Art Analysis



Art Analysis

Topic

Analyse and critique the graphic material associated with an exhibition that you have visited. This may be material such as catalogues, leaflets, posters, wall texts, captions, press release, and other forms. Explore if and how they compliment the exhibition and critique what could have been improved.

Introduction

How many art exhibitions are running in London at the moment? More than two hundred is a considerably sketchy presumption of mine made by counting those listed on the New Exhibitions broadsheet. Within such competitive circumstances, museums and galleries have essential demands for the use of publicity to attract people's attention to their exhibitions. There are many forms of publicizing and advertising that exhibitions can take; graphic materials such as posters, leaflets, fliers and brochures are often used as teaser trailers to present the striking features and attractions of exhibitions to attract the visitors. Additionally, within an exhibition, other forms of graphic material such as wall texts, captions and labels play a crucial role in undertaking the missions to translate objects into languages which can be understood and communicated within institutions and between them and the public. The Saatchi Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art in London, has a reputation for blockbuster exhibitions in terms of the high attendance figures recorded for recent and previous shows. The gallery's head of development, Rebecca Wilson, considered what the institution aims for and said that "we are not just about appealing to the art world - the people who already know about art. We want to attract lots of people who don't necessarily go to exhibitions." The Saatchi Gallery's aspirations suggest that there could be an extensive utilisation of publicity behind its shows to develop its potential audiences.The exhibition “Newspeak: British Art Now Part II” was presented by the Saatchi Gallery on 27th October 2010 to 30th April 2011. The exhibition carried a grand and weighty title; it was expected to experience the momentum and to see the image like Gabriel Orozco's Black Kites, a checkerboard of black squares over a human skull, showing a huge amount of publicity material to produce a lingering impression on the visitors. The visitors were likely to be dominated and attracted by a series of narrative texts throughout the entire display space. Conversely, this seemed not to be the actual scenario according to my own visit. What I experienced was an exhibition which did not even provide wall texts within it. This triggered my interest in what the communication and interpretation strategies developed by the show might have been. This essay will firstly discuss what sorts of graphic material were selected to speak for the show and to reach out to the visitors. Then these graphic materials will be further analysed and critiqued in terms of their production, disposition and form as well as their content. Finally, it will consider whether there are any other strategies that fulfil the exhibition's promises and ambitions.

Graphic Material Within “Newspeak: British Art Now Part II”

Precisely speaking, it was the Saatchi Gallery's reputation as ...