It’s been a while since our last post, but it doesn’t mean we’ve been slacking off. We’re just over a week away from the opening of MOCRA’s next exhibition, Good Friday.
Coming Soon!
The exhibition opens on Sunday, February 15, with a free public reception from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. If you are in the St. Louis area, please stop by.
More information about the exhibition, include sample images, is available on MOCRA’s website.
It’s been busy behind the scenes as we undertake the various tasks related to a new exhibition: publicity, building out parts of the gallery, deciding on where each work will hang, writing the texts for the wall labels and didactics, and myriad other details.
Juan Gonzalez' "Don't Mourn, Consecrate" ... installation in progress
For instance, this exhibition involves recreating a couple of works that haven’t been installed for some years. One by the late artist Juan González, titled Don’t Mourn, Consecrate, originally hung in the street-level windows of New York University’s Grey Art Gallery. It was last shown in MOCRA’s 1994-95 exhibition Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS. The photo at right demonstrates one of the many uses for bubble-wrap, here serving to help us visualize the size and position of the stats of AIDS-related deaths that will hang to the right of the image.
Rejected clocks.
Sometimes exhibition installations can send us on unexpected shopping expeditions. One work by the late artist Adrian Kellard includes a small kitchen wall clock. However, when the work arrived at MOCRA several years ago the clock did not make the journey. All we have to go on is a picture of the work in the artist’s studio. How difficult, you might ask, is it to find a clock of suitable size, style, and (significantly for the work), sound?
It turns out to be surprisingly difficult, involving rummaging around local resale shops, calling stores in the Yellow Pages, and searching on E-bay and numerous other websites. In the end, though, after a few disappointments, we found one that fit the bill.
The clock in situ.
Over the next week (in theater it’s called “Hell Week,” and that is apt for museums as well) I’ll see if I can’t get a few of the other staff members to pause long enough to share their observations and anecdotes.
In the meantime, please check out the MOCRA website for more information on Good Friday, and come by on February 15.
–David Brinker, Assistant Director
Shifting Perspectives
A frequent visitor comment about MOCRA, is how distinctive a venue it is for the display of art: the lofty 30-foot ceiling in the nave gallery, the twelve intimate side-chapel galleries, the hints of stained glass color that leak out from behind the window shades. It is as if the building has a memory of its previous incarnation as a chapel, a memory that imbues the space with an inviting atmosphere of contemplation and calm.
From a curatorial perspective, the space is a mixed blessing. There is a surprising amount of running wall space, yet the chapel’s configuration lends itself to some exhibitions but not others. For instance, a natural approach to organizing our upcoming exhibition would be to install the works following the sequence of events of Good Friday. But the side chapel galleries will not accommodate works larger than 6 feet wide — and one of the first works in sequence is nearly 7 feet wide!
What about grouping works by theme? This show naturally includes quite a few works that reference the Crucifixion. Should they be grouped together to allow easy comparison, or should they be distributed throughout the gallery to avoid monotony? Here again the sizes of the works provide a partial guide, as larger works had to be installed in the nave gallery. Style and media also play a role — we seek a visually harmonious installation as well a logical one.
We have made one significant adjustment to the nave gallery which will come as a surprise to visitors familiar with the museum: there is now a wall bifurcating the central gallery, effectively creating two galleries out of one large space. It takes some getting used to, but also offers a whole new way of conceiving an installation at MOCRA. Just to give you a little taste of the effect, here is a picture of the wall — sans artwork — along with a similar view from our 1994-95 exhibition Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS:
A new wall inhabits in MOCRA's nave gallery. The lift at right is not an installation piece.
You are seeing a glimpse of Doug DePice’s Jesus in Central America – First Station of the Cross there on the left.
Installation view, "Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS" (1994-95).
Stop by this Sunday, February 15, and see for yourself how we installed this exhibition. Do you agree with our choices, or would you have approached things differently?
–David Brinker, Assistant Director