Exhibition: TWO

As part of the Level 5 course, we are required to put on our own external exhibition. To do this, we had to split ourselves into groups which each had a specific job to do.

I decided that I was best suited to the role in Marketing, although I also helped the curation team and the logistics team when needed.

The marketing group decided to allocate jobs under the marketing branch to various members of the group. This included poster design, distribution, external contacts, and social media platforms.

My job was to create and distribute emails to external contacts who may have been interested in our exhibition. Myself and Maisie Campion collected a large database of local universities, local artists, museums and galleries and several artists and designers.

We sent two different emails from an email account that we crated for the exhibition. The first email we sent contained the name, date and place of the exhibition as well as a taste of some of the artists that were going to be in the exhibition.

From this email, we were put in contact with the Yorkshire Evening Post. Our person of contact, Mark, wanted to publish about the upcoming exhibition a few days before the exhibition and also wanted to send a photographer to cover the opening night of the exhibition.

The second email had much more detail in it about where and when and was laid out very clearly.

For the exhibition, I presented a selection of 3 of my emulsion lifts.

While visiting the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, I saw a collection of Francesca Woodman’s Untitled Series of small hand-developed images. They were presented in large frames with a large mount centring the small image. I felt that this presentation method was very successful at drawing the viewers in and creating an aura. This inspired me to present my work in a similar way.

As well as Francesca Woodman’s work, while in the Saatchi gallery London, I saw the work of Thomas Mailaender. It was while documenting his series, Illustrated People, for my blog that I realised that the glass in front of the frame caused my reflection to be in every image I took. This meant that I couldn’t capture a perfect replication of the piece as I was obstructing the image.

I have recently been looking into “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin, and his theory is that photographs and replications of the art work damage the aura of the piece. However, by putting my work in a frame with glass or acetate on the front stops the ability to take a perfect replication of the image. You can take a photo but your reflection will always obscure the image, making it more of a memory of witnessing the art rather than a replication of the image.

I purchased 3 white 50x50cm frames from Ikea. I then bought three pieces of white mount board and cut a small 11x11cm square in the centre of the mount to encase my emulsion lifts.

I received a lot of interest in my artwork and many compliments about the way in which I presented my work. After experimenting with varying methods of presentation, I am happy to say that I have found the best and most effective way of presenting my work.