Public Art Galleries Research Articles

A Momument to the Unloved: A Conversation on Exhausted Appearances in Public Art

Over the last years, visual artist Henriette Heise has installed two temporary public sculptures entitled The Flanet (flat planet) (2019 and 2023) in parks outside public art galleries in Denmark. Although presented in urban space, these round, flat sculptures are easy to overlook because they materially blend in with their surroundings. In this conversation, Heise and art historian Mathias Danbolt discuss the expectations of visibility and legibility in discourses of public art with a starting point in Heise’s The Flanets that she describes as sculptures that are seemingly “dressing up to disappear.” Following Heise’s proposal to approach The Flanets as “monuments to the unloved,” Danbolt and Heise reflect on the conditions for public sculpture that engage with feelings of exhaustion and hopelessness in the face of planetary crises.

A forgotten collector: Archdeacon Smythe and his collection of British watercolours in New Zealand

Francis Henry Dumville Smythe (1873–1966), a humble clergyman from England, spent a lifetime amassing his private collection of British watercolours. During the 1950s, he decided to gift the bulk of them to two art institutions in New Zealand – Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the National Art Gallery in Wellington. They were welcomed with open arms and celebrated as “the finest collection of water colour pictures in the Southern Hemisphere.” However, they soon fell out of favour as shifting aesthetic tastes and calls for a new national identity dominated the art scene in New Zealand during the latter half of the twentieth century. This paper will examine Smythe’s collecting habits and tastes in art, as well as the formation, gifting and reception of the collection in Wellington and Dunedin. It is based on two chapters from the author’s PhD thesis “A Matter of Taste: The Fate of the Archdeacon Smythe Collection of British Watercolours in New Zealand” (2021).

‘715 haven street: art looks back’: the archival question of art resistance for abolitionist futures in a pacified present

ABSTRACT In this article, I bring together the archive of institutional activism of Niara Sudarkasa in the U.S. and the posthumous impact of activist and public administrator Marielle Franco. The 1970s historical sources show Sudarkasa’s institutional solidarity with students and faculty in the creation of one of the first Africana Studies departments in the U.S. Reading them, I articulate an ethos for the curation ‘715 Haven Street: Art Looks Back,’ a public digital art gallery comprised of art and history found in the DAAS Papers (Department of Afroamerican and African Studies) housed in the Bentley Library’s digital and physical archives. The analysis of the primary sources is guided by an engagement with the ‘Marielle Effect,’ generating a historical parameter for Abolitionist solidarity between American, Brazilian, Latin American, African American, Diasporic, and ally scholarly communities. The discussion of these parameters is embedded in my discussion of the concept of pacification, a phenomenon of colonial and post-colonial policing that survives through the perpetuation of an extra-judicial policing impetus articulated along race, identity, legality, and sexual legitimacy of subjects.

메타버스 전시환경내 알파세대를 위한 어포던스 요소에 관한 연구

Due to the global spread of the COVID-19 virus, virtual exhibitions based on untact have significantly increased in museums and art galleries. In order for the alpha generation as a new consumers to use metaverse exhibitions smoothly and effectively, adequate affordances based on behavior guidance should be provided in metaverse exhibition spaces, but research on this topic is lacking. In this study, all national museums and public art galleries in Korea were surveyed, and each affordances was evaluated based on the analysis conditions for the alpha generation extracted through prior research according to the concept of affordances by Hartson. As a result, while functional affordances were mostly met in virtual exhibitions, there were some limitations in physical and sensory affordances that could hinder the smooth use of metaverse exhibitions by the alpha generation, especially considering the lack of supply compared to demand. In addition, limitations were found due to the fact that it was conducted on a single medium. This study is significant in that it applies affordances to metaverse exhibition environments from the perspective of the alpha generation and proposes behavior guidance that they can use smoothly.

Preparations for Landing—Paemanu: Tauraka Toi

Since 2018, a kin group of Kāi Tahu contemporary artists called Paemanu has worked collaboratively with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (DPAG)—established in 1884 and home of the oldest art collection in Aotearoa New Zealand—to see Māori values and concepts introduced into and intersect at the art institution. The group’s goals have been realised through the collaborative permanent collection exhibition Hurahia ana kā Whetū: Unveiling the Stars at DPAG (June 2021– April 2023 ); the enhanced role of the DPAG curatorial intern; the exhibition He reka te Kūmara (November 2021–March 2022) by emerging Māori curators; the establishment of the Paemanu Art Collection; and Paemanu’s self-determined exhibition at DPAG, Paemanu: Tauraka Toi—A Landing Place (December 2021–April 2022). This article discusses and celebrates the ways Kāi Tahu Māori contemporary visual culture has been elevated throughout DPAG for the first time in the institution’s history. It describes the tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) by Kāi Tahu Māori artists to change up the gallery experience at DPAG so that Mana Whenua (the people of the land) are finally visible and are sensed throughout.

Investigating the potential of EDA data from biometric wearables to inform inclusive design of the built environment

This paper presents a pilot of a method which measures quantitative biometric data to understand the emotional response of people to their physical environment. The aim of the audit method is to address the problem of lack of accessibility of public buildings for those with hidden disabilities. People with invisible disabilities such as Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD, Autism) sometimes feeling forced to withdraw from public spaces and communities and unfamiliar or busy environments such as art galleries can be particularly problematic (Amaze, 2018). As part of the Audit, data is collected using a wearable biometric device that is mapped against internal location. In this study the EDA (Electrodermal Activity) Audit was trialed with participants with ASD at a public art gallery in UK. The results reveal that participants with ASD experienced a greater increase in stress level compared to the neurotypical control participants. Areas where noticeable ‘peaks’ of stress were recorded usually had a restricted view or required human interaction. Comparison of GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) data with questionnaire information gathered before and after visiting the gallery also implies that the participants with ASD were less able to articulate their emotional response to spaces. We discuss the development of an EDA Audit method that could provide knowledge to help designers envision spaces that are more inclusive.

Solarpunk Futures

Utopian Studies, Futures, and Anticipatory Studies all focus, if in different ways, on the past, present, and (alternative) futures. Utopian narratives anticipate, to cite Abensour, “what is different, the wish for the advent of a radical alterity here and now.”1 A tool that all disciplines use is storytelling—utopias as narratives by definition, Futures and Anticipatory Studies as critical and inquisitive tools. The Solarpunk Futures game taps into these disciplines by creatively exploring still-possible (Solarpunk) or radically new worlds and societies (utopia).The Solarpunk Surf Club is an artists’ collective that has dedicated its work to the creative, collective, and tangible imagining of our futures since 2020. Their first project, Græn R∞m, transformed a public art gallery in Madison, Wisconsin (US), into a space for utopian (re)creation. The “living room,” based on the entertainment industry’s “green room,” allowed visitors to digest art, think, read, and create new forms of (temporal) collectivity. As the Solarpunk Surf Club’s practice is rooted in the intersection between digital media and egalitarian social practices, surfing as a metaphor for the perpetual, flexible yet creative and democratic ways of accessing information and creativity, of communication and networking, seems apt. “Green room” in surfer parlance (so I learned) aptly designates the hollow that forms inside the wave just before it breaks. Artist Gary Hill describes surfing in the green room as a “moment of ecstasy—being inside the question that asks of itself while revealing itself.”2 Mittenthal links this moment to Heidegger’s understanding of clearing,Art, creativity, and (self-)transformation emerge from this open place, a space for contemplation, excavation, and, as I would add, utopian desire. These creative and “clearing,” perhaps grounding, processes are also one of the foundations of the collective’s next project, Solarpunk Futures, a beautiful tabletop card game, a work of art that creates moments of hope, inspiration and contemplation in the participants. Inspired by the principles of Solarpunk and social ecology, it seeks to replace the nihilism of cyberpunk and the trappings of the Anthropocene with “ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community.”4 The game uses storytelling as a way of imagining new and different futures in a collective and empowering way—it is your story you are telling, not the story of others. George Monbiot underscores the need to tell different and new stories in our age of the Anthropocene:Rob Hopkins in From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want (2019) reminds us too that the imagination is and can be an accelerator for change by asking what if—change can happen. His book begins with a story of how things turned out okay. Each chapter poses a “what if” question: What if we took play seriously? What if school nurtured young imaginations? What if our leaders prioritized the cultivation of imagination? Hopkins addresses education, civic planning, politics, healthcare, exploring the role of imagination and the difference it can make to think outside of the box.6The Solarpunk Futures and Hopkins apply what UNESCO calls “Futures Literacy”—a creative and practical use of storytelling not only to make the participants more resilient for future developments but also to empower them by imagining their future roles and actions. Futures Literacy takes its cue from Anticipation and Futures Studies. The Futures Literacy Laboratories use action-learning and collective storytelling to make change possible—if you can imagine a different future (out-of-the-box thinking) where you are a participant, you can actively co-create this future. The principles here are collaborative storytelling and co-creation again, in short, practical utopianism.7The Solarpunk Surf Club see Solarpunk “as visionary utopian politics and aesthetic that critically engages the reality of capitalist catastrophe while maintaining a radical optimism about humanity’s hopes for a communal, ecological future.”8 The game taps into this. Through collective storytelling, and utopian desire, the participants access who they are and who they want to be in the future, and in what kind of society. The different cards provide the basis for this imagining:The second edition of the game has introduced the aspect of remembrance to acknowledge how change was brought about under great sacrifices and with great energy.As it is a tabletop game, Solarpunk Futures is also not reliant on technology. The artists’ edition is lavishly beautiful and is currently distributed to the kickstarter funders of the first edition. A second edition will be available in summer 2022 but readers can also download the cards, and a game book free from the website.10

Evaluation of a gallery-based Arts Engagement program for depression

ABSTRACT Objective Engagement with the arts has gained recognition as a promising avenue for addressing the social determinants that contribute to and maintain mental health concerns. The aim of the present study was to determine the impact of a gallery-based Arts Engagement program specifically for individuals living with depression. Methods Thirty two participants were randomly assigned to two terms of the program. Individual interviews and the group-based visual matrix format were utilised to generate qualitative data, which was subjected to thematic analysis. Results Participants identified that the program helped them feel more included, positively impacted their sense of identity, and counteracted negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioural patterns. Furthermore, the gallery, as a culturally important, non-medical institution, acted as a powerful destigmatizing agent. Conclusion Our results demonstrate how community-based, non-clinical art programs may be promising in promoting recovery from depression. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: Social prescribing has been shown to improve positive aspects of wellbeing, such as social connection and self-esteem, while also decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety. Social prescribing provides an important augmentation to traditional psychological intervention. Engagement with the arts is a promising avenue for addressing the social determinants that contribute to and maintain mental health concerns. What this topic adds: Gallery-based programs can support wellbeing, through social inclusion, connectedness, and hopefulness. Gallery-based programs have the potential to counteract negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioural patterns. Basing programs in culturally important, non-medical institutions, such as public art galleries, can serve as a destigmatizing agent and contribute towards self-esteem and belonging.

Apelles’ Aphrodite Anadyomene: the itinerary of a sacred gift

Abstract Recent scholarly efforts to identify the antecedents of modern concepts, practices and institutions of cultural heritage in Greco-Roman antiquity appropriately meet the research need to place ancient collecting in dialogue with the current discourse of museum and heritage studies. Our knowledge of Greek and Roman ways of dealing with the artefacts kept in sacred spaces, however, invites us to be cautious when approaching ancient sanctuaries as predecessors of modern institutions such as public art galleries and museums. Through the specific case of the ‘Aphrodite Anadyomene’ painted by Apelles, this paper proposes some reflections on several aspects of collecting in ancient sacred spaces that remain controversial: the impact of celebrated masterpieces of art on Greek and Roman sanctuaries; ancient art tourism; Greco-Roman views on cultural property and its displacement; and ancient attitudes to conservation.

Basket Case!

Queensland has some 400 public museums and art galleries. Large or small, these are all dedicated to caring for their part of what is often called the ‘distributed national collection’ and to permanently documenting a segment of our history — social, natural or otherwise. Each of us who steps inside such an institution to help in this effort is liable to become lost to this world for the rest of our working life. We are all, in some sense, collectors, and we tend to be very loyal to ‘our’ subject matter.

Selfies in the public art gallery and copyright permissions

Public art galleries have traditionally prohibited visitors from photographing exhibited artworks. Today, however, photography in the gallery is invariably permitted and commonly encouraged, including visitors taking selfies. Copyright law and practice has generally responded to new techniques of reproduction, such as etchings and photographs, and how those technologies are used in commerce and general society. The selfie is a cultural phenomenon that invites re-examination of some areas of copyright law and practice, notably, permitted acts. Has copyright law, in particular freedom of panorama, kept pace with the phenomenon of selfies in the gallery? This article seeks to answer that question and also considers whether the photography policies of leading public galleries present better ways of engaging with the selfie phenomenon than does the current law.

Research on Energy Saving and Emission Reduction of Ecological Environment of Modern Green Art Museum

The art gallery is a public place that exhibits works of art, cultivates popular culture and art, and cultivates sentiment. The art gallery is the embodiment of a city’s cultural level, and it is also important spiritual support for facing a well-off society and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The development of a city is concentrated in pieces of unique and charming artworks, which are witnesses to the times’ changes. Therefore, designing an art museum that can meet all cultural functions and be energy-saving, green, and environmentally friendly becomes more and more important. Based on this research background, the thesis conducts environmental protection design of the art museum to realize the control of the project site planning and the unique climate adaptability design of the art museum, which helps to ensure that the design project from the macro to the micro-level better reflects the energy-saving design. The effect plays a positive role in promoting the development of art gallery design theory and is of great significance to improving the practice methods of green public art gallery design.

‘A collection of mere travesties of time-honoured originals’

Abstract In 1909 the city of Newcastle was offered the bequest of J.A.D. Shipley. Containing 2,500 paintings attributed to masters such as Rembrandt and Raphael, and linked to a sum of £30,000 for museum accommodation, it caused a media stir. C. B. Stevenson, curator of the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, reported that the collection contained many ‘feeble imitations . . . unworthy of the names attached to them.’1 Nevertheless, he recommended its acceptance, because of the benefit it would confer on the Laing. But Newcastle council rejected Stevenson’s advice, favouring external reports to support its verdict, which was based on financial concerns and on the negative responses of prominent citizens. The Laing’s appeals were disregarded and Gateshead obtained the bequest, leading to the creation of the town’s first public art gallery, the Shipley Art Gallery, in 1917. The Shipley case is here discussed as an example of misunderstanding between cultural institutions and political structures, and of the power of local elites to raise questions regarding authorship and authenticity.

Telling My Tale: Reflections on the Process of Visual Storytelling for Children and Youth Living With Cystic Fibrosis and Muscular Dystrophy in Canada

Storytelling is perennial to the human condition. We all tell stories and we all bear witness to the stories of others. According to narrative scholars, only certain stories are valorized in contemporary culture, while others go unrecognized. The inability to recognize ourselves and identities in contemporary cultural narratives can contribute to the silencing and muting of certain lives and voices. Young people with life-shortening conditions, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) and muscular dystrophy (MD), are rarely afforded the opportunity to have their stories heard and affirmed in contemporary cultural spaces. In this article, we reflect on the methodological process of engaging in a study known as “Telling My Tale,” that is, a storybook study featuring narratives and artwork by young people with CF and MD. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, we critically reflect upon the methodological lessons, advances, and innovations we have learned, including theoretical musings, the process of exhibiting some of the artwork in a public art gallery, challenges faced along the way, analytical conundrums, and the role of technology in artistic creation for participants with limited hand function. In so doing, we hope to further methodological and theoretical development and innovation in narrative and artistic traditions to better center the voices, lives, tales, and experiences of young people with life-shortening conditions.

Digital Engagement in a Contemporary Art Gallery: Transforming Audiences

This paper examines a curatorial approach to digital art that acknowledges the symbiotic relationship between the digital and other more traditional art practices. It considers some of the issues that arise when digital content is delivered within a public gallery and how specialist knowledge, audience expectations and funding impact on current practices. From the perspective of the Digital Curator at MOSTYN, a contemporary gallery and visual arts centre in Llandudno, North Wales, it outlines the practical challenges and approaches taken to define what audiences want from a public art gallery. Human-centred design processes and activity systems analysis were adopted by MOSTYN with a community of practice—the gallery visitors—to explore the challenges of integrating digital technologies effectively within their curatorial programme and keep up with the pace of change needed today. MOSTYN’s aim is to consider digital holistically within their exhibition programme and within the cannon of 21st century contemporary art practice. Digital curation is at the heart of their model of engagement that offers new and existing audience insights into the significance of digital art within contemporary art practice.

Animating ‘The Blank Page’: Exhibitions as Feminist Community Adult Education

Public museums and art galleries in Canada are highly authoritative, and trusted knowledge and identity mobilising institutions, whose exhibitions are frequently a ‘blank page’ of erasure, silencing, and marginalisation, in terms of women’s histories, experiences, and contributions. Feminist exhibitions are a response to this, but few in Canada have been explored as practices of feminist community adult education. I begin to address this gap with an analysis of two feminist exhibitions: In Defiance: Indigenous Women Define Themselves, curated by Mohawk-Iroquois artist, Lindsay Katsitsakatste Delaronde, at the Legacy Gallery, University of Victoria; and Fashion Victims: The Pleasures & Perils of Dress in the 19th Century, curated by Ryerson Professor Alison Matthews David, at the Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto. Although dissimilar in form, focus, and era, these exhibitions act as powerful intentional pedagogical processes of disruption and reclamation, using images and storytelling to animate, re-write and reimagine the ‘blank pages’ of particular and particularised histories and identities. Through the centrality of women’s bodies and practices of violence, victimization, and women’s power, these exhibitions encourage the feminist oppositional imagination, dialogic looking, gender consciousness, and a visual literacy of hope and possibility. Yet, as women’s stories become audible through the very representational vehicles and institutional spaces used to silence them, challenges remain.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A PUBLIC ART GALLERY AS AN EDUCATION CENTRE IN KUCHING, SARAWAK

Building a Public Art Gallery is a dream of many individuals in Kuching, Sarawak. Kuching possesses colourful multicultural identities and has been producing different types of art that reflect the uniqueness of these identities. However, until now no public art gallery serves as a platform for Sarawakian artists, particularly in Kuching, to display their artworks and crafts and at the same time educate the community. This paper compiles the literature review on the importance of a public art gallery as an education centre for the society. The data was collected using the qualitative method, focusing on in-depth interviews to identify and analyse why a public art gallery is vital in Kuching, Sarawak, like a lot of other states in Malaysia. The informants were selected by purposive sampling and then analysed using Data Analysis Lamnek. This paper analyses the informants’ perceptions. It concludes with a suggestion of a temporary public art gallery in Kuching, Sarawak and some future studies.

An insurgent curatorial strategy: using dialogue and collaboration to create meaning in public art galleries and museums

My insurgent curatorial strategy incorporates theory around dialogue and is used to develop a participatory and collaborative process that gives voice to those who are marginalised and/or disfranchised and are suppressed by dominant social narratives. My strategy demonstrates how art galleries and museums can function as sites for community building using participatory and collaborative processes. This article examines an art project that explored how artists, exhibition collaborators and a curator/participant become co-creators in the development of a unique creative/learning process. This strategy asserts that art making process is social in nature and involves the creation of process-oriented approaches using collaboration, and participation between the artist, gallery space, curator and viewer. It is within these dialogical interactions that the viewer can begin to think about ideas, construct new understandings, learn about diverse perspectives and ways of knowing. The article explores a process of art making that incorporates dialogue as part of the creative process and how art galleries can help situate the viewer as a central part of the meaning-making process, explore how this can lead to changes in consciousness, and greater capacity for empathy and responsibility to communities. This article reveals how a dialogic process can help situate art galleries and museums as public spaces that invite participation, dialogue and build community and can be used as an informal learning process.

Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man by Michael R. Grauer

Reviewed by: Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man by Michael R. Grauer Victoria Cummins Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man. By Michael R. Grauer. ( Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2016. Pp. xxiv, 403. $39.95, ISBN 978-1-57441-633-6.) Collectors, gallery owners, museum professionals, art historians, and critics interested in early Texas art will welcome this new volume. The art of Frank Reaugh (pronounced "Ray") is currently enjoying renewed appreciation by the early Texas art community after decades of semi-neglect. Michael R. Grauer, who is art curator at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas, oversees the largest collection of Reaugh'sworkinthe state. This monograph rests on a rich base of public and private archival sources as well as published material. The author's goal is to provide the first critical look at the life and career of a man who has been previously presented as an eccentric and "to let Mr. Reaugh, and the truth about him, speak for themselves" (p. 3). Charles Franklin Reaugh was born in 1860 in Illinois and moved to Texas with his parents at age fifteen. They lived first in Terrell before Reaugh settled in Oak Cliff, soon to be incorporated into the city of Dallas. He remained a resident of the city for the rest of his life (he died in 1945). However, as an artist, the cotton culture and landscapes of East Texas did not inspire him. He devoted his long career to depicting the land of West Texas and its cattle culture. Reaugh's art career flourished in the period in which open-range grazing still dominated the cattle industry in the West. His prolific output documented that era even as it was vanishing. Grauer begins his study with a brief overview of art in Texas up to Reaugh's formative years. Next comes a long chapter discussing the numerous influences on Reaugh's art, from the Hudson River School to the French Impressionists. After a sojourn studying in France and Holland, Reaugh embraced Impressionism and remained an Impressionist to the end of his life. Reaugh's career peaked in the period from 1890 to 1915 when Impressionism dominated the American art scene. He exhibited regularly with other leading American Impressionists and acquired a regional reputation in the West and Midwest. He had similar status to the better-remembered Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell as an artist of the vanishing West. Grauer says that Reaugh should also be compared to Texas historical painters William Henry Huddle and Henry Arthur McArdle because he was witness to the vanishing open range. Grauer highlights Reaugh's accomplishments as a teacher and art promoter to make the case for his importance in Texas. Reaugh should be lauded for his impact as a teacher, both for the number of Texas artists who were his students and for his innovations. He took women students seriously and took student groups on camping trips to the West to inspire their landscape work. He made his own pastels, paper, and frames to facilitate open-air sketching. The artist used his contacts to organize traveling shows of nationally and regionally known artists and bring them to Dallas. He lobbied for a public art gallery and helped found the Dallas Art Association and its collection in 1903. In the 1920s the rise of Regionalism began to render Impressionism unfashionable. As he grew older, Reaugh found himself increasingly marginalized [End Page 732] from the art scene in Dallas by a younger generation of Regionalists, some of them his former students. His progressive alienation culminated in his exclusion from the art show at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, the most important exhibition of Texas artists' work to date. It was a fate undeserved by so important an early leader in the growth of the visual arts in Texas. Victoria Cummins Austin College Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association

Knowing their place: Feminist understandings and perceptions of women adult educators in museums

Arguing gender inequity remains one of the biggest challenges of our time, and framed within the concept of ‘pedagogic contact zones’, our article shares findings from a five-year feminist, cross-national study of women adult educators and community practitioners in public museums and art galleries in Canada and the United Kingdom. Findings show a general lack of feminist consciousness and pedagogical skills amongst these women, problematic essentialist depictions of women educators that contrast portrayals of curators, and an equation of feminism with ‘bias’. Yet there is a growing number of women who identify as feminists and take up women’s issues in a variety of ways. Museums have the ability to be sites of feminist adult education and make contributions to gender struggle.