With my solo exhibition at p|m Gallery this fall fast approaching, and with numerous new works now completed in the studio, I know I should be feeling pretty confident that I'm ready. And I do - but an idea that I had about a year ago and that has been nagging me in the back of my mind, suddenly seems ripe for execution. Do I have time to make it happen in the next few months? I think so. I hope so.
This desire for a new approach to my show has come after painting for months and months, each painting representing an incremental step forward (and the occasional step backward) in developing my ideas. But now to envision my exhibition merely as a careful selection of individual paintings from a large body of work is beginning to feel, on the one hand, inadequate to convey months of exploration, and on the other hand, a lost opportunity to use the gallery space as a specific, contained viewing experience.
Grappling with this issue with respect to my own work has led me to begin to conceptualize the gallery exhibition as a show - a show similar in nature to the stage. Installation artists approach exhibition spaces like this naturally, as a critical element of their practice. But painters who work within the parameters of the rectangular canvas don't often directly address the relationship between their works, unless they choose to add elements of installation to the exhibition (*see the interview with artist Wangechi Mutu that I have posted below). Painting shows can sometimes feel like a selection of products displayed in a high-end retail store. This is the brand we are carrying this month, pick the color and size that suits you best. But the gallery space conceived as a theatre opens up possibilities for creating a more direct relationship between individual paintings, as well as possibilities for a more expansive connection between the works and the viewers. It's an interesting opportunity that I don't want to ignore. Can I pull it off in the next three months? We'll see...
*The following video is an interview by the AGO's David Moos and artist Wangechi Mutu. The whole video is worth watching (she's an amazing artist), but her comments on the gallery space are particularly interesting to me for this discussion. It begins at minute 6:28, in the last two minutes of the interview.