THE COMMUNITY IS THE GALLERY: “THREE-THIRTY” AT THE DORIS MCCARTHY GALLERY AND BEYOND

Exhibition Reviews | Rachel Deiterding

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While online exhibitions have become the new norm over the past year, there are many exhibitions and media that are not easily transformed for the digital world. Despite this, galleries such as the Doris McCarthy Gallery (DMG) have continued to engage audiences with their in-person offerings without any bodies passing through the gallery space. 

On October 3rd the DMG opened their first exhibition since their unexpected closure due to COVID-19 in March. Three-Thirty, curated by Scarborough native Anique Jordan, features work by Aaron Jones, Kelly Fyfe-Marshall, and Ebti Nabag. For a few short weeks, visitors were able to visit the exhibition in person before the gallery closed its physical space again to limit the transmission of COVID-19. Elements of the exhibition resisted being transformed into an online format. Kelly Fyfe-Marshall’s three-channel video POWER asks Scarborough community members “what does power look like for you in the midst of this moment of revolution?” The conversation that it presents calls for a three-dimensional interaction with the videos as the viewer is swept into the conversation from multiple directions. Creative curatorial approaches that focused on public art and making the exhibition accessible for, and in fact a part of, the wider Scarborough community, allowed some elements of the exhibition to continue to thrive at a distance.

Kelly Fyfe-Marshall, POWER (still from three-channel video installation), 2020. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

As a whole, Three-Thirty focuses on the after-school hour to explore the way that young people assert their authority and more generally, how power is constructed and manipulated in particular spaces. The exhibition is concerned with how individuals influence their environments when they are told that they do not have the power to do so. While the gallery portion of the exhibition is presented at the DMG, Three-Thirty, is also made up of satellite installations at Malvern Public Library and Lester B. Pearson Collegiate which features monumental murals installed on the exterior of each structure. 

These exterior elements kept the exhibition alive in the COVID-19 era, however, they were not built into the exhibition to help keep us apart, but rather to bring the community together. Aaron Jones, worked with the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection to develop Seeing Knowledge, a series of collages that reflect on alternative models of classifying and building knowledge based in the body and ancestral worlds. The collages were combined to create the 23-foot mural that adorns Malvern Public Library.

Aaron Jones, Seeing Knowledge, 2020. Public installation at the Malvern Public Library. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

Ebti Nabag’s photo-murals were developed with students from Lester B. Pearson Collegiate, depicting them smiling, laughing with friends, in their element, and in control of their own images. Two murals are installed on the exterior of Lester B. Pearson Collegiate, and a third at the DMG. The scale of the murals commands the viewer's attention and conveys the agency of the youth, depicting worlds of seriousness and playfulness where they are in control of the present and the future.

 

Ebti Nabag, Bubble of Youth, 2020. Public installation at Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

Together, these murals take on the themes of power and agency taken up by Three-Thirty, while also thinking about where power and decision-making lie in particular communities. While DMG exhibitions are free, the external elements of the exhibition extend notions of accessibility, acknowledging that not all groups represented feel welcome or in control in traditional gallery spaces. Taking the work beyond the physical limits of the gallery and placing them at the epicenter of the wider community functions to promote engagement with art from different audiences and brings these themes into discussion in community spaces rather than exclusively in the gallery. The proximity of the installations also facilitates the opportunity for community members to stop and reflect on their neighbourhood as they move among important local landmarks. Jones and Nabag’s murals embody a sense of empowerment, exuding the agency and knowledge of those who are often cast aside. While they promote discussions surrounding power, agency, and place, they implicitly, and maybe even more powerfully, serve as a reminder of the individual agency of each member of the Scarborough community.

  

Three-Thirty, 2020. Installation view. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

Online spaces have provided a platform for museums and galleries to continue sharing information and presenting exhibitions when it has been dangerous to gather inside. While expanding access in some senses, digital spaces have limited others, neatly packaging the world into disconnected 2D realities. Perhaps, thinking about land, exterior spaces, and direct community access are worthy open-air alternatives as COVID-19 persists and as we enter into a post-COVID era of curatorial practice.

 

Ebti Nabag, I'm Listening, 2020. Public installation at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, UTSC. [Source]

For more information about Three-Thirty, and to watch the short documentary about the show click here!

WHAT WE NEED IS A STORY: RE-FRAMING INTERPRETATION IN ART GALLERIES

GLAM Guide | Madison Carmichael

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Just before the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s grand re-opening in 2017, Chief Content Officer Chad Coerver posited that the wall label wasn’t enough for the average visitor. Instead, he argued: 

“...what visitors really need is a story – a memorable way to connect with a fundamentally foreign object.”

In advocating for more appealing and accessible art stories in the SFMOMA, Coerver echoed almost a decade of transformation in art interpretation, wherein museum staff across departments worked to shift the visitor’s conceptualization of art as well as their experience of it. 

From 2002 to 2010, three art galleries in particular in North America engaged in interpretive transformations: the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA), the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). These three art institutions also share similar mission statements that can be boiled down to: engage people with art and help them to make meaning from it. 

The Detroit Institute of Art did indeed pilot a new model of interpretation in the early 2000s. (Source)

The DIA undertook a major re-installation project from 2002 to 2007. This endeavor was guided by an interpretive approach that emphasized experiences with art rather than lessons in art history, and the objective was to support visitors’ efforts to engage with art by telling stories and making connections with universal human concerns. In a study conducted at the DIA to evaluate the efficacy of this new interpretive strategy, evaluators found three main ways for visitors to find meaning: discovering something familiar or something to which they could make a personal connection, learning or discovering something new, or (less frequently) expressing a preference for the subject or medium of the artwork. 

On the whole, the evaluators discovered that the most common way visitors found personal meaning in the galleries was to relate first to the visual aspects of the art through their own experience and then to utilize the museum’s provided interpretation to go further with their understanding. As such, it was important for the interpretation to provide relevant, meaningful information about the artworks that would support personal meaning.

The AGO re-displayed the majority of its collections in an effort to position art as political, using them to discuss issues and ideas facing visitors currently. (Source)

The AGO also launched a redevelopment project in 2002, which culminated in their reopening with a newly extended building and fully re-displayed collections in 2008. The transformation at the AGO was oriented around questions posed by Judy Koke, Deputy Director of Education and Public Programming: why is the visitor here, and what do they need out of their visit? 

Interpretation at the AGO located the answer to those questions in personal meaning and connection. At the time, the AGO abandoned the practice of displaying art by historical chronology and instead displayed their collections through issues and ideas. This was a fascinating departure from conventional practice, as it necessitated that the artworks on display needn’t be the most prestigious or most famous but rather those that best illustrated the ideas and issues posed in that particular space. 

This approach served the AGO’s purposes quite neatly, for – much like the DIA – they hoped not only to develop an understanding of art historical chronologies but to inspire personal connections with art. Artworks were designed to function as departure points for exploring the broader story within a gallery space. 

The MFA situated art as socio-objective. As such, they explore how any given artwork functioned or else represents a facet of society or social practices. (Source)

Most recently, the MFA opened the Art of the Americas wing of their institution in 2010. The wing itself was imposing: it comprised of four floors and forty-eight galleries, as well as four “Behind the Scenes” galleries. The brochure detailing this portion of the museum implored visitors to design their own path according to their own interests and needs. Furthermore, visitors were encouraged to make use of the central gallery on each floor, which were designed to provide a broad brushstroke of the level’s theme and contents. 

Barbara T. Martin, Alfond Curator of Education at the MFA, noted that museum staff had begun to realize that the visitor needed a way in. To the notion that objects speak for themselves, unfortunately prevalent in museums, she said: “when you say that the object speaks for itself, usually you’re someone with a PhD who has read a lot of words to get to the point where the object can talk to you.” This is not, as you might imagine, a very easy point to get to, nor a very accessible one! As such, the MFA rather appropriately took a more informal and conversational tone with their interpretation. 

The goal, according to Benjamin Weiss, Head of Interpretation, was not for visitors to read the walls, but for the walls to speak to visitors. The MFA didn't aim to change what they said: it was to re-frame the questions – changing “what is this thing? to “why am I looking at this thing?” It was to ask – and to answer – why we should care. 

The point, Martin stated, was for visitors to feel empowered to engage with the artworks on display by giving them the tools to do so. But more crucially, it was important that visitors know that “there isn’t some mysterious practice that you’re supposed to know if you’re in this kind of place.” 

The SFMOMA similarly re-evaluated the interpretation of their collections between 2013-2017, when they underwent massive physical and programmatic transformations. They too found a need for personal connection in their galleries. (Source)

Much like Coerver, these institutions found a need for stories: stories written and told by the institution but also those brought into the gallery space by visitors. The DIA, the AGO, and the MFA embraced the necessity of re-framing how visitors experienced art, and they did so through museum interpretation that emphasized the relevance of art and the personal connections that visitors can make to any number of artworks. So, the question is: in re-interpreting, re-displaying, and re-framing art, do we make art galleries more appealing and accessible spaces for those of us who may find art to be fundamentally foreign? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly offers visitors a new way to engage with art on display, and that is not an insignificant thing. 

THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART: GALLERY ONE

EXHIBITION REVIEWS

BY: TABITHA CHAN

Interactive Kiosk (Source)

The Cleveland Museum of Art officially unveiled Gallery One in January 2013, as part of an ambitious overarching initiative to reinstall and reinterpret its entire permanent collection into new gallery spaces. Gallery One offers visitors an innovative opportunity to experience and learn about art through technology. The space fluidly integrates interactive and immersive digital activities with physical artworks from the museum’s collection.

There are four main digital components: a 40-foot multi-touch MicroTile Collection Wall, six interactive learning kiosks, a dedicated family area called “Studio Play” and the ArtLens application. Gallery One has six stations or “lenses” to examine groupings of physical artwork through: sculpture lens, lions lens, epic stories lens, globalism lens, thirties lens and painting lens. Each lens offers interactive games and activities designed around the specific theme and question of the lens.

Collection Wall (Source)

The sculpture lens features two different activities called “Make a Face” and “Strike a Pose” that enables visitors to use their physical bodies to create connections with the artwork. In the first activity, a visitor’s facial expression is matched to artworks within the CMA’s collection using facial recognition software. The nodal points in the visitor’s image are compared to the nodal points in the database of 189 catalogued artworks. 

Sculpture Lens: "Make A Face" activity (Source)

In the second activity, visitors are asked to mimic the physical position of the image of a sculpture displayed on the screen. Through the use of sensors, visitors are “evaluated” and given a percentage based on how accurate their pose matches the original. These activities incorporate an aspect of humour and encourage visitors to interact with the artwork in a fun, unconventional way. Although only one person can partake in each activity at a time, this lens naturally attracts groups of people to watch.

Sculpture Lens: "Strike A Pose" activity (Source)

The painting lens has a total of five activities, but I will focus on two called “Make Your Mark” and “Remix Picasso”. In the first activity, visitors are presented with three artworks from the CMA’s collection representing three different abstract painting techniques. Visitors are invited to experiment digitally with different painting techniques such as pour, drip and gesture. They are able to share their paintings to a visitor-created collection in the lens. 

The second activity encourages visitors to adopt the mindset of Picasso and digitally rearrange abstract pieces of a composition by using rotational and zoom functions, as well as, manipulating flatness and depth perspectives. Both of these activities give visitors the chance to learn about abstraction by becoming the artist and creating their own abstract artwork.

Visitors are empowered to play and create their version of abstraction, while a real Picasso or Pollock is hanging in front of them. The goal of these activities is not for visitors to learn how to paint, but in adopting the mindset of the artist, they are able to make a real connection to the greater context of what constitutes as abstraction. Abstract art is often a difficult topic to approach for visitors without an art background. These activities act as an accessible entry point, as visitors are engaged in active learning and motivated by discovery.

Painting Lens: "Make A Mark" activity (Source)

In addition to these interactive games, all six stations have a “Look Closer” mode activated by touching any artwork on the screen. This mode gives visitors the ability to rotate and zoom in on high-resolution images of the artwork. Visitors can learn more about each artwork through informational hotspots, in the form of text and video, conveying further details about the artwork, artist and time period.

Although Gallery One makes use of thematic groupings, the CMA’s role as a museum according to its mission is primarily to provide the institutional space, art objects and technological tools to transform visitors from being passive observers into active participants. The magnitude and depth of how much is learned is left up to the visitor. Gallery One is successful in providing visitors with opportunities to learn experientially through digital technology and to ultimately enjoy the process of learning.

Resources:
Alexander, J. (2014). Gallery One at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Curator: The Museum Journal, 57(3), 347-362. doi:10.1111/ cura.12073

JEFF NYE: RECOVERY ROOMS

EXHIBITION REVIEWS

BY: TABITHA CHAN

Sunlit Delivery Room with Fuschia, oil on canvas
(Photo: Tabitha Chan)

Jeff Nye's “Recovery Rooms" is a solo exhibition featuring a series of his oil paintings at the Varley Art Gallery of Markham. Nye is a Canadian artist, writer and curator based in Newmarket, ON. He received his BFA from Concordia University and his MFA from the University of Regina. This exhibition is a testament to how gallery didactics can effectively give the objects an added layer of meaning and strengthen the story being told in the exhibit.

As I walked into “Recovery Rooms," my first thought was that this exhibition must be about spaces and how colour can be used to characterize or collapse a space. At this point, I hadn't read the introductory panel or any object labels. When it comes to contemporary art exhibitions, my personal preference is to first spend time looking at the artwork without having knowledge of the artist or the context he/she is creating in.

I find this method of looking more enjoyable because it gives me a chance to have an unbiased first interpretation and attempt at “understanding" the artwork on my own. After a brief look at all the artwork, I will then read the gallery didactics to become properly informed. It's quite an intriguing experience to be able to compare my first impression to how my understanding changes after a formal explanation.

Dusk in the Delivery Room with Baby's Tears, oil on canvas 

(Photo: Tabitha Chan)

At first glance, Nye's paintings seem only to be technical studies and observations of space. After reading the extremely descriptive object labels, I realized there was a lot more to the work. Phrases like “Delivery Room" and “Baby's Tears"jumped out at me. Each painting depicts a specific room at a specific time of day, confirming part of my original interpretation. All of the rooms are lived spaces, both domestic and institutional (homes, workspaces and hospitals).

Looking at the work a second time after reading the object labels, I took a step back and tried to visualize the comprehensive space Nye was depicting. I noticed how the contrast between light and dark colours created shadows and depth - shapes that looked like windows and doors. I took a step forward and began to notice smaller details, like what objects were painted in each room - trees and potted plants. What was the meaning behind the juxtaposition between linear planes of space and the figural scribble marks?

Dusk in the Delivery Room with Baby's Tears, oil on canvas, detail 

(Photo: Tabitha Chan)

I thought about the relationship between how the work was painted and how it was described in its object label. Nye's application of oil paint is thick and heavy. Each brushstroke can be seen, and almost felt viscerally because of its physicality. As a viewer, you don't know what his first and last brushstroke was. Nye has chosen specific colours to evoke a particular mood in each painting in relation to the time of day described in the label. What does dusk feel like?

All of these components point to the life of an environment and how physical spaces are markers of memory. I read the introductory panel and learned that Nye had lost his daughter: “Through these works, the artist invites us to witness his private struggle, one that has affect both his professional and private life. Like scars accumulated upon the surface of the canvas, Nye uses the colour and texture of the oil paint to bring up memories of a specific time and space."  

Overcast Morning in the Living Room with Sapphire Showers, oil on canvas 

(Photo: Tabitha Chan)

Learning about this one biographical detail again added an entirely new layer of meaning to the work. I suddenly saw each painting, each room, as memories of a bigger story. The physical spaces depicted were linked to psychological spaces of transition. Nye's paintings are not simple - the choices in colour, the application of paint and the interweaving composition are all components that strengthen the overarching story. How can painting describe emotions of heartbreaking loss and unimaginable grief? From personal experience, as an artist, the act of making art is a way to make sense of the world and sometimes to preserve a past that inevitably slips out of reach.

 

Bright Daylight in the Studio with Prayer Plant, oil on canvas 

(Photo: Tabitha Chan)

“The mnemonic spaces in these paintings are places that I have called home, places where I have worked, and spaces within hospitals. The houseplants that wind their way through the compositions are mementos, purchased on each anniversary of the loss of our baby daughter, Angelica. These paintings are a way of making sense of change – those life and death moments that throw us off balance, or send us spinning out of control altogether." (Source - Artist's Website)

Sunset in the Potting Shed with Baby's Tears, oil on canvas 

(Photo: Tabitha Chan)

REFLECTION ON ABSTRACT ART

Abstract art can seem intimidating because the artist's intent is more elusive. I hope through my experience in this exhibit, you've realized that there is definitely more to abstract painting than meets the eye. I think it's important to remember that it's okay not to understand or to know exactly what the artist is trying to say. Even if you read all of the gallery didactics, or go to an artist talk, you will never have a complete understanding of what the artist is trying to convey. And that's okay. You're not the artist.

How do you approach contemporary abstract art exhibitions? Are you like me, and enjoy forming your own first impressions? Or do you read the introductory panel and object labels before looking at any of the artwork?