A very interesting and wonderful experience. I curated the Dr. Scott Lieberman show for the Tyler Museum of Art. Dr. Lieberman's claim to fame is the photography of the Space Shuttle Columbia coming apart as it crossed East Texas. He'd gotten up to photograph it coming over and instead shot the front page picture for magazines and newspapers internationally, an image that got nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
We hung 93 images of varying work. I sorted out the photos, supervised printing, selected and sequenced the show...pretty much all the decisions. I started off by picking images that I thought we should show and getting him to print them off his facebook page. He did his own printing at home and did a very good job. The show is on 20X24, 16 X20 and 8 1/2 X 11 paper. All matching frames from the museum. All color images.
There's more math to this than I thought. We calculated the linear wall space actually available, subtracting the corners and edges that you had to stay out of, then calculated the inches of framed art minus the spacing in between. After a good bit of calculator punching we had the actual number of artworks that could be shown. One whole wall was dedicated to an assembly of celebrity shots. The title wall only has titles. There was a quilt to be included and two cases of newspapers, magazines, the camera, the portfolio submission for the pulitzer, et. Plus a framed set of plates from the Time Magazine cover and some other awards.
After all that there still was the problem of sorting out the images into some series that had a visual flow and made sense. The gallery is large and very high ceiling-ed. There is a front part and back part and some free standing walls that could be moved. I put the quilt at the entrance next to the title wall. Hung the awards next to some a couple of written description cards. Just behind a standing wall was the space for the shuttle/pulitzer. It was hung fairly sparsely- being photos about a tragedy and having two cases full of newspapers with the famous image on them. I transitioned out of that room with the start of a "technology series- lots of flight and airplane/balloon images, then down a long wall into the next gallery with that same theme, gradually morphing into more "people" photographs, turned the corner and changed to landscape, bent at the corner into nature and animals, then into a space that was the celebrity wall with a bench.
I used opposing walls in every case to set images which resonated across the space or continued a theme. Every sequence down a wall is carefully selected. The celebrity wall,- is 48 matted 8 1/2 X 11 paper prints all hung an inch from each other with a bench and three big prints on the facing stand-alone wall. Laying those headshot/performance shots, like a big puzzle, was exactly the game any one of us would relish. I laid the matted prints out on the floor. I spread out the women and musician shots. Then I started making one relate to another. Bill Cosby, Sarah Palin, Garo Yepreminan, Dr. Krauthammer, PJ, O'Rourke, BB King, Oliver North, Ken Stabler, Harvey Kormann, ZZ Topp- really was quite a gallery. The staff and I looked them over for a couple of days until I finally called it done. The staff got it in the mats, in the frames and on the wall. We've been planning it for a year though the big push has been since the fall.
Show opened Saturday Night. Rousing success!
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