[00:00:00] Hello fellow Exhibitionistas, Joana here. I'm on my own for this last episode of the first season of our podcast because Emily had some personal issues to take care of. She will be back next season when we return in September of this year of 2024. And what a year!
[00:00:29] We have started a podcast with great enthusiasm and some hubris, let's say it, and it paid off. We are ever so glad to be in your presence and what a treat, what an honour. I
[00:00:44] hope you've had as much fun as we have, and that we're able to bring much needed headspace for a different kind of experience. We are not really about escapism, but we try to open
[00:00:56] some new doors of perception. This is a different format, shorter and sweeter so this next episode is kind of a novelty. We've been playing with the idea of producing smaller episodes to be dropped between our regular formats which will keep doing of course. The title of this
[00:01:13] short one is Exhibition etiquette. And no, no, no, no, it's not a FIFA dream from the uptight fifties. If anything, it's quite the opposite. We'll be back after a short summer break. We're already discussing the exhibitions we want to cover which is quite exciting because there
[00:01:32] are a few interesting ones coming up. Meanwhile, during the summer there is Francis Alice at the barbican and you still have time to go see Judish Kaga at the Serpentine and Yoka Ono at the Tate. The ICA is doing a retrospective projection of Marga Hidryhaz films as well,
[00:01:51] and there's always showgun in the Disney channel. I was surprised to love it as much as I did. If you haven't tried it, believe me. Give it a go. That's all for today. I'll be in your lovely
[00:02:03] presence one more time before the summer break. And yes, you are stuck with me. If anything, this episode will prove how crucial Emily is to the podcast. But I hope you have a good time with me nonetheless. I give it a good shot.
[00:02:34] Hello, hi there and welcome back to the special episode of exhibitionistas. Yes, you heard it right. This is not only the last episode of the first season but it's also a different format
[00:02:48] that we're testing out. It would be wonderful to know what you think. So reach out to us on Instagram, exhibitionistas under school, podcast or send us an email. Exhibitionists support at gmail.co
[00:03:03] root there you go. I am Joanna Pialevers and this is the podcast where we visit exhibitions so that you have to. Also that you experience the thrills that delights in a times the buffoddlements, that exhibitions make you feel. This episode is probably much more about the latter.
[00:03:24] This time I'm on my own to bring you this smaller but intense episode we decided to call exhibition etiquette. And let me tell you we're getting real here and we certainly or we
[00:03:38] actually don't want you to think that we don't go through the same doubts you do when you're visiting exhibition spaces, we are also scolded by security guards and we also sometimes feel well not very comfortable. Let's say it but once the embarrassment has subsided,
[00:03:58] this etiquette breaches can be funny stories to tell. They can even become a podcast episode mind you. They can even be weird little parables about the connection between art and light. So that's
[00:04:12] where this episode comes in. I'm sure you're wondering what this episode is about, what the hell is exhibition etiquette? Well this is a time where I will share some of my exhibition wopsies or ones I have witnessed because exhibition spaces are places like no others beyond
[00:04:33] likes and dislikes. And at a time of quickbait follows and like buttons it is a space where Emily and I and all of you are pretty sure exhibitionistas out there find something different. A place where to be
[00:04:53] mindful, introspective while connecting to share difference and creativity in the form of objects of stuff, of projections, of things on plins and things on the wall. They're on that moving for you. You are the one moving through spaces looking at things. Where else do you have this experience?
[00:05:16] However, we know we know exhibition spaces can be a bit high-brow. So at times visiting exhibitions can fill a bit risky and you never know exactly how to behave where to look and how long to stay.
[00:05:30] You suddenly become conscious of your body. It itches. It makes too much noise. Or maybe that's just me. Perhaps you don't feel that you're wearing the right clothes. Anyway, the banana peel on our thumbnail
[00:05:44] represents precisely that this comfort. I would reckon that that's what makes me keep going back. Art is weird and strange and unexpected. It can also seem on the other side of the coin,
[00:05:58] cryptic, elitist, out of reach, and we may feel out of depth. But at the end of the day art is novelty and therefore we're not always equipped to understand it. It gets under our skin ever so slowly
[00:06:15] and personally I have to say I love that feeling. I love the feeling and I'm drawn to things that I don't completely understand but that have given me something that have provided that's first connection and that's what keeps me going. That said, all of us exhibitionistas and
[00:06:35] you exhibitionistas out there because at this point if you're here you're either a full-blown exhibitionista or you are exhibitionist, the curious but all of us have had our exhibition whoopsies which is to say our breaches and exhibition etiquette. So that's it I will dig into it and we'll
[00:06:59] share some of my exhibition whoopsies with you. It's our commercial galleries. These are tricky because they exist solely with the goal of selling artwork but they organize exhibitions so that journalists influencers,
[00:07:22] art critics, scholars and not lovers in general can attend the show even if they have no intention of buying anything. But as I keep telling you there are wonderful places to visit smaller exhibitions,
[00:07:36] always with a nice text about them and a much more intimate environment. I personally love going to galleries as a not writer and curator with my notebook with gathering all the information I can get
[00:07:51] but I also like to go as a spectator just visiting but nothing makes you feel more un-welcome than a private reception out of hours like the one I witnessed when visiting a blue chip gallery in
[00:08:04] Mayfare. When I was earnestly trying to visit an exhibition only to find myself in the middle of a champagne extravagantah at the gallery that the employees knew quite well wasn't meant for me. It was a very obviously a high-profile collector event taking place in the opening
[00:08:25] hours of the gallery which you know let's be honest kind of disruptive the exhibition experience. I was reminded what a gallery is, what it does even though I personally worked in three different
[00:08:39] galleries commercial galleries. I know what they do but usually you don't have receptions at 4pm in the afternoon so you're pretty safe when you go into galleries you know you're just going to see an
[00:08:51] exhibition. Well not this time, so on the topic of being interrupted, snatch the way from our experience of the exhibition so on the topic of over-zealous security guards I think you may remember so this is the first episode of the podcast dedicated to Marina Abramovich's exhibition
[00:09:14] at the Royal Academy. That Emily was scolded by a guard because she was taking pictures of the nude performance and the guards wanted that it was forbidden she hadn't seen the sign and they
[00:09:28] went over her photographs they made her delete the photo she had taken of the performers and they even made her delete the photos in the deleted archive of the phone that she didn't know she had so
[00:09:44] it was a whole thing and in the same exhibition so Marina Abramovich's exhibition at the Royal Academy I went there with a bunch of friends and with my daughter and as we were coming out of the room where
[00:09:59] you were supposed to lie down press your forehead and your crotch against these marble and crystal sculptures a visitor presumed that everything was up for grabs after that so in the other room there was a bathtub filled with dried caramel very strong smell very kind of luscious feeling
[00:10:24] of purification and one visitor next to us just put their hand in the bathtub we all kind of gossiped internally obviously you don't make comments about other people's behaviors and exhibitions
[00:10:40] and if you do please don't but the guard obviously sternly told the person to take their hand out of the bathtub so this is a conundrum at a time when art and exhibitions are becoming progressively
[00:10:56] more interactive how can you know when to touch and when not to and this is a real question I at times confused I don't know if I'm supposed to everything tells me I'm supposed to go into a space walk
[00:11:10] on something but I'm not sure so Michael Dunrull is if there's a sign encouraging you to touch do it what you interact with it in any form otherwise you really must ask the guard
[00:11:26] you really must ask I mean the worst thing that can happen is someone telling you no and that's okay it's not the other of the world when you ask it when you make your desires and wishes be known
[00:11:41] you feel more empowered in this situation if you let you run the space and you earn your experience because when you feel uncomfortable in exhibition spaces you don't own the experience of
[00:11:51] the artwork and that's a shame and that's why I'm we're doing this episode we need to own our experiences while being respectful so the sacred status of the artwork is also what is making climate activists throw paint and glue at them that's why this is happening because
[00:12:11] it kind of makes us ponder it makes us think it shocks us because there is a sort of aura of the artwork there is a sort of status that you can't quite define and we may talk about this
[00:12:26] at the end of the set as a note and this is not new you may know this but Mary Richardson slashed a painting by Velasquez called Venus with a mirror in the protest against the imprisonment
[00:12:41] of one of her fellow suffragettes Emma Lene and cursed so this was not throwing paint at a painting covered by glass as climate activists are doing now this was really slashing cutting into the painting
[00:12:59] that still bears the marks of that protest anyway the serpentine gallery so this is again maybe the theme of being talked to or being asked something that is a bit unexpected in exhibition spaces
[00:13:20] I want to see the Jydik Chicago show at the serpentine and the serpentine is a free museum so London contrary to a lot of big cities there's a lot of museums that are free the national gallery
[00:13:35] for example is free and it is such a great feeling can you imagine your intro folgis square you go up the stairs and then hop a second later your in front of a vango it's such a feeling
[00:13:51] of accessibility that kind of breaks these this feeling of elitism that sometimes art can inspire in people so the serpentine is the same thing the entrance is absolutely spectacular it's a small door
[00:14:08] it's a very interesting building in the middle of a high part what the edge of high part there's a small door and there's a wall beyond the door and the colors they chose and the sort of cursive
[00:14:21] font they chose to just write Jydik Chicago is so beautiful and exhilarating I was really happy to go into the exhibition but I was met as I was going in to the right hand side of the
[00:14:37] door I was met by someone holding an iPad asking if I had booked a ticket I was a bit confused and I presumed that the person in front of me should have understood that I was confused because
[00:14:51] I've been many, many times to the serpentine and you go in you just go when you visit the exhibition usually people don't ask you anything so I said no looking a bit confused and my no was met with a
[00:15:03] faint smile and that's okay as if they were kind of allowing me to go in anyway so there were no explanations so I felt strange for a good five minutes because you know good students me and
[00:15:17] also being a curator I kept thinking about it and thinking would it help them if we've worked is it for statistics the survey of some kind should I do it but why would it be relevant what are
[00:15:29] they trying to do there's this come from the pandemic where you had to book your slots so is not to go beyond the number of people accepted in a space personally there's always a part
[00:15:39] of me who feels guilty of some vague criminal thing when seeing a police woman or a policeman you know that's just how it is and there's always a part of us who feel strange in a place of
[00:15:53] quote unquote high art because at times it feels like a place of should's should I like it should I feel something should I stay longer I don't know why visual arts perverse at strong feelings but maybe that's
[00:16:08] why we do the podcast let's talk about art the way we talk about films or Billy I miss his new album and be nice be nice and museum galleries you know just be welcoming maybe it's the Iberian in
[00:16:21] me but just say welcome to the self-antime when you ask a question I'm pretty sure it was necessary to ask me that but at least explain it or make me feel comfortable afterwards that's it
[00:16:32] so another major exhibition was for me was when I visited a much anticipated exhibition at least for yours truly Rachel Whitebridge show at the tape written a few years back so Rachel Whitebridge
[00:16:49] works are often negative spaces okay so the most famous one that you may have heard about all that you may know very well is house of 1993 so this was in the public space it was in the street
[00:17:05] and she filled the empty spaces of a real house with concrete that is she filled the living areas such as the living room the bathroom the kitchen with this material that dried up
[00:17:21] and so what you had was a sort of a sculpture the size of a house so this was a real negative of real spaces in a sort of area where there were no houses around anymore because the
[00:17:36] neighborhood was being torn down this was on growth rate in the borough of tower hamlets and it was a commission for a public space production company called Art Angel I love the name and I love
[00:17:49] Art Angel they do incredible projects and it caused an uproar so the local council called it a monstrosity and the art critics loved it so it certainly made an involuntary statement
[00:18:04] about the gap between regular folks and the art world if you will but perhaps it made an even stronger point through the graffiti that someone drew on it asking the question what for you know
[00:18:17] spelled WOT to which someone else re-replied why not you know so you know maybe that's what this is all about accepting that challenge of being challenged this might be the secret of visual arts
[00:18:31] and any arts in general you know beyond social gaps so right to what reads work is a work that you should see from all angles she does have pieces that go into museums so in interior spaces with
[00:18:43] beautiful details of the material she uses the plaster tainted resin they're really interesting a very kind of opaque almost mute objects however when I went into the exhibition space really excited after having looked at some of the trees they had at the entrance with experiments with
[00:19:06] drawings with smaller little sculptures there were quite quite interesting very exciting I go and walk towards the first sculpture that I could see and as I walk towards it and try to examine it
[00:19:20] the alarm goes off everyone looks at me so I felt really self-conscious and I probably searched out loud oops and I felt really awful but then as I stayed in the exhibition I realized that
[00:19:35] everyone was triggering the alarms there were over zealus with the placement of the sensors and so you can get close to the to the to the sculptures you can really examine them and in some sculptures particularly this big library you should be able to go in and again
[00:19:54] I was not sure whether I should go in or not I wanted to ask the security guards but at by that point the electronic symphony was so befuddling so this combobulating that I didn't want to ask anything it wasn't experience that was completely undermined by those damn alarms
[00:20:15] and actually I spoke with a few friends about the experience and they told me yes I know what is going on it was the next edition of the rope sea bears the question you know to what point do
[00:20:28] you sacrifice the experience of the artwork in the name of protecting it that is a real question and in this country health and safety is a huge thing and it is talked about you know in the
[00:20:41] curating world we know it is difficult to do a certain kind of performance here and there's a lot of rules and there's a lot of challenges so that was my very strange experience at Rachel
[00:20:54] worked with ex-efficient and I'm pretty sure for those of you who live in London or who came to London at that time I'm sure you remember this so the next one is just a question I mean
[00:21:07] let's be honest how many times have I looked at wires, signs, appliances of all kinds thinking it was a not work more than I can count I mean the beauty of a fire extinguisher you know
[00:21:22] has been brought to my attention in ex-efficient spaces let me tell you and that's okay and it is kind of awesome that suddenly when you leave a museum everything becomes over defined there's something about being stimulated to look at things that is brought about in the best of
[00:21:45] situations when you visit ex-efficient so why not you know just look at a lamp they're beautiful they're incredible pieces of engineering so this is the last one and this happened when I was working
[00:21:59] at a commercial gallery so we did lots of art fairs and in these situations this is a professional happening where curators collectors some people from the general public attend art fairs
[00:22:17] where we have a booth I mean each commercial gallery has a booth they pay for and they expose lots of artists that they try to sell so it's a place to sell work but also to promote the artists
[00:22:29] that you're working with your roster about this let's say so it is an annual gathering of people from the art world so you see your colleagues you see the people you want to promote your artists
[00:22:40] to that you want to sell them to so you end up going out how going for dinners and sleeping very little let's face it and having to look your best the following day for clients we had a sculptor
[00:22:55] of mirage and on the day of the opening I had a terrible suspicion that my lipstick was all wrong probably on my teeth I could not I could tell you this I could not venture a smile I was I was
[00:23:08] an a panic for some reason you know you get bit nervous in these events so I turned to the sculpture to a quote unquote check my maker which is what it looked from the outside but I was just an
[00:23:20] a panic and I wanted to look good and do not be self-conscious while trying to sell an artwork so once I had finished I turned around and the gallerist was waiting for me to tell me that an artwork
[00:23:32] was not above her mirror and how they're I diminished the aura of the piece by checking my maker bonnet I can tell you that today I make a point in checking my reflection on every reflective
[00:23:46] surface I can find on an artwork but part of me also understands a little bit with the gallerist said Stockholm syndrome maybe but I think that this little incident illustrates very well that artworks are things they're stuff and whether you synchronize the stuff or not
[00:24:07] the pens are lot on the context on the behavior around them and on how you cherish and you present the objects themselves I just read two very interesting texts that touch upon this subject
[00:24:22] so this is around the issue that the Danish roots painting of the picture emitile raised a few years ago with the Whitney Byania. Danish roots is a painter and emitile that you decided to paint
[00:24:36] was the 14 year old black boy who was tortured and killed for allegedly flirting with a white woman who by the way laid said that it's she kind of made up the whole story so you may remember us
[00:24:49] referring to this in the Arya Dean episode this was a painting of emitile in his coffin his open coffin with his face completely this figured by the attack a number of black artists demanded
[00:25:06] that the painting be retrieved and even destroyed because they felt this possessed of their own story of their own history at least that's what Arya Dean explained so this quarrel highlights
[00:25:19] well first and foremost then we need to say this over and over again the deep pain of black communities in the western world first and foremost but it also kind of highlights the spectrum of relationships
[00:25:36] with the artwork itself as an object you know how powerful is it especially compared to real pain in real life which is what Maggie Nelson asks in her book on freedom. On the other hand what
[00:25:51] is the painting saying and who painted might also be important so to what extent is the painter holding some form of reparative truth in it asks Lauren Elkin in the great book of monsters
[00:26:06] what is this object and what power or lack thereof is there an object where you can check your makeup or at the other end of the spectrum with which you can have the deepest most so
[00:26:20] wrenching experience within an exhibition space such as the weirdness of visual arts and to me it has nothing to do with status it has nothing to do with the elite with being how high-brow
[00:26:35] or fighting the high-brow with a low-brow with a middle-brow it really is an experience that is available to you there and it's an experience that can be very very meaningful and it can be an
[00:26:49] experience that is very very undermining there is no obligation to like or dislike actually I think we have argued a lot in the past episodes against this idea of liking or disliking of adhering because
[00:27:03] it's part of your aesthetic education it's much more than that and actually even negative experiences of exhibitions can be incredibly important to you they can awaken you to something that's important to you and that that particular negative or a less interesting or a disconnected
[00:27:25] experience might clarify for you so there it is here I am talking about exhibitions again that's what we love doing and that's what we will keep on doing in the next season
[00:27:37] this is the end of the episode it's a wrap up for the season I'm a bit emotional I'm very happy that I get to spend this time with you and I hope you enjoyed spending this time with me
[00:27:50] and with us throughout this new season of this new podcast that we're enjoying so much doing and that will come back so stay tuned have a wonderful wonderful summer and don't forget visit exhibitions loads of them support your local galleries or go to big museums or do both
[00:28:11] take care have a wonderful time