Curating the Lift Gallery (Long)

First discussions today regarding the curation of the Lift Gallery.

Curatorial committee:
Jess
Didge
Kensa
Sophie
Lance
David

The Lift- Curatorial Committee- Discussion with Steven- 24/02/2012

Steven: For your folders- you could do a write up of this, or a little plan. It has to go in your folders, because you’ve all worked on this, that you hand in at the end.
So, headphones- really big point. I think Dale brought it up. Actually Kensa, she didn’t bring it up, but I think she’s talking headphones.
You guys are all really making interesting work, really good. In some ways I wonder if it’s the pressure of the time, or the chance to do something quite radical. And because of the tone, and the pitch, of the next one... publication, site.... The tonality of these works will be very different.
So I think sounds, could be an issue. What’s the next biggest issue?

Jess: I think there are a lot of electrical things, which is an issue. I don’t know how many sockets are in the lift, but ideally we don’t want three screens all together, in which case if there’s only one plug, they need to be trailed, and taped elsewhere. They can’t all go together, otherwise it’ll look crowded, all lined up...

Didge: I think we’re going to have issues with health and safety.

Jess: We’ll just have to tape it to the skirting...

Steven: Tape it to the skirting, or we also have trunking.

Jess: But if there are things on the floor, it might interfere with that like with Hannah’s piece, you wouldn’t want anything too close to that.

Steven: What you can get, if you check with the ERC, is like a rubber hump, and it’s flexible. The cable goes through it, and you have it running. But I think you’re right, we don’t want this spider’s web. Again, aesthetically, that is a decision. I think Ben brought it up right at the beginning when we were looking at BAS7. There was an artist who had the monitors in the corner, and they had the wires wiggling out. And the piece in the middle had this trunked cable. And again, what we have to do is then ask the artist how they want their cables? Are you happy with black cables snaking back?

Didge: I don’t mind actually, it’s not relevant.

Steven: No, with the tyres it would be nonsense to have a beautifully trunked wire... but then health and safety might require us to do that.
Effectively, I mean we can look at the time table, but we’ve given over a day to this. It should be long enough; I think it’ll be long enough, because we’re all going to be there. What do you think about the responsibilities, and how we can manage processing it? What do you think we should do in terms of...? What do we tell people to do on Friday morning at 10 o clock?

Jess: I think there needs to be some kind of briefing in the morning, so everybody is really aware of where they are. Maybe work out some kind of itinerary for that. I think people need to know where they are and what they’re doing because it’s going to be a really tightly scheduled thing, and we don’t want people tripping over each other.

Steven: What happens in a gallery in this situation is that you have a registrar, whose job it is to manage all the artworks. They manage shipping, and logging, and insurance values, condition reports. Obviously we’re not working at the level of MOMA, but what we’ll have to do is tell all the artists where they need to deliver the work and what time. And arguably, we could ask them to do it in slots; we could say you need to break it in over an hour. So bring your work in at 10, half 10, 11. So by 11 we could decide it’s too late.

Jess: I think it would probably also be valuable if everybody had access to a map or a plan of where everything is, because then they’ll understand how their work is interacting with other people’s, and with the space.

Steven: I think there’s a really interesting point that we’ll have to deal with – this afternoon, if nobody has a burning desire to be somewhere, is we’ll have to take responsibility. But absolutely, on that following Friday, I don’t want it to turn into a big group crit again like last time; this is slightly different because we’re a bit past that. We will reflect on that the following session,  but next Friday, whatever you guys decide, unless the artist absolutely wigs out.. What we’ll have to ask the artists to do is trust the curatorial team. Because when you have 30 pieces of work, if you consider every artist in there you’d do your head in, it’s a real problem. But, you have to balance that with respecting them, and following their wishes, and doing the best for their work.

Jess: Well that’s what this afternoon is about, isn’t it? For artists to make any objections.

Steven: In theory. But then we’re going to make the aesthetic decisions on the floor, where it’s going to be, and how it works. I think that’s the joy of being a curator- I think you have to be as much part negotiator, and manager, and charmer- be charming, as you do being decisive. I was reading last week, I went onto the RCA website, and it was the MA students talking about what a curator is. And it was like; it’s almost like being an uber administrator of art. That’s really what one level of curating is. Well, it’s not. But actually the doing of creating is about managing the artworks, and managing relationships, managing all of those things at once. But then the really interesting part for us is the thematic, and the stories, and the narratives that have been developed. So we’ve set up the premise of the false idols, myself and Neil, and now we will have to deal with the visual... we’re making a new piece of artwork- it’s quite terrifying- out of all of these artworks. And that’s the next thing we have to inhabit. And we’ve got this... It’s actually not dissimilar to Jess’ work, this cacophony of stuff... I wish we could put it like that; it would be so much easier to hang. That could be a rule, if we decided... We’d get it in the neck! But...

Jess: Not literally like that, but I don’t think there’s any choice with 30 artists in such a small space for it to be tightly like that. So that’s a framework already really... Just jam it in where you can!

Steven: I was in this show at the RWA in Bristol, and they hang very classically. And they have a stick. It’s taped, and it’s beautifully made. And they use it to show how far things have to be apart, and they can’t be any close than that. And I just watched this person, and my heart was going ‘noooooooo’, because it destroyed... but what it gave the gallery was a rigor, it was like, whatever happened, they were never going to be that close together, but it also meant that it became very stayed, how they hung the show, and when the artist came in and saw how their work was put... It was like Lance’s work with Liam’s work, that’s how it worked. And it just wasn’t exciting... so deliberate, it was just disappointing. And that’s something we can watch out for.
So in terms of process, we need to come up with a plan that we can tell everyone this afternoon. We’re going to start off with a briefing, which I think is a really good idea. And in that briefing, we’re going to say what? What are we going to tell them to do? What is our plan?

Jess: I think working out some kind of timetable, slots... Practically because there are so many people, and so little space. After working out maybe where some people go on the plan, then working out some kind of timetable for that, I think is really important.

Martin: So it’s going to be staggered... Probably you want to install the walls first so you’re not climbing over things.

Lance: Not just for the artwork, but access wise it has to be staggered. We can’t have 30 pieces of work sitting on the floor.

Didge: Isn’t it going to be really difficult... I mean today, envisaging where 20 pieces of work are going to go. I don’t really know any of the work, and to me that seems really daunting. What we did with ours, we laid everything out, and it made it so... we were in the moment of having the work, and seeing the space, and without that... We didn’t come together and talk about curating it, until the work was out. Visually, for me, it would be a real challenge to imagine what the work is going to look like, and how it’s going to go. Unless we pick certain pieces that we can work out; which is exactly what we did.

Jess: Our solution to that was to pick... we did the moon first, then it was the big things, and then worked around that. So maybe what we need to do is like, electrical first because then they’re in, and we know where plugs are going, then wall-based, then sculptural work. Maybe that’s the answer, not literally, *okay people working 2 metres away from each other at all times*, and planning it like that, because that’s not really possible.

Steven: I think all of these processes are valid, and I’d be tempted at the moment to go, okay big things- let’s just sketch them out. And I think what we do, is as we’re doing this, and as work’s coming in, we don’t nail anything down until about 12 o clock. What’ll happen, if we stagger it with works coming in... We’ll have the map, we’ll have a rough idea of where everything’s going, and as the work comes in... There are obviously pieces, like Lance’s... there are only so many spaces that could be in.

Lance: With my piece of work, it’s quite hard because of image quality; it needs to have depth, so people can stand back.

Steven: And we have the opposite to consider, in that there are very intimate pieces, pieces you maybe want to spend quite a lot of time in front of, and be quite close. And headphone pieces.  I think straight away we’ve got three or four sound pieces.

Didge: How many sound pieces? Can we make a list of all the different... how many sound, films...?

Steven: Let’s do it. How shall we do this? Shall we do electric...? It’s up to you how you code it, and again, this is your process... If I do everything that I think is electric, and you can maybe depending on whether you want to put ‘M’ for monitor, ‘P’ for projector, ‘S’ for sound. So:
Hayley- flat screen. She didn’t talk about sound, did she?

Kensa: I’ve just been up to ask about flat screens, and they don’t have any. They have TV/DVD combinations, but no flat screens.

Jess: In terms of security, obviously he lift isn’t a secure area, so if we’re putting valuable electricals in there, what’s the solution to that?

Martin: They need to be secured. You can get locks from the ERC, they supply locks for the Macs, and they can be secured to a plinth.

Jess: so that’s something we need to think about- what they’re going to be secured to.

Steven: That’s down to the practitioner, we’re not going to go and get the locks or anything.

Didge: They’re going to be responsible for all the equipment that’s needed, so if they don’t come with something...

Steven: And hanging it with us. So you’re basically going to be managing them. Essentially, we’ll have to say they can’t leave that there if it’s not secure, and the worst case scenario is that they install it, and then have to take it away again, and they have to come back on Monday and negotiate with martin, and make it secure on Monday. But that is a big no-no and a bit of a show out for us. I don’t want this kind of ’it’ll be alright for tonight because it’s the opening’, and take it away tonight, and come back with it. We’d argue against that.
Right, let’s go through t his list:
Hayley
Kensa- that’s monitor, and headphones
Didge- Simply electric
David- Power, but that’s it. Potentially, you might have sound? With David’s performance, I think we’ll have a temporary wire, and that’ll be managed on the night of the opening. And then we would need sound, and whether it’s batteries, or socket...
Dale- Video projector and headphones.
And Sam.
So it sounds like what we have to do this afternoon... We’ve talked about tiered delivery, say between 10-11. So maybe just print out the register, and just work out how many people... one every 2 minutes... 15 minute slots, I would argue. And all we’re going to do I imagine, is just do that thing where you lay it all out on the floor, and stand back and work it out.

Martin: Someone needs to clarify whether we’ve got that corridor or not.

Didge: Why don’t we just make the decision to not have it? And then we really do have a show that’s really insulated into that area. There’s a real division there with the door, so whoever goes out into the corridor is going to have a completely different feel.

Jess: I think you notice more what’s in the Lift as well.

Didge: There’s also a really large camera in that area... That’s all going to go, isn’t it?

Steven: So curatorially, if you’re telling me what I think you’re telling me- that needs to go? Well let’s enquire about that.

Didge: That could be a really intimate area.

Jess: and also if the camera stays there, it becomes par t of the show.

Steven: So, camera, and also the cabinets. We’re not going to need any of those cabinets, are we? So have you guys got an idea of what we’re going to say to people this afternoon at 1, how we’re going to do this?

Sophie: Between 10 and 11 is drop off, then spend the next hour making sure everything is in the right place, and making sure it all looks fine where it goes, and then people come back in half an hour slots?

Steven: And start hanging it. I would say... I want to stretch the day out... The opening’s not that night is it?

David: I think it is.

Steven: I’ll talk to Neil, he has the timetable. It just means that we’ll have to work really well that day, which is fine. A hang can take 2-3 days in a huge gallery; we’ve done it in 2 hours- we just have to be really organised and clever. And this afternoon we’ll be clever, and we’ll see what we’ve got.

Jess: I think it would also be useful today if we could establish as much as we can if there’s work that absolutely cannot go somewhere, or has to go in a certain place. Not planning the whole thing out, which is impossible, but establishing that.

Steven: Sounds like we have a plan. It’s up to you, we can start at 9. We can be really brutal about this- why don’t we start at 9? Why don’t we get delivery between 9 and 10? Unless there’s a really good reason that you can’t get in then.