ft).
- Length: 155m (500 ft), width: 23 m (75 ft), height: 35 m (115 ft).
These photos might indicate the scale of this piece along with the atmosphere achieved by lighting (reminds me of satellite photos of Earth at night) cannot at all give the experience of seeing Babel in person! The radio-noise cacophony and the aura of excitement expressed by fellow visitors!
I found the room dedicated to Farah Al Qasimi's work very cleverly arranged (especially the wallpapering), to echo the theme of the works exhibited there: the associations of gender, culture, hiddenness, layers of fabrics, homeliness...
Lightning with Stag in its Glare (1958–85) Joseph Beuys
and
Untitled (1974) Vlassis Caniaris
This photo indicates the spatial possibilities of the building.
Overall, the experience is positive, considering the wide range of facilities, communal spaces, accessibility considerations, the atmosphere that promotes creative, and a visually sensitive outlook. I was not only given an indication as to what is possible, given almost unlimited space and flexibility of approach, but already found some inspiration for our own group project - Eg:
Considering the initial discussions of our collective - that we wanted to somehow emphasize our double-identities (foreign and British), these works felt appropriate. This painting by Imre Bak, trying to find underlying connections between cultures. The title really caught my eye: "Nap - Ember - Arc" is perfect! It speaks to the intention as well as plays (maybe unintentionally?) with the fact, that these three words have meanings in both English and Hungarian applicable to the image!
2, THE NATIONAL GALLERY: Van Gogh - Poets & Lovers
My main reason to visit London at this time was actually to see this exhibition. A very classical approach overall; the sections gather around themes, each has a wall colour complementing the paintings. I enjoyed the ink drawings, they served as a good contrast to the paintings. Interestingly, the focus was only on the works created in 1888 and 1889.
The Gallery boasts that this has been the first major Van Gogh exhibition in its lifetime; significant in marking the 100th anniversary of the purchase of the Sunflower (probably THE most popular painting on the permanent display); and the Gallery's bicentenary at once.
The most interesting choice was to exhibit the paintings below according to Van Gogh's original intentions (as he explains in his letter to his brother). Indeed he wanted them to be displayed in the yellow house as a triptych. He thought, these paintings together could have a comforting effect on the viewers.
Van Gogh - Sunflowers (1888) La Berceuse (1889) and Sunflowers (1888)
Photograph: Lucy North
I found the exhibition relevant - as in the end, we chose a painting to be re/made by a similarly eccentric painter with a sensitive disposition, but a unique style and tending towards symbolism. Gulácsy, like Van Gogh is also well known for suggestive self-portraits, additionally.
3, BUDAPEST GALÉRIA
A member institution of the Budapest History Museum. Exhibits contemporary art that changes every two months. Interestingly, the building itself that serves to house this institution (158 Lajos utca), has a very long history originating in fact as early as the 13th C. There used to be a market in that part of Óbuda near the Danube. There is evidence of various owners to this building especially from the 15th C, even being used as a brewery at one point. The building has been modified in the 18th C, but excavated and renovated to its more original look in the 1980s.(photos below are from various sources; found in this online article)
Copper sign by István Madarassy (1981)
Front entrance
Inner courtyard
Medieval window
Interior corridor
I emailed Júlia Hermann, the curator of the artist exchange program. I was asking her about the principles behind the exhibitions there, about the relationship between this old building and the contemporary exhibitions, her personal reflections on the institution's achievements.
"The curatorial team puts together an exhibition rota in the second half of the year for the year following, and although the exhibitions and dates determined at that time may still change somewhat, the planning can roughly begin along those lines. Who we invite - for a solo exhibition, a group exhibition or even as a guest curator - depends on many things, but the gallery curators keep a few important aspects in mind when thinking about themes and artists. We try to give as much space as possible to young, emerging artists, even for their first debut exhibition, and at the same time we consider it important that middle-generation artists can also present their practice. We mainly looking for Hungarian and regional artists as the exhibitions deal with current domestic and regional social issues; we try to stay as relevant as possible, focusing and reflecting on questions and events of the present day.
Our exhibition spaces are not conventional contemporary exhibition spaces, they have much more character than a “white cube space”, which sometimes requires a silent adaptability from us and the artists- but I can’t recall a case where we couldn’t solve the problem of reconciling the works with the space. There are also some particularly positive examples, such as the exhibition by Miriam Salamander and Dávid Somló, which was based on the dialogue between the exhibited paper and sound installation and the exhibition space, or the solo exhibition by Balázs Varjú Tóth, which was also based on the relation between the installation and the space. In my experience, the visitors also like the gallery, which may be due to the good exhibitions and the good planning on the one hand, and the truly special atmosphere that this listed building and its garden exudes on the other.
I am very proud of the gallery and my colleagues and the almost six years I have spent here, both professionally and personally, it is the best place I have ever worked. I basically coordinate the artist exchange program, and I also organize exhibitions. The two are connected, the aforementioned Miriam Salamander also came here as part of the exchange program, and we have already included other resident artists in our exhibition program. This has also brought exciting, previously unseen artists to the exhibitions, and the artist exchange program has also become better known. I would like to continue with this practice in the future."
Examples of past exhibitions using the space to their advantage (photos by Tamás Juhász G.)
Miriam Salamander and Dávid Somló - Hurricane
Balázs Varju Tóth - Principle of Least Time
Dorottya Vékony - Rites of Letting Go
Our collective wanted to experience this together as part of our research, feeling it to be potentially similar to what we envisioned for our final outcome. (Only not AS ambitious!) The best word to describe what it is, is "experience" in my opinion, although they call themselves "amazement park". It is not merely entertainment, since there is clear artistic intent with a message, values, an eye for aesthetics involved. There is a strong narrative element to the tour-like experience, where one can independently discover the connections of the story. It is like a physically manifested virtual reality (hyper-reality), with audio-visually engaging set designs and interactive elements (puzzles to solve), clearly intent on amazing, disorienting- overwhelming, even. To a very small scale, these are some of our intents too with our own project; and it goes to show, what are the potentials of this approach.
Of course, there was a large team behind building Wake the Tiger, and a very large space as a venue.
Exposition or just a messy workshop?
Solving puzzles
The one thing that I would like to especially highlight in the design of the experience is the subtle but conceptually meaningful encouragement of team-work in solving the puzzles. There must be some future uses to this idea in our increasingly individual-focused world: how could we build exhibitions that reward cooperation between visitors?
5, LUNAR NEW YEAR / CHINESE NEW YEAR celebration
Again, our collective felt this would be a useful experience to have considering the themes of our project. What makes an end-of-winter celebration? What is it like to have a small community of foreign culture represent their identity within a multicultural city? What are the elements of a culture to show off with pride?
-language
-traditional dances
-traditional martial arts
-contemporary & traditional songs
-hot food
-sweets and desserts
-costumes
-music
-toys, decoration
Long Boi was hungry.
Last but not least: good company.