This was especially noticeable in big shows like the recent David Hockney show at the Royal Academy. Sometimes you couldn't get into the next room because there was a large huddle around the long description of each room near their entries. Even though they were higher up and bigger text than the picture descriptions, there was lots more to read so the crowd grew bigger and bigger. It was also very noticeable because Hockney is about grabbing new technologies. Here were his great big ipad printouts - he'd used technology to work out to produce good quality prints from ipad drawings, so why couldn't the galleries have technology to provide a better way of giving us the information on the exhibit.
It also came home with a bang when I joined the Royal Academy - it costs me more per show to be a member but I avoid the queues. So imagine my shock when I discovered that while I use to pay £4 discount to get in and was given the catalogue to the shows free, now as a member they want to charge me for them. And, we're not talking about a £1. They wanted £3.50 for the Summer Exhibition catalogue which is just a text list of the works for sale.
So here are my alternatives for curation (which I may send to galleries):
- place picture descriptions in large text up high above the works, and room description high enough so it doesn't interfere with the pictures or the room entries. I know some people like to experience the work without the description but - if you don't like porn, don't watch it. This way, people can stay standing back from the pictures to view them without anyone being too close to them, blocking the view and damaging old master works with our breaths etc.
- Most people have phones and apps now. Make sure the gallery has free wireless access - I still can't believe most of the major galleries don't have this yet. Make sure the gallery app has a section to access picture descriptions, room descriptions and information normally in the catalogues given out. Those who want catalogue in hand can still buy them. Any loss of revenue can be made by small charge online. Members should have free access. Less catalogues, less waste. Most catalogues are over produced anyway for what they are - if you are only getting text with no pictures as is increasingly the case then just print out an A4 sheet cheap alternative.
- The hand held voice descriptions of exhibits usually cost about £3.50 could also be put online for cheaper charge because there would be less maintance of the handheld devices. Again members should get for free or discounted.
- not sure i'm finished yet ..... gone away for a think
Postscript:
While I am on Royal Academy membership can I possibly start a members revolt - unlikely?
If it were not for the new members bar, restuarant and extra toilets etc opening next year, I would give it up - and still may after the novelty of the new has worn off and I'm bored with expensive prices for food and drink in the members room - they have actually written you can't bring in your own food to the current members room - not mentioned by any other major gallery I am a member of. Just let them try that on me - I will suddenly have special dietary requirements. If I do give it up I will just have to negotiate a better way for disabled non members not to have to wait in line for an hour for tickets to the big shows. I may still be able to get into members section enough times for my use: - I have given £1000 contribution to the new members building update - so we can have our names on the wall for a few decades at least, or a century with luck, after we've gone (cheaper than having kids to not remember us). I have been told I can phone up to gain access to members room to see our names anytime I want, if I am no longer a member. I should coco.
Er, wrong side of the bed this morning?
ReplyDeleteRegarding the large text above doors. I have seen that, but people will still stand right under it blocking the way. I love it in the Picasso museum, where they have these wooden bats, with information in various languages stuck on them. Of course for a popular exhibit, that wouldn't work.
Your rant reminds me of when I was living in Japan. I used to get really annoyed at the big art shows as people would press their body right into your body, obviously trying to move you out the way so they could get closer to the picture. Alan hated it so much, he stopped going for ages.
I eventually got fed up of this, so on one occasion, when I had a woman really pushing her full body into my back, I stood on tip toes. She immediately shuffled into the space where my heels had been, and then I just gently lowered myself onto her feet, and stayed there! She, being 'polite' didn't want to ask me to get off them, so I stayed there until I had my fill!
I should also admit to kicking a woman in Japan once at a quilt show, but that almost backfired. I had to keep on walking as though I hadn't noticed that I gave her a swift sharp kick in the ankle!
Anyway, I digressed!
I'm not sure about the phone idea as people will either put it on loudspeaker to avoid paying charges for each person in a group, or use it as an excuse to make phone calls (don't you just hate that in a gallery?).
As for the membership thing, surely you can play the disabled card to get into a show ahead of the queues? I thought disabled people were given subsidised entry to things and queue jumped. For God's sake, if you don't even get that, what is the point of being disabled?!
You could always do what I did to get a new wheelchair to the UK from Singapore (for Alan's mum), as a free part of my luggage (they would charge otherwise). I limped up to the check in desk, pushing the wheelchair and with a look of pain on my face. Alan 'assisted me' in my Oscar worthy performance. I was offered the golf buggy, first boarding etc (which I declined). They took the wheelchair, gave me the 'bless her look' given to disabled people, and away I limped on Alan's arm. Once past immigration, I had a miraculous recovery and could walk properly again.
There is now a place of pilgrimage, just past immigration at Changi airport, with my photo set in a little grotto!
As for your generous donation to the Academy - I know a place in France, where they are willing to out your names on the enclosed garden wall in perpetuity for a thousand pounds. And if you make it two, they put a string of coloured lights around your name, and plug it in on the third Sunday of every other month. Cheques to me please! For that you get the following:
- You can walk through the front door ahead of everyone else
- You can use the loo ahead of everyone else
- You can have a free personalised guided tour of my quilts
- You can have one free and one subsidised meal per year, over a 5 year period
- You can have a bottle of wine on every visit (providing you do not visit more than once a year)
However, I do have to add that in line with the RCA, you will not be allowed to bring in your own food, unless you pay a members one off subsidy of £500.
Cheap really when you think about it!