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We hope you enjoy it! Rosa and Mark
On February 28th I went the Hayward Gallery's LIGHTSHOW. I thought to write about it incase anyone has been/if anyone is free to go before it ends (28 April)/ if anyone cant go.
'Lightshow' explores the experimental use of light as Art, looking at how light has been used 'to sculpt and shape space' in different ways. Bringing together the work of 22 artists (spanning from the 60s to present day), the viewer experiences this through interactive environments, free-standing sculptures and projections spread across the Hayward galleries.
Although not all the works are interactive, the participatory nature of the exhibition seemed noticeably higher than other more conventional exhibited art mediums. It was fascinating to watch as all age groups regressed - crawling, touching, looking and experiencing the work with heightened wonder. On reflection perhaps this 'heightened wonder' I observed in my own & others response to the work is down to multiple factors: the aesthetic beauty of the works, (for many) the alien perception of light as an art form, and the desire to claim a tangible experience over an intangible medium.
The exhibition illustrates the power light has to change our state of mind and our perception of how we encounter space and the world around us (something that goes unnoticed on a day-to-day basis). With the relationship between light and space being arguably the key element of the exhibition, curating the show (curating light) must have been quite a challenging but exciting experience; ensuring that each work could be encountered independently, without interfering with one another.
This post is something I want to re-visit and develop after research on the exhibition of intangible artwork.
Tweet response off the shows Curator Cliff Lauson:
Thanks Nick for that thought-provoking post!..and 'provocation' does seem to be at the heart of these discussions about Mrs T - you'll notice that I've given the ex-prime minister her full title in the title for the post here....(isn't it interesting that the way one refers to the person seems to say a lot about what one thought about her?.....'ex-prime minister' sounds like a Monty Python sketch.....
Anyway, personally I'm pretty ambivalent about a Margaret Thatcher Museum, I can see reasons why and why not...my historian head tells me that we have a duty to do something with such a legacy?...I think what's interesting here is that the debates highlight that the museum (history even) is always intimately bound-up with the politicial...
My preference, if we are to have a Thatcher Museum, is to have a whole series of Thatcher Museums...across the country....I think that would be really interesting (and in Helen's phrase (if we're borrowing phrases), 'co-productive'!)...I'm sure Grantham would have a lovely, biographical museum, with lots of ephemera from Mrs T's dad's shop....my money would be on the museum in Barnsley though...now that would be a really interesting exercise in co-production!....My feeling is that it could be both a space for reconciliation, as well as vitriol?.....
Could be worse...think about Jeremy Bentham and his 'auto-icon'....!
Whilst I am glad to see the back of press coverage about Thatcher's funeral, I couldn't help reading with a great deal of interest this post about a possible Margaret Thatcher Museum, largely, because (Full disclosure here..) I too reacted with immediate horror at the very thought.....
What I think is particularly thought provoking, is the comments feed about this article. Opinion veers from 'this really isn't on' (Anon) and 'I've never heard anything so ridiculous and offensive' (Linden Thomas) to 'it is both the divisive nature of her legacy and her role in the shaping of this country that makes margaret Thatcher such an interesting and apt subject for a national museum and library' (Keith Thomas)
The Cherish Freedom Trust who are behind the project have so far raised £1m for the project. Of course, who has made substantial donations to get the project off the ground also reveals the political nature of the 'philanthropic gesture' (phrase borrowed from Mark!). Comments from supporters of the project can be seen on their website.
The website proposes that the museum will:
focus on public outreach, working with teachers and lecturers in primary and secondary schools and in colleges of higher and further education throughout the United Kindgom, especially in challenging communities, so that the next generation receives a truly balanced economic, political and historical education
To return to the comments feed from the Museum Association post about this:
After all in the Gove inspired era we are now in it would surely be better to have a more chronological approach. Shouldnt we have a museum to The late 70s leader Callaghan. It could start with a three day opening week . Night at the museum would of course be by candlelight to recreate those cosy electricty free evenings we so loved. As an interactive we could get the visitors to empty the bins and clean the overflowing sewers.. Its bound to be such a hit that people would visit again and again the beauty being to add a sense of pre thatcher realism we could put the prices up by 27 % each year in line with innflation. If the museum failed and racked up huge losses we could get a bail out from the IMF (Anon)
Clearly, this is a project which, much like the funeral, provokes a radical divide. It is this power of museums to embody the ways in which we think and feel about the world which make them such powerful tools to construct (rather than reflect) our ideas about society.
Hello All,
The MSN?event seemed to go really well, with lots of discussion and debate.
MSN? event at Leeds City Art Gallery
There were 70 participants, from a very wide range of organisations and institutions across the 'North', as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students. We had a live Twitter feed - you can follow the Tweets here: MuseumsNow
MSN? event
We're planning some follow-up activities so watch this space!
Mark
RENAISSANCE STRATEGIC SUPPORT FUNDING ARTS
COUNCIL ENGLAND
Access All Areas: Harrogate Museums and
Arts, Culture/Tourism/Sports, Harrogate Borough Council
Invitation for expression of
interest. If you are interested in this project
please email your CV and an expression of your interest in the project, saying
why you think you would be suitable, to diane.taylor@harrogate.gov.uk by 5pm on Monday 22nd April 2013.
Interviews
will be held at the Mercer Art Gallery, Swan Road, Harrogate on Monday 29th April 2013 with a start
date as soon as possible afterwards.
Project Title:THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE: MERCER ART GALLERY EXHIBITION 2013
Length of project:6 months
Dates:May
to October 2013
Commission:Audience Engagement Consultant
Fee:£8,500
FTE paid in 6 monthly instalments
Supervisor:Diane Taylor, Audience Development Officer
Project Description: The purpose of this project is to involve
our local communities, including the Friends of the Mercer Art gallery and and
the Friends of Harrogate District Museums, local councillors, young people,
local celebrities, community groups and local organisations in the making of an
exhibition of works of art selected from our own collection.
This
is all part of Harrogate: Access All
Areas, a wide ranging project, the aim of which is to bring more people of
all ages into contact with our collections, and to develop a body of new
research on the collections that will lead to new exhibitions, publications and
other forms of interpretation.
The
idea for The People’s Choice project
is that people will be invited to choose their favourite painting, print or
drawing from the collection to go on display. Then we will ask individuals to
write or dictate a couple of paragraphs about why they have chosen this picture,
or possibly draw their response. Some
popular pictures will be chosen by more than one person.
Individuals
and groups will be invited to be involved in different ways including:
·Selecting from
the BBC Your Paintings website, which has all the oils and acrylics from
Harrogate’s collection on it;
·Selecting from
works currently on show in our exhibition All Dressed Up;
·Attending a
special session or workshop with works on paper brought out from the store;
·Being involved in
an outreach session at their community venue using computer or printed images
of a group of art works from our collection.
The
project outcomes will include:
·the exhibition
and its interpretation in the Main Gallery of the Mercer 13 July to 15
September 2013;
·a publication
containing all the selectors’ statements about the art;
·a programme of
events throughout the exhibition’s run;
·engagement with a
wide range of audiences across the Harrogate district through a variety of
methods;
·evaluation of the
community involvement to be carried out at the end of the exhibition.
The Harrogate Fine Art Collection The Mercer has outstanding early 20th
century pictures bought in the immediate post-war period, including works by W
R Sickert, Paul Nash, Christopher Wood, Edward Wadsworth and Ivon Hitchens.
Harrogate’s most famous artist is the great Victorian painter, William Powell
Frith, of whose work the gallery has excellent holdings. Other great Victorians
in the collection include Leeds born Victorian Leeds landscape painter Atkinson
Grimshaw, the Pre Raphaelite Edward Burne –Jones, landscapist James Buxton
Knight, horse painter John Herring and pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret
Cameron. Harrogate has many works depicting famous local picturesque sites,
such as Fountains Abbey, Wharfedale, Nidderdale, and aspects of the built
heritage in Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough. There are watercolours and
cartoons by Rowlandson, Templar and others, plus prints and posters relating to
the region’s long history of tourism. British women artists of the 20th century
are particularly well represented in the collection, including Nina Hamnet,
Anna Zinkeisen and Dame Laura Knight. There is a growing element of
contemporary British art, including works by Alan Davie, David Mach, Tacita
Dean and Andy Goldsworthy.
The People’s Choice Audience Engagement Consultant: Person Specification
·You will have a
first degree in an appropriate subject
·You will have
either:
oa post graduate
qualification in museum and/or gallery studies or an education specialism or
odemonstrable
experience working in the museum and gallery sector
odemonstrable
experience working in a learning environment or with different audiences
·An interest in involving
museum and gallery audiencesof all ages
and backgrounds with our collections
·Very good
communication skills, plus very good writing, photography and computer skills.
·A basicknowledge of History of Art.
You
will be provided with a lap top and camera to work on the project, plus the
space to work at the gallery. It is anticipated that some work will be carried
out at community locations around the Harrogate District.
