Heated Debates and Choices to Make: Mock Selection for an Exhibition
Week 3 of my placement with the Levinsky Gallery, although some hiccups during the week, was a mock selection of works for Hannah and I’s mock exhibition.
After the last session we were asked to make our ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘Maybe’ choices from the spreadsheet we’d been given of the submissions. However during the week, after Hannah and I had sent our decisions to Mary, we received an apology stating we’d been given the wrong document and were sent another spreadsheet of the submissions, along with the PowerPoint that is put together for the actual panel. This document had a lot more submissions than the original we had been given, really we should've realised it wasn’t correct when there were only ~40 pieces to look through
Over the session we went through the first 90 submissions. At the start of the selection process Hannah and I were putting most of the works in the maybe category before realising that eventually we would have to make a more decisive decision, so started to be firmer with out choices whether they were ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
There was a time during the middle of the session where you start to feel guilty that you keep saying no to pieces, especially when you can give reasons for why they could be selected. At the same time I felt like I has to start saying no because of those ‘warm up’ pieces that I hadn't stuck to my guns about whether or not they should be in or out. I also tried to stop saying maybe so that if Hannah said maybe that we could have a leaning (yes/maybe or no/maybe)
I also found you start to become attached to certain works, so when there's a disagreement it starts to hurt… There’s one piece that I know is coming up next week that even though I'm expecting us to cut, I keep thinking about it… that one will be painful to say no to. It plays Rod Stewart…
That’s going to continue to be stuck in my head now…
So the further through the session we got, the more heated the discussions got, the more in depth the reasoning became, forcing us to be more analytical to really delve into why we made decisions about each piece. And the analysis came from various reasons, from the title of the piece to the scale, installation or potential readings and how their statement aligned with our own reading of the artwork.
It culminated in the most intense discussion of the session being that of the final two pieces of the day. The two works by the same artists gained a by that point regular opposite opinion between Hannah and I, which seems so unusual to me seeing as we both have similar artistic practices and areas of interest. One piece I had gone between YES and MAYBE for the spreadsheet of choices we’d sent to Mary earlier in the week, ultimately landing on MAYBE. The other was an instant NO for me, but seeing as we both had opposite views I thought I would compromise and say NO to both, but then we started to unpick what we preferred about one piece over the other, questioning each others reasoning. Mary then mentioned that for her it was interesting to hear our discussions, because the official panel also were split on these pieces, one panelist saying NO to both, stating that they looked like exercises, and then informed us that they did eventually decide to choose one of the pieces, without explicitly telling us which piece. It sounded like my choice was the one that got through though… sorry Hannah. So I continued to push my reasoning, and even though we haven't come to a conclusion yet, it'll be interesting to pick that discussion back up next week.
So after the 90 artworks we went through together, I went and made my decisions for the remaining pieces, firstly in my notebook (See below) and then on an edited powerpoint that had all of our definite NO pieces removed… even between the 30 minutes (give or take) between completing the handwritten notes and going through the document, some of my choices changed.
Overall, the session was so much fun… and I got to brush up on my debate skills… This is the meaty part of wanting to go down a curatorial career path, and as Mary mentioned when we were discussing the legal aspects, risk assessments, technical considerations, budget and insurance, and all of the other logistical hurdles that are part of creating an exhibition, it becomes worth it when you get to do the parts like today, the next would be to watch it come together and the PV.
So next week we will confirm and fight for our final selection, we were then given the decision to carry on planning an ‘alternative exhibition’ with our selections or to use the panels choices, and from the sounds of it we’re going to be going through the whole process with our selection… Like an Anti-Plymouth Contempory… maybe not Anti-Plymouth? A shadow exhibition?… I’ll workshop it.
The steps after that will be to arrange the works and consider the installation, we’ve been sent a 3D render of the gallery that we will be able to use to plan the space. But before we can get to that, there will be a ‘Once And For All In The Zoom Call’ … Not as catchy as Rumble in the Jungle or Thrilla in Manilla… I’ll workshop it.
