When Prof. Paul Moore first said the word exhibition at the start of class thanks to work assosiation I immediately pictured a white room with paintings in it as I’m sure a lot of the people in the room did at that very moment. I simply remembered going to a few art exhibitions like these with my mother as part of an assignment for my GCSE art project.
Prof. Moore then went on to explain that there are in fact many different ways of getting your work seen such as public exhibitions and the online space is a huge factor nowadays, that made me realise that I’ve seen a lot of these other kinds of exhibitions in the news and on social media websites only I’ve never seen them first hand.
Something else that was discussed in class and something I’ve never really thought about before is that choosing where something is displayed or exhibited is extremely important for instance there’s no use putting a large interactive sculpture in a small room against a wall behind red ropes, it needs to be somewhere that suits its design like in a public place or even outside. The way in which a piece is displayed can both enhance it but on the other hand it could detract from the experience. A good example that Prof. Moore gave was the AᗺBA museum in Stockholm whose motto is “Walk in. Dance out.” the curators there have played on the fact that AᗺBA are kind of gimmicky and tailored this museum to be less of a traditional white walls and paintings affair and more of a fun for all the family event, they have stages where you can stand against a green screen and sing with a holographic version of the group as well as touch screens everywhere. And when you leave you can get a digital copy of your time there as all the exhibitions are filmed. Another example was the 
professor’s own work, his piece on Lough Neagh on which he collaborated with Jem Finer, he called it site specific work because for the art installation to work it had to be on the shore of the lough ie. the location of the art enhanced the art.
I have a vague recollection of the exhibition I mentioned before that I had to visit for a school project, it was in the ulster museum and it consisted of large white rooms with painting hung in them that were just squares of colour layered on thick with oil paints. I had absolutely no idea what to make of it and there was a video playing in one corner that showed the guy creating one of these pieces of “art”, he would slap on the oil paint the scrape a tiny bit off and replace it it with more of the same colour. This all went right over my head and to this day I’m just as oblivious; the point I’m making is that art isn’t for everyone. I would rather see an interactive installation of some sort like the things that you stand on and they light up or make a sound or waving your arms makes projected image move.
While doing some googling for this blog I found an article about a video in which someone put a print from ikea in the museum of modern art in Arnhem in the Netherlands. He then asks visitors to look at it and talk to him about it and most of them describe it in a way that only someone who would visit a museum of modern art would. And while it was meant as a joke is kind of shows how location influences someone’s perception of a piece, had they see the print in ikea they probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance but because it was in an important art exhibition one guy said 2.5 million would be a good price for it.
The cool wall clock is in the Ham Yard hotel in London, here’s a longer video of it. I think this is an example of an interesting piece of art because while it might have a deeper meaning like something to do with our perception of time it’s also something you could watch for ages without getting bored.
EWAN BECKETT 