Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
The first exhibition I went to see was “Journey into the Contemporary Collection - Part 2” this was a collective of work consisting mainly of photography and two trunks placed in the top third of the room, one open with books inside and the other closed. In my opinion the presentation was not consistent enough, the frames did not match and in some cases weren’t even similar, this didn’t help me feel that this was supposed to be a collection of different artist’s work which should compliment each other instead it would appear very little consideration was put into the thought of consistency. The work was all mainly hung using L brackets screwed into the wall and frames and then painted over to match the wall it is hung on. A plus side to this exhibition was that there was no restriction or security so I could get as close as I wanted to the pieces of work. Where 3D work was concerned they were on plinths, shelves and on the floor, all of them featuring “Do not touch” signs in vinyl, I liked this feature which was continued on a wall that had a synopsis of the exhibition, it was clean and clear, a contrast to the ambiguity of the photography.
The next exhibition was “Film Pop” another collection of art from different artists, this time focusing on Pop artists use of film as an inspiration for their own art. Instantly this room was a lot more consistent and everything felt that it belonged together, the work was hung in the same way as the previous exhibition with L brackets and screws, there was also an interactive area where you can construct your own film scene with pieces of Pop art and images that inspired it as well as a shelving unit showing more Pop art and some dressing-up clothes inspired by popular movies.
This exhibition also featured vinyl lettering for the explanation of the exhibition as well as on plinths for the 3D work. This room featured a metal wire with metal posts along two walls to stop anyone getting too close to certain work including Peter Blake’s canvas work. The composition of the room worked well as it was almost triangular and at the tip was a sculpture of King Kong which leads and draws everything towards that end.
I noticed it was a running trend for the exhibitions after these to have varying sized frames with inconsistent styles among them and little thought about the composition of these frames, i.e symmetrically. What did stand out to me was a video on an LCD screen featured in the exhibition “Traced” which had a frame around it of similar style to the rest of the frames as well as the same exhibit featuring clothes and other props that you could touch which were relevant to that time period and the subject matter of the paintings.
My favorite exhibition was “Under Gods: Stories from Soho Road” by Liz Hingley, which featured all photography being the same size, within the same frames and at the same height, evenly spaced around the room. This created consistency amongst the exhibit and also meant that I would not miss any out or favor a certain piece for any reason other than it's subject matter. The room also featured some perspex boxes that contained various items which look like they belonged in the locations of the photos, this added to the feel and tone that each photo gave and intimacy involved. Above the photos was a string of text which was repeated around the room and in various languages that said: “Six year old Jesus army community.” in gold vinyl which helped sum up the tone of the entire exhibition. The security was minimal with no barriers present apart from the perspex boxes on the plinths and just a member of staff who was overseeing the space.
