promotionlaurenceclouston

[promotionlaurenceclouston]

I ordered 100 business cards from VistaPrint to promote myself before the degree show. I intend to leave them at the degree show for people to take, and to distribute them myself to visitors at the show. I am happy with the cards, as the picture I chose represents my current work. The cards contain my contact information in the way of my email address and a QR code with a link to my art Instagram page.

Earlier in this module I knew that I wanted to be prepared for the degree show and feel like I had promoted myself fully. Now that the degree show is approaching I feel confident that when it arrives I will be prepared with business cards, and posts on my Instagram page making people aware of the show.

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Test Site Presentation

In the early stages of planning for our group test site presentation, our group met several times in person to discuss our plan and roles for the exhibition. We also communicated through a group chat on Instagram, and a Padlet was made for us to share work and ideas, in addition to a shared spreadsheet where we could assign roles to ourselves. I assigned myself the roles of invigilating the exhibition, and the distribution of promotional materials. My plan was to hand out fliers and trying to promote the show in this way like I did with our Divergent Practice exhibition earlier this year.

The setup of the Test Site Presentation on the 6th floor exhibition space in the college meant that all of the members of our group had to work together to produce the show. This required the development of group strategies for promotion. Some promotional material like posters and fliers were assigned to members of the group to produce. I felt an important part of the promotion for this show was to make sure that people who were in the proximity of the event, like art students from different classes, were aware of the show. The reason for this was that I considered art students to be our target and most likely audience as there would be some overlap between their interests and the work we were displaying in the show. Therefore I began to think of ways to promote the show within the college. Before the exhibition I handed out fliers advertising the show to students in the art corridors of the building.

While invigilating the show I chatted to people looking at our work. One visitor to the site asked me a question about the work of another student, Piotr. At first I felt uncomfortable trying to represent Piotr's work in a way that would do it justice, but I just went along with it and feel like I did a good job of talking about Piotr's work on his behalf. I realised that not all viewers of the work would necessarily see it as intended by our group, as this person had not noticed that the two pieces of work at the front of the exhibition were connected and both made by the same artist. I also displayed one of our posters on a pillar at the front of the test site as I realised that none of us had thought to do that by that stage. I think going forward at future exhibitions and my end of year show some literature and a map of the space would prove to be valuable to help viewers understand the work better.

As far as displaying my own work, this process was relatively simple. I displayed a large drawing consisting of 56 pages of A4 paper by placing each page onto the wall with blue tack. I considered the work I had seen by other artists that I covered in earlier posts, and my only real goal was that my work would would be easily read by the viewer. I approached this by hanging my work over two walls, with a clear and even division down the middle of the work. As a group we installed our work at the same time which resulted in the work being shown coherently as a group show which used the space very well. As far as I am aware there were no issues within the group regarding the work or space allocation and I believe everyone was happy with the outcome.

For our round table discussion it was decided by the group that instead of having artist statements we would each print off 5 words describing our work and have the guests at the round table try to match up the words with the work. At first I thought this was placing too much participation on the visitors to the show and I doubted if we would receive much enthusiasm about the idea. In practice the idea was successful, as we had 4 or 5 students from another art class come to our round table discussion. The result was a good discussion about all of our work with enthusiastic involvement from the entire group which made for a good atmosphere. After my initial doubts I was pleased that this idea was successful. However I feel like for my own degree show promotional strategy I would rather produce an artist statement as a way to describe my work. I feel like this would be better suited to representing my work rather than anything that required the participation of visitors to the show.

In regard to promotional strategies, I feel that personally and as part of the group there was some success in this area. These include the production and distribution of promotional material like posters and fliers. I think there was areas that we could have improved on, for example at first there was no poster displayed in the test site to tell viewers what the show was or who the artwork was produced by. We also did not have any cards placed next to the work with our names or titles of the work, or anything with our contact details on it like business cards. I also had not created an art Instagram page at this stage, which would have added another element of promotion to the exhibition. In the development of my Personal Promotion Strategy for the degree show, I would like to improve in the area of promotion. Having recognised where I could have done this better in the group show, I want to make sure that I have produced and distributed sufficient promotional material, including posters, fliers, business cards, title cards for the artwork, and an artist statement and have it promoted fully on my art Instagram profile.

[promotionlaurenceclouston]

Gallery Visit

life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot

A research exhibition and live programme collated by Rae-Yen Song

Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow

This exhibition was on display over three rooms in the CCA. It is a collection of over 20 pieces of work by various artists connected by the theme of decay. The interpretation of this theme has produced work of varying sizes and media, including large-scale work on a stage and video and sound work. The exhibition used the space well and I felt like there was plenty of room for the artwork to express itself without being cluttered. The work was lit from above using soft lighting. The focus of the lighting was generally on the work, with some pieces being lit from within. This approach lent an atmospheric quality to the rooms. There was some framed work attached to the walls, however the focus seemed to be on pieces that were placed on elaborate tables and stages in the centre and sides of the rooms.

A simple gallery text booklet was available which proved to be informative and full of information about the art and artists, along with a convenient map of the exhibition. I was not aware of any books or postcards or anything like that available to purchase. The exhibition was advertised well outside of the gallery space with a large banner and a sandwich board. There is a page about the exhibition on the CCA website which seemingly contains the same information available in the gallery text booklet. There were also basic articles promoting the show available at ArtMag and MutualArt.

https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/life-bestowing-cadaverous-sooooooooooooo/88656986CB3E04ED

While I was in Glasgow I spent three days working as part of the install team at the CCA. The main piece of work I did during this time was help to install the exhibition of artist Saturn Akin. I tried to incorporate some of the experience I have gained regarding exhibitions over the past two years, in particular the group show in the practice space, while looking ahead to my own degree show. Saturn was generally very clear in giving out instructions and the exhibition was relatively easy to install. The work consisted of large scale sticker backed posters. This gave me another chance to work with the laser lever piece of equipment. I feel I worked well as part of the team and gained valuable experience in setting up exhibitions which I will use in the near future for my degree show.

Coincidentally I found myself working in the gallery where a few days earlier I had been a visitor. While performing some maintenance duties while the exhibition was closed, I assisted in the moving of the large blue sculpture on the stage. It was a surreal feeling to physically move such a dominating piece of work that a few days earlier I was documenting for this blog. It took myself and two other people to move it off the stage and then back on and I appreciated the weight and size of the piece in a way that I had not done previously. I also saw the curator and was able to witness her carefully evaluate and rearrange some of the pieces in the exhibition. I felt an obligation to be careful and respectful of the work and will use this bit of experience while working on the degree show.

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Exhibition Research

Perspectives

Pier Arts Centre, Orkney

I became aware of the exhibition Perspectives after reading about it in a family member's copy of The Orcadian newspaper. It is a collection of work from different kinds of artists who have studied in Orkney. The local theme seems to be what ties the exhibition together as the work is very diverse, ranging from textile work, found objects, sound recordings, and paintings. Judging from the one photo in the article, there seems to be a lot of work displayed together in a small space. There are objects in the middle of the floor and also hung on the wall. At least two pieces are hung on the wall and draped so that they come down onto the floor, which reminded me of some of the work in our own Divergent Practice exhibition.

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Gallery Visit

Colourful Memories of Local Artist

Dale Halliday

Thomas Tosh, Thornhill

This post is about my visit to the exhibition Colourful Memories of Local Artist by Dumfries artist Dale Halliday at the Thomas Tosh cafe in the village of Thornhill.

I first became aware of this show when I saw an article about it in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard newspaper. The first thing that struck me about the exhibition when I got there was that the venue was a cafe and bookshop which made the artwork seem like a backdrop rather than a focus to visitors. I feel like this setup was unclear from the article I read and made this exhibition feel very different to the two that I had seen at Gracefield. The work served an effective purpose as decoration, but I was the only person during my visit that was looking at the work on the wall.

However the work was displayed in an effective and organised way on the walls. The exhibition consisted of around 20 oil paintings, which ranged in size from small to very large and were connected to each other through the use of similar colours and subject matter. Some local areas like the Grey Mare's Tail and the Dalveen Pass were instantly recognisable in the work and added to the local feeling and tone of the show. The choice of frames seemed slightly random, as some work was connected by the use of the same size and colour of frame, I felt there was a lack of consistency overall in this regard. Every piece of work was suspended by wires from a track fixed high on the wall, and had an information card with the title placed underneath. The space was well lit with spot lights, table lamps and a great deal of natural light coming through the large windows in the main cafe area.

A price list of the work and some information, including the article I had read, were available to access in a folder.

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Gallery Visit

convergediverge

Gordon Cockburn and Ronald Rae

Joint retrospective - a conversation over five decades

Gallery 1, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries

This post is about my visit to the exhibition convergediverge in Gallery 2 at Gracefied Arts Centre in Dumfries. The exhibition was a retrospective of two Scottish artists Gordon Cockburn and Ronald Rae.

convergediverge was displayed in every room of the Gallery 2 building at Gracefield which resulted in a considerable amount of work. Each room contained work from both artists with the exception of two rooms which exclusively displayed work from one of the artists only. There was a diverse collection of work on display including framed drawings, paintings and prints on the wall, some of which were large in scale; sculptures and other three dimensional work on plinths and attached to the wall; a videos on television in front of a window; and a bible with drawings on each page in a display case. There was also work by other artists that features Cockburn and Rae as the subjects. This work was given a focus on plinths in the middle of the floor of the first room and did an effective job of establishing the exhibition as a celebration of the careers of Cockburn and Rae.

As mentioned previously, the work was arranged in the form of both artists' artwork being shown together in some rooms and two rooms exclusively featured the work of one of the artists. The artwork was displayed in themes of years the work was produced and medium. For example in the first room I visited there was a collection of Rae's sculptures and drawings on one side of the room, and Cockburn's paintings on the other side of the room. One room was themed entirely around Cockburn's visit to Auschwitz and the impact it had on his mental wellbeing and the resulting artwork he made.The last room of the exhibition stood out as it featured Cockburn's final unfinished painting on his easel. It was unlike anything else in the exhibition and completed the collection in a poignant way.

The volume of work on display alone was impressive and made a strong statement on the artistic achievements of both artists in their careers. Gallery 1 is a refurbished Georgian house and the layout of this exhibition used the space well. For example there was framed artwork on the wall going up the stairs, and a wooden sculpture placed perfectly in an alcove. I admired that the space of the building was used to the advantage of the exhibition, rather than trying to cover it up and change it. All framed work was attached to the walls presumably by command strips or something similar. Three dimensional work was placed on plinths and other work was positioned well in the rooms like Cockburn's easel. The soft lighting was used effectively and served the work well without being distracting. One criticism I had was the inconsistency of the information cards around the framed work. There seemed to be no continuity of each card's placement from one work to the next, which is surprising considering how well this was done in Gallery 2.

I was aware of the show before visiting as I had seen a poster advertising it on a community information board in Dumfries. The show was also advertised on a small poster outside Gracefield and on the information board in Gallery 2. An exhibition guide book was available to purchase in the gift shop, along with a postcard and a book about Ronald Rae. I was not able to find much about the show online aside from the previously shared Dumfries and Galloway Culture article, a similar short article from the tourist page Destination South Ayrshire, and a seemingly positive review from The Times which was blocked behind a paywall.

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Gallery Visit

Eduardo Paolozzi

General Dynamic F.U.N.

Gallery 2, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries

These pictures are from my visit to the exhibition General Dynamic F.U.N. which featured screenprint work by the artist Eduardo Paolozzi at Gallery 2 at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries.

The exhibition consisted entirely of around 50 framed prints, all in the same sized wooden frame and almost all displayed in portrait format except from around 5 which were displayed in landscape format. The work was placed with even spaces between each frame on the walls of one fairly large U-shaped room. Each work had a small card with the title, year and medium of the work on it, and each card was placed consistently in regard to its position to the piece. The consistent uniformity of the framing, positioning, spacing of the work and information cards was pleasing and added to the impact of the exhibition. Also on the walls were large information boards which gave the viewer information about the artist and this specific exhibition. Booklets were placed on a bench in the middle of the floor which provided additional information on the artist and the work seen in the show. I do not think that the work was placed in any order of style, colour or chronologically, but this did not effect the quality of the show in a negative way as it all worked together well. Spotlights from the ceiling lit the work well, and this lighting was consistent for each piece of work. It is unclear how the frames were attached to the wall but I assume command strips or something similar were used.

I personally found the formatting, positioning, lighting and the artwork itself to be enjoyable and the uniformity of the curatorship made the exhibition atmospheric and professional.

As far as promotion, I was not aware of the show before I visited Gracefield Arts Centre. Afterwards I looked for information about it online and found a short promotional article about it on the Dumfries and Galloway Culture page. There is a similar article on the Hayward Gallery page, as the exhibition is a travelling exhibition from the Hayward Gallery. In the gift shop at Gracefield there was no promotional material about the exhibition available to purchase. There were no promotional posters about the show on display in Gracefield aside from a brief mention in a list of current and upcoming events.