Introduction

I brought a hammer 10,000 miles from Utah to Glasgow. My red hammer has been the tool I have used exclusively to install every exhibition I’ve ever designed. It’s a curious feeling; an empty room just before you fill it. But that hammer and I have logged hundreds of hours hanging art on a wall, putting art on pedestals, and hanging art from ceilings. Generally speaking, patrons don’t come to galleries because of who designed the exhibitions, but, perhaps exhibition designers don’t fill spaces with art because they want to be noticed. My goal… is to notice. My research has played a predominant role in how museums and gallery spaces have interpreted the theories and methodologies we discuss on a daily basis. This is a “floor level” research. Next term, I hope to have a concrete knowledge of key designers and curators, so I can start sifting and analyzing their design concepts. But first things first; I have to crawl before I walk. I decided to step far out of my comfort zone and research exhibitions that have happened no longer than 5 years ago, and I have attempted to only discuss living artists that are still practicing art today. There are two reasons for this. 1) Contemporary art as a whole is a great weakness of mine 2) to discover the function of exhibition space; why is it there, and what happens when we fill it?

Conclusion

In 1997 a man starts to push a block of ice through the streets of Mexico. It’s a hefty push for the first mile or so; hunched over, fingers frozen. He pushed the block down the street. It melts. Then he scoots the ice with his right leg when it’s too small to push. Eventually, he kicks the block like a soccer ball when it’s too small to scoot. He kicks it down the street. Then it is a small chip of ice. He leaves it there to melt. “Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing.”

We’ll see.

Thirteen years later, we see this man at the Tate Modern in an empty space; 13 empty rooms. He is directing the exhibition design crew on sequential order of his images/documentation of his other works. In thirteen years, he’s moved a mountain, chased a tornado, and painted a green line from Israel to Palestine. All of these acts were to emphasize the uselessness, and sometimes fantasy, of effort in the wake of oppressive governments.

Now we see patrons filing in and out of the space. Some have come as a pilgrimage, others as an obligation. Either way, their eyes are filled with the images of a man doing nothing.

Then what? No one knows. All an artist can do is make art, and all a curator can do is facilitate a space where people can look at it. What happens to every patron after that? To me, it is the world’s biggest mystery.

The process is so deceptively simple; you put art on the wall, you stick it on a pedestal and you turn up the lights.

This process is also deceptively simple: a man painting a green line from Israel to Palestine, and pushing a block of ice through the streets of Mexico.

There is something brave about cutting through a cross section of one’s culture. And this research log is proof that many curators and exhibition designers are doing just that. There are serious questions that arise from what I’ve discovered over the past few months. Namely, what is the psychology of exhibition space? What does it reveal about the artist? What does it reveal about the exhibition designer? What does it reveal about the art patron? How does one objectively exhibit art? Is there such a thing as neutrality and space? What is the function of museum and gallery spaces in creating an art dialogue?

Who are the people with hammers and pedestals? What do they know, and what is important to them? Where do they fit in the context of art and culture, and, most importantly, are thy brave enough to turn up the lights?