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Wednesday, February 10th | The University Times
TimesARTS&Culture
What happens next? The secret of exhibiting art Over the last ten years, the influx of art media and high quality image reproductions has changed the way art can be experienced. Rosalind Abbott explores the ways in which galleries must rethink the exhibition process in order to keep the crowds coming in.
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he name ‘What happens next is a secret’ is quite apt for the exhibition to which it lends itself. Upon entering the exhibition space at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), viewers have been given no hints as to what artists they may find on display, what styles of art will be showcased, what mediums will be used, and so on. All the gallery’s leaflet states is that the exhibition is ‘experimental’ – though the experiment relates more to the exhibition itself than the works it showcases. Rather than selecting a group of works thematically, or by period, ‘What happens next is a secret’ displays works with no underlying connections. This synoptic approach results in a refreshing mixture of media, styles, movements and periods – one of first works I encounter is Jack B. Yeats’s expressionist ‘The Folded Heart’ (1943), but it shares a room with a contemporary conceptual sculpture. The idea is that fresh connections will be generated by the viewers themselves, and through the placement of artworks in relation to one another. As the exhibition goes on, new artworks will be added – and some taken away – changing the context the works are seen in and, consequently, the effect they have on us. The exhibition itself and the way it’s put together take centre stage; the artworks are merely components of the bigger picture. This is by no means a new
idea: in 1891, Monet exhibited fifteen works from his Haystacks series together. He argued that without seeing the works grouped together according to his specifications, a viewer could not possibly understand the value of them. His paintings were to be appreciated not as individual pieces, but as a collective aesthetic; again, it was the exhibition itself which became the ‘artwork’. Yet the difference between this and the IMMA’s experiment is
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example, in the stark white walls of the National Gallery, when it is intended to be displayed in a lavishly decorated church? Perhaps as a result of such problems, more and more contemporary artists are turning to site-specific installations over more traditional, two-dimensional art forms. Katie Paterson, for example, recently hooked up a series of streetlamps on a pier in Kent to synchronise with storms happening around
Artworks are created as isolated objects, yet they’re exhibited alongside other works which may enhance, or dampen, their impact.
crucial: Monet’s various depictions of Haystacks were always intended to compliment each other and to be exhibited together. On the other hand, the majority of artworks are created as isolated objects, yet they’re almost always exhibited alongside an assortment of other works which may enhance, or dampen, their impact. So is it fair to jumble together random pieces of art, no matter how carefully selected? Whole new avenues of art theory can be opened up when we question the validity of the exhibition. How can we effectively judge a Renaissance altarpiece, for
the world in real time. Her piece can only be witnessed in its intended setting, uncontaminated by the conflicting aesthetics of other artists. In addition, we cannot feel we have truly experienced installations such as Paterson’s without travelling to them and witnessing them first hand. A jpeg image posted up on an art blog, or press clipping from a newspaper review, will not make wouldbe art visitors feel they have experienced the work without physically going to see it. One cannot help but suspect that ‘What happens next is a secret’, too, is a response to the increasing popularity
and availability of art media, both online and print. In order to entice people to visit museums and galleries in person, artists and curators must rethink the entire exhibition process: after all, why hop on the Luas to see art when you could do a quick Google Image search? By turning the emphasis to the curation of the collection, rather than the works themselves, the IMMA demands our attendance: we cannot experience this exhibition vicariously. This creates several paradoxes. Firstly, that it is through the shift of emphasis away from the artworks and onto the curation of them that we are encouraged to see art first hand, and thus to fully experience them. Only by looking away from the artworks can they be truly appreciated. Furthermore, the exhibition simultaneously becomes a celebration both of what is real (seeing the art in the flesh, rather than distorted copies) and what is artificial (the works become equally distorted through the exhibition process). Yet if we cannot experience art through reproductions, and we cannot objectively interpret it when we see it being exhibited, is there any real way to appreciate art at all then? This is a problem which remains unresolved by the ‘What happens next’ exhibition, but that doesn’t compromise its effectiveness. Rather, it seems aware of
this paradox and exploits it. Because of our heightened awareness to the artificiality of the exhibition, we can come to recognise it for what it is. The first time I strolled around the space, I was unaware of how seeing one piece would affect my interpretation of another. Only afterwards did I start to see links forming in my head: Kathy Prendergast’s ‘Lost’ (1999), ‘Cardinal’ by Paul Nugent (1997) and Frantiska and Tim Gilman’s 2006 ‘The Museum minus the collection’ all evoke a sense of absence or loss. It can be difficult to break away from this mood when confronted with more light-hearted or positive works like Joao Penalva’s ‘David’s mother’s white bowl’ (2004). Aiding this unwarrantedly eerie atmosphere is the film installation ‘Here after’ (Paddy Folley, Rebecca Troust and Ingerlise Hansen, 2004) which plays on loop at the back of the exhibition space: I can hear the film’s haunting soundtrack of whistling wind, dripping water and white noise as I walk around the collection. A subconscious effect on my interpretation of the rest of the works is inevitable. But the experiment is not over yet – the full impact of the exhibition cannot be experienced without several visits, due to the constantly evolving nature of the collection. I ask a member of staff when new pieces will be introduced: ‘Well
that’s just it’, she replies with a twinkle in her eye, ‘You’ll just have to keep checking back’. The idea is that when I return, the works which remain in the collection will be
experienced differently, now that their surroundings have changed. And with Picasso, Hogarth, Michael CraigMartin and Antony Gormley amongst the list of names
soon to have works exhibited, I may well be checking back soon. Rosalind Abbott
Regarding unnecessary second readings ‘Second Readings’ is a recently published compilation written by Irish Times journalist and critic Eileen Battersby, containing reviews of classic literary texts such as Ulysess and The Great Gatsby. Kevin Breathnach outlines just why such revisits are superfluous.
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here are two sins in the enterprise literary journalism which, when combined, announce amateurism louder than any other failings can: reviewing an old book for no particular reason; and then remaining more or less within the parameters of synopsis. It is on this injurious marriage that the pages of university arts sections such as this are generally founded. Published at the end of 2009, Second Readings is a collection of fifty-two reviews by Eileen Battersby, all of which are guilty of these two journalistic failings. Over the course of a year, Battersby, the Literary Correspondent for the Irish Times, publicly revisited classics such as The Great Gatsby and Ulysses, and each time returned with virtually nothing to say about a book that hadn’t already been said in the relevant Wikipedia entry. Battersby has an annoying habit of outlining the plot of a novel in the present tense, even if the plot in question takes place in the past tense. “A boy falls in love with a rich girl,” begins Battersby on The Great Gatsby. It’s as if she’s pitching the novel as an idea for a film. But what’s worse are the big finishes that follow each full-length synopsis. “The more closely one examines this story concerned with surfaces, the
more closely one grasps the depth of Fitzgerald’s wasteland symbolism and the ironic use he makes of a billboard optician in a narrative in which so few characters see all that clearly.” Martin Amis, a master of the literary journalism himself, said once that he didn’t want to write a sentence that anybody else could have written. Contrast that noble aim with Battersby’s sentence on
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These are book reports more than they are reviews – This, this and this happens; see, teacher I’ve read it! Gatsby, itself a close relative to millions penned by undergraduates worldwide. Meanwhile, her review of Ulysses is fraught with mixed metaphors, bad grammar and the gushing platitudes for which she is renowned. “Like a thief in the night, James Joyce [...] exploded all
notions of traditional narrative.” The reader recoils at the news that thieves, a frightening enough group as it is, have added explosives to their armoury. “Bloom’s morning begins in Eccles Street preparing breakfast, defecating and tending the cat.” The reader now turns green, at first with envy (darling, why don’t our mornings prepare breakfast or tend the cat?), and then in disgusted relief (thank heavens our mornings don’t defecate, the kids are bad enough!). “Ulysses is a stylistic and linguistic tour de force.” Finally the reader yawns. It is unclear whom Battersby had in mind when she composed these pieces. They are, in essence, full-length synopses of random classics, and though it is true that there is more to a good novel than its plot, it remains nonetheless an important aspect of all but the most stylistic of novels. In almost every review, Battersby gives the game away for those who haven’t read the book in question, and bores to tears those who have. These are book-reports more than they are reviews – This, this and this happens; see, teacher I’ve read it! – and they should therefore be introduced, like their cousins on Wikipedia, with a spoiler-warnings. It might be useful at this point to contrast Battersby’s ‘second reading’ of Ulysses
with a meditative piece on the same book by John Berger, an art critic who seems to have written hardly a dull word in his life. Let’s call it the Batter. / Berger comparison. “Ulysses is like an ocean,” reflects Berger, “you do not read it; you navigate it.” And later, “To compare the book with an ocean again makes sense, for isn’t it the most liquid book ever written?” This is sort of writing that elevates criticism to an art form, and which The Irish Times should make it its business to publish on a regular basis. Whereas Battersby pushes her unwary reader into her own dishwater retelling, John Berger sprinkles him with salt water, preparing him for the odyssey to come. Instead of a spoiler-warning, Battersby introduces her collection of book-reports with an entirely forgettable celebration of reading, entitled ‘The Reader in the Hammock’. “People read at night, on the train, on the bus, at work, at school, maybe not in church, but at meals, in restaurants, when waiting for the washing machine to empty, for the bread to bake, for the mechanic to service the car, for the windows to somehow manage to wash themselves.” And it’s my understanding that Battersby had one eye on a dog-eared copy of The Faerie Queen even as she composed this
passage. It seems ridiculous to have to say it of The Irish Times’s Lady in the Library, but Eileen Battersby would do well to stop for a moment, perhaps as she waits for the washing machine to empty, and actually think about the novel she was reading while waiting for the mechanic to service her car. “A good reader,” said grouchy old Nabokov, “is a rereader.” And a good re-reader, I’m sure he would agree, is a re-examiner. If Eileen Battersby shows little evidence of being a re-reader, she shows even less of being a reexaminer. Kevin Breathnach