The end of Week 8 and the topic was enter the Academy so we are now half way through the Informing Contexts Module, with a heavy bias towards critical theory and how to apply it to practice. “Enter the Academy” for me focused on contextualisation of ones practice with the gallery context which is highly relevant for my practice as my longer term goal is is to use galleries as a channel for connecting with collectors who might want to have some of my work within their collection. To be successful within that space it is important to understand the aesthetic of each gallery which artists are already on their books because that information gives you insight into their clients and the type of art they collect. Armed with this information I plan to draw up a short list of galleries to approach with example pieces from the different bodies of work I am developing.
This week we found ourselves in a car showroom buying a new car while waiting for the salesman to come back with the paperwork I started to look around the showroom and i realised that there are many parallels between the car showroom and commercial galleries. The modern car showroom is a light space with the the new cars treated like automotive pieces of art. Lights are positions just so ensure we see all of the details of the bodywork as intended by the design team similar to the way a curator will light a picture or sculpture. Prestige car brands have larger spaces and the cars are afforded more space to the viewer to admire their beauty and the same thing applies to art. Similar to the labels we find next to pictures the new car will have a label providing us with contextual information about the car that we would not be able to discern for just looking at its exterior form. The following two images help illustrate my point. The first an image from PhotoParis and the second from our local Ford Dealership.
Week 8 was the second week of the photography interlude and to support this week’s effort I decided I would play curator and create a mini brochure as though cardboard was the them for a gallery exhibition and on Thursday we got a chance to critique the images and use some of the critical theory gained over the first part of the module to contextualise the different images. In the past I know which images I like but critical theory now allows me to explain what I find appealing and secondly to place it into the broad context of contemporary images.
One other important thing happened during the week, which is I have submitted a pitch to the Community Affairs Officer to use the Tomato Soup Project as the basis for pierce of educational collaboration with the local academy that the support sponsor. I applied some of the learning points from week 1 and week 2 when creating the brief to support the project proposal. This could create an interesting development as it I could use my practice for educational purposes encouraging students to get involved in photography at secondary school level.
