The power of display: A history of exhibition installations at the Museum of Modern Art
| This chapter points out the importance of exhibition design and proposes that art exhibition becomes more and more significant to the public. People start to pay more attention on some details in the exhibition besides the art work itself, such as the atmosphere of the museum and gallery, the arrangement of the art works, and the special installation places in the space. | “Exhibition design has evolved as a new discipline, as an apex of all media and powers of communication and of collective efforts. The combined means of visual communication constitutes a remarkable complexity: language as visible printing or as sound, pictures as symbols, paintings, and photographs, sculptural media, materials and surfaces, color, light, movement (of the display as well as the visitor), films, diagrams, and charts. The total application of all plastic and psychological means (more than anything else) makes exhibition design an new language.——“Aspects of Design of Exhibition and Museums”(1961) — p xix | Why it is indispensable to have a good representation of art works? Why we cannot just display them in a clear order in a wide space? Why we have to design an exhibition? Those questions in my mind drags me into this new study of the knowledge of designing an exhibition. In my opinion, a good and appealing exhibition is not only about showing art works but also about how to make viewers interact with the art work and attracts their attention. If I walk in a museum that only has paintings or drawings hanging on the wall without any other installations in the space, I might just give a cursory glance at them by walking pass because there is no highlight that grabs my eyes immediately and makes me want to have more conversation with it. |
| The author also declares that the use of the space and ways to display the art work are really dainty. Space in a museum is like the battleground for soldiers. The essential point of winning the war is how well they know the terrain in order to arrange their troops in a most efficient way. Therefore, for the exhibition designers, the whole museum space is their front line, and their mission is to know every single feet of the space and devise the best way to display the art work depending on different element and effects, such as the environmental light of the space, the truly useful area, and the area where they can put an installation. | For instance, The author in the book talks about the exhibition designs of Frederick Kiesler. He is a typical example of how to use a limited space to create a very functional and interesting show. “At Guggenheim’s request, Kiesler created four exhibition areas: a painting “library” and study area, a Surrealist gallery, an abstract art gallery, and a kinetic gallery. Throughout these galleries were multiples of Kiesler’s “chair”, which were used as a single unit or combined with identical units to create variations of painting and sculpture pedestals, chairs, sofas, and table”(p8). | In Surrealist Gallery, Kiesler found that this space is darker than other area of the museum because there is no natural light from outside. When he sat on the floor, an image of a tunnel where the train will pass through and this became to his design idea as well. He made two curving display walls on each side of the room. All the art works are hanging in different angles depending on the size and curvature of the wall. If the small painting is placed on the bottom of the wall, it will be shown in a upswept angle. On the other hand, if the painting is on the top of the wall, it will toward down. In the middle of the gallery, there are some Kiesler’s chair that people can sit and enjoy the art work quietly. Also, “the lighting was engineered so that half of the painting were lit half the time and where every two minutes a recording of the roar of a train sounded”(p11). The whole gallery is kind of an installation because Kiesler redesigned the original showing space and put in some interesting elements that viewers can interact with the work. |
