3.

Perhaps Nothing Perhaps Something

Audience was again limited, everyone there was an art student or tutor etc. No real effort to address anyone not already within the art community, general public etc. I didn't see any flyers for this exhibition except inside the gallery. There was a feeling of awkwardness and superiority within this gallery, I felt I wasn't really allowed to be in there and if I was, I was only to talk about the work and be very serious about the whole thing. It got me thinking about what kind of barriers and rules or restrictions we conform to when we enter a space like this. Making sure we don't touch anything, being very quite and polite, not going crazy with the wine, and only talking about the work and nothing else, and definitely don't look as though you are only there for the free wine, (even if you are?). I liked Rachel Whiteread's casts of negative space underneath chairs, but I wondered whether the artist or the gallery had the most control over how these were displayed. Two invigilators at either end of the casts, were on guard, to stop anyone from touching (or walking through ) them. The feeling of being watched and monitored really made it uncomfortable, and a lot more difficult to engage with the work. I also wondered if this was the artists intention, though probably not, whether it would have been better if the audience was allowed to interact with the piece for example to sit on the stool like casts? 

Also Cornelia Parker's piece, the wire/string was attached to a mental grill/grate on the ceiling, which was not how it was originally meant to be. There were two versions, one in which the wires were attached to little hooks  screwed into the ceiling, and the other where a new ceiling was constructed with holes in it for the wires to come through. The fact it was attached to a metal grid showed that the work was adapted and changed to fit in with the gallery space and fittings. I thought this took away from the work, and made me think that the gallery was more in control of how the work was displayed than the artist. I also thought the shelves used for Sarah Doherty's work weren't very good. They were too blocky and solid, and looked a bit shoddily put together. I noticed on the wall behind on that there was a weird bit of plaster painted over in white, it looked a bit rubbish really, not much attention to detail, they were probably too busy making people feel awkward to fix this.