What Makes a Great Exhibition?

First you must define who your audience is. never underestimate their intelligence or overestimate the info they have, it's about how much info you give them.

Exhibition are journeys of discovery. It goes through the website link the event and after the exhibition.

Where do you start when conceiving an exhibition, the theme focus of the idea.

Showing is telling, space is a medium in which ideas are visually phrased. Installation is both presentation and commentary, documentation and interpretation:
galleries are like paragraphs
                                                                                 
Walls and formal subdivisions of the floors are                                                                                                              sentences
                                                                                  Clusters of artwork are clauses
                                                                                  Individual works in varying degree of operate as nouns                                                                                                                                                                               an adjectives

How do you conceptualise photography?

Architecture should be considered, not just location but also physical architecture of the building.

Consider sight lines, consider breaking some sight lines and breaking them so you don't see all at once but keep the viewer's interest peeked. (look at recent cindy sherman show)

Scale should also be taken into account as well as texts accompanying the work next to it or even as part of it.

Next is colour ( look at ori gersht) and placement, photography used to be very preservative, so only certain galleries could be used on the wall... Paul Graham is a good example .

Who is the audience? The public, the artist, the curator
The artist perspective: Why an exhibition? Is the best way to get out there is an exhibition?
Why an exhibition? See you work under good conditions? See your work with other artists, because you have been invited to collaborate or other by other artists
. Because you need exhibitions on your CV, it is the ultimate promotion vehicle.
How to make it work? Decide what you need, plan carefully, negotiate with other artists and curator. ( see set built project)
See your work with other artists, invite other artists to join, who you know trust or admire, take care when you invite them. because a brand new audience will see your work, but make sure you promote yourself well (handout labels...) to the right audience for your work. Keep in touch with the people that come to see the show (visitor's book...). Remember that curators, dealers and critics may see your work! So make sure there is a mailing list!


But have FUN!!