The third exhibition 'Three' was the last one we did in Royal College of Art. We hung up two artists' work and used the air space of the studio, which made the exhibition more dimensional. Besides, we also put one of the printed piece on the ground directly and let visitors could see it from another perspective rather than hung it on the wall. While, it was a pity that I missed the critic as I had to leave before it!
Compared with the first exhibition 'One', the installation of second exhibition 'Two' went better and faster. There were a few reasons below:
To begin with, the artist arrived there earlier than the first day's artists, so that I have enough time to talk with them, to know what kind of works they wanted to show, to listen their desires of the installation and to discuss with them about our installation. Secondly, each artist's work and idea were quite obviously. Unlike the problems we faced on the first - such as we couldn't image the effects when Page put her dryice into the cooker which contained hot water, so I had a hesitation to consider the location of her work - most of the works in 'Two' were visible and imaginable. Cai Jun Lee took her 'leaves' by herself and told me that she just need a high and narrow wall wherever; Niall Webb would like use a high and narrow wall as well to write his work both in advance and at the opening, so I considered to put his work and Cai Jun's together which would make the works looked plumply, voluminously and powerful. Tonia Papapetrou was interested in installing her statue and attachments on the left wall of entrance because she desired to show the profile of her statue, I respected her original idea of work and accepted her suggestion for sure. Lewis den Hertog's works were three pieces of printed image, which were very flexible to be installed. Charlotte Keirnan's work took time through, she told me she needed a corner of walls to get the shadow of chair at first and attached the ashes of burnt chair on the shadow, thus I suggested her to use the first corner which we could see from the entrance not only for the reason that her work could be visible directly but also for the reason that there was a back-light wall and we could get the shadow by a projector easily in case of many source light from different windows. Fraser Gray was absent while he would like to show his on-line video by laptop, so I used a corner where had a plug, and installed a laptop there; at the same time I hided the power cord in the corner. Moreover, since I did curating things before at the first day, I was more familiar with the space. I knew more about what tools I could get from the sculpture studio and what kind of help I could get from the students and teachers. And I was also more confident and I thought I could handle it. lol...Sometimes psychological hint is really helpful. The first exhibition was named ' One ' on Wednesday 15th Nov.. I went to there in the morning. After a short ' Sculpture Workshop trip ' by the teachers and students, we started to think about our installation for the show. We have 6 artists that day exclude Fintan Ryan, who was absent but left some flyers there which, showing his video work's web-link. The big problem I faced in the first exhibition was that we couldn't get in touch with Ellyce Morgan. Even if we had her proposal, we couldn't image how many pieces of work she wanted to show and what the size of the works. From the proposals which she gave before, it's not so clear about the contents and the size of the works. What's more, I was also afraid that she would cancel this attendance without notice. Thus, we couldn't figure out the way of installation. In order to solve this problem, I tried two solutions at the same time. On the one hand, I tried to figure out Ellyce's phone number. I asked all the artists there and also let them to ask their friends who could get in touch with Ellyce. On the other hand, I tried to make some suppositions: if she would bring 3 works ( the proposal mentioned that her works were drawing around A3-A4 size), I preferred to install her work on wall A; and if 6 works, wall B; if she would not attend, I had another plan which just show the other 5 artists' work. Based on such guesses, I supposed some different installation ways to deal with the whole attendant artists' works. Luckily, we got Ellyce's call in the afternoon which said she would be the space at 15:30 - 1 hour prior to the Crit - with 4 A4 pieces of drawing. Actually, even I got the confirmation from her, I was still quite nerves after I got the call, as my personality is the one which couldn't relieve myself until I could make sure everything. But finally we still finished our installation after Ellyce's arriving before the Crit, because we left a space of a wall for her work. The Crit went very well and many students in RCA were involved. It last nearly 3 hours.
Primarily, I want to say it's my honour to be a participant in this amazing project. I really treasure this opportunity. And I think it's not only a good chance to visit Royal College of art, to see the students' work, to communicate with the artists and professors there, it's also a challenge to me to practise my curating skills in London, which is an unfamiliar city for me compared Edinburgh. I was so excited to be involved as I missed the one in last. I was quite busy last year, especially it was the first year to me and everything was so fresh, I was afraid I couldn't handle it. I'm not so confident about my English and I was also worried about my essay. While, this year, though my course is much tighter than last year, I still decide to be involved because I don't want miss the last chance in my postgraduate! So I did, I involved and I well done it, even though I exhausted and felt sick after I came back. Here, I will post many photos in the three exhibitions and talk about the installation and preparation, especially about my curating works! Now, let's have a look the very nice sculpture workshop and studios in Royal College of Art. I really love their sculpture studios. It looks like a big factory or re-used basement, filling with a lot of stuff which contains ' art smelling ' ! It's quite huge studio as it belongs to all the first year and second year postgraduate sculpture students. Even though many students share it, the space for each person is still spacious. I saw some students used the wall to hang on their works, at the same time, their brought a canvas screen in their individual space and used the projector to show their video work. I also so a Asian female student hung her works on the wall and labeled a price to sell it, which was quite impressive. The technical workshops are also in the same floor, which is very convenient for every student. Many individual studios are a half-open style, motivated my curious to have a look their ' secret '. We stared our Crit at 4:30 pm. everyday
The Crit of our exhibition ' Could you please describe the work ' went very well. Many people asked us lots questions, as well as shared their personal feeling about our works. Here, as a cooperator of this exhibition, I also try to response some issues which were mentioned in the Crit from my perspective.
1: It seemed that all the exhibition was fulled of doubts. Many people came to the space, they felt confused about what exactly happened before about the works: a lot of posters hanging on the wall, showing some descriptions about something like ' six persons standing on the tables ', along with some portrait photographs. Yes, it's truth, if you haven't been to Andrew Gannon's exhibition in Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop on 10th Oct. before, you wouldn't know what's the posters were talking about. Andrew's work in ESW was a performance art, which was six people standing on the table for one hour. At the same time, Kimberly took photos for the visitors and participants, and ask everyone to describe the works. All the posters in our exhibition shown the answers from participants and visitors, and all the portrait photographs were took by Kimberly. So if a person haven't seen the work in ESW before, their feeling could be totally different from the one who participated or visited that performance. What's more, there's a poster said seven people standing on the table which was mis-counted could confused visitors more. 2: Many people said that lots of the posters shown the answers started with ' Um...' or ' Ah....', which looks quite funny and hilarious. Yes, it's truth that many answerers felt difficult to response the question - ' could you please describe the work '. It might be easier to express their feeling about Andrews's work than describe it. And many of the responders had a hesitation before their answering. 3: Some students doubted that which works on show in the exhibition were belong to which artist. To some extent, you could look the photographs as Kimberly's work and look the posters as Andrew's work. While personally, the question of whosever work is not worth to discussed. All the works in the exhibition are belong to two artists, and Andrew's personal exhibition in ESW could be looked as a kind of preparation for our exhibition in C02. Kimberly took photos for the visitors and participants in Andrew's personal exhibition, and all the elements from the answers in the posters were come from Andrew's performance work. Thus, Kimberly's photographies and Andew's performance work were interweaved together, showing together on our exhibition. On the other hand, I understand the exhibition eliminated the distinction between audiences and participants. By answering the question I asked, all of the audiences and participants in ESW were the participants in the posters and photographies of our exhibition in C02. What's more, all the audiences in C02 could also be understood as the a kind of participants as I gave our exhibition the name of ' Could you please describe the work?'. All the visitors were involved into this question and their identities were also transferred when their started thinking about our exhibition in the crit or opening. A project space by
Kimberly Abbott Andrew Gannon & Yaya Hu open from 13:00 crit at 15:30 drinks at 16:30 address: Co2, main building, Edinburgh College of Art (due to the size of C02, we have to restrict the crit at 15:30 to MFA 2, staff and specifically invited guests only, sorry for any disappointment.) In Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Andrew held an exhibition about his new work. It’s a performance art and 6 persons was stading on the table for 1 hour. Kim and I also attended it not only for visiting but also for conducting another work for our crit in next Friday, 21st Oct. in CO2. When Andrew’s work was performancing, Kim asked some visitors to take photos. After the visitors’ photoes have been taken, I would ask each one a question:’ Could you please describe this work?’ I used vedio to documented every one’s answer. Later, Kim would use the document to finish her project which would be shown in Friday, 21st Oct. in CO2
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