The Alistair Robinson curated show ‘Rank’ at the Leeds city art gallery is open until 26th April. As an example of curation it’s fascinating. The exhibition is a clear attempt to reconcile the gallery exhibition format with an educational remit. Responses have been quite oppositional. I have had several artists complain to me that it is too didactic, too concerned with telling a story of inequality and not letting the works ‘speak for themselves’. The other complaint was that they felt that too many ‘non art’ works were included and that there was no attempt to differentiate between commissioned illustrations of government statistics and artists’ works. I feel the opposite; I really enjoyed the conjunction between so called ‘art’ and ‘non art’. In fact I felt that some of the commissioned illustrations were really powerful and at times overshadowed the ‘art’.
It terms of thinking about audience there could be an interesting debate centered on these issues. Do you think a curator should be telling a story in this way? Does it reduce the art work to a cipher within the curator’s didactic thread? Or is all artwork open to interpretation? Does the artist lose control over the work as soon as it goes into the public domain? Is it OK to target the audience in this ‘educational’ manner? As a publicly funded art gallery should it have an educational remit? Is the gallery operating to comment on the art within its walls or is it offering comments on the wider context – history, street, city, money, business – that contains it? (See Brian O’Doherty, the White Cube). Or is this an example of state control? As Foucault points out, the museum as a place in which cultural values are authorized and specific behaviours encouraged as a means to produce socially acquired knowledge. If you went to the 2nd year lecture on ‘Museums and Exhibitions’ this specific point was articulated, you may want to refer to your notes taken on the day.

Stuff on this weekend

OLSEN

Sunday 1 March 2009
Hyde Park Picture House, Brudenell Road, Leeds, LS6 Tea & homemade cake (vegan too) from 1.45pm, films start 2pm
£5/4

Olsen is at the Hyde Park Picture House again this Sunday supplying experimental film and video with tea and homemade cake.

This time around Pete McPartlan will be doing a live video and sound performance with his ELOMD system and we'll also be showing new films by Makino Takeshi (with a soundtrack by Jim O'Rourke / Chris Corsano), Stephen Sutcliffe, Joe Mawson, Emily Wardill, Victor Alimpiev, James Holcombe, Pat O'Neill and more. Expect Ian McKellen, psychological case studies, frame lines, a toy aeroplane take-off, throbbing light, seriously out of date film stock and, maybe, Joseph Beuys.

For the almost but not quite complete programme see: http://www.olsenorsen.org/

It's also a PSL closing on Saturday afternoon.

Closing party Saturday 28 February, 2-5pm A collaborative project between PSL (Leeds) and the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London) featuring Nick Cass and Lizzie Hughes / Dave Ronalds and Matt & Ross / Noah Sherwood and Janis Rafailidou / Amy Stephens and Rory Macbeth

Both the above events could be analysed in terms of audience. PSL Project Space Leeds (see map above) is set in the groundfloor of a new development complex. What type of audience is it catering for? Does it encourage a certain type of work? OLSEN is curated by Will Rose, he is very interested in bringing 'expanded cinema' as an art form to select Leeds audiences. He developed the idea when he was in New York, there are similar venues there which cater for very select audiences that have developed a taste for a certain type of work. Probably the most interesting issue here though is a curator taking over an existing semi-commercial film venue and tapping into an existing audience base.