gallery-going

On Thursday evening, I stuck around for the openings of three new shows in the Arnheim, Bakalar and Paine galleries. They were, respectively, For Emily, Astatic, and Inside the Painter’s Studio.
The first of which, For Emily, struck me for the artist's use of hair as a drawing material. The work was very personal, and very tragic. The artist invited us into something that was obviously very dear to her and very painful, and it was done delicately and with tact. It was a very respectful exhibition.
The second show, Astatic, struck me for it’s melding of animation with installation - which drew me into the work a lot more than some gallery animation shows I’ve seen. I once went to see an animation show at Harvard, and you could tell that the curators had a hard time trying to make it interesting/appealing to the audience, in these respects. I think the decision to include physical objects in the gallery changed the space entirely, and that having that additional dimension made the entire exhibit function better as a whole.
The last one was a cool; I’ll give it that. Inside the Painter’s Studio left me wishing that Fig would recreate the studios of other kinds of artists - artists working in a wide range of media, for example. I feel like that would be more interesting for me to see, personally. The concept of documenting the artist’s experience in making art is very interesting to me, and something I might explore in my next series. In many ways it was like a small-scale open studios, in an imagined space where all these artists were linked together. Very cool stuff.

Thursday, February 10th. Observation Hours: 1.