Installation week

Installation week just passed with the Saturday opening of Quaterra. This is literally the best (and most stressful) part of my job. Sometimes it feels like a cross between Christmas and the first day of school. Getting started this week, Joe and I head into the gallery and talk about some sort of elusive “master plan”. This always ends up changing as we improvise our way through the artwork, making adjustments for assumptions or calculations gone wrong. Sometimes we under or over estimate the amount of breathing room needed for a piece. Other times, what seemed like a good idea in a big empty room suddenly seems ludicrous in our new surroundings. Joe, always the jet-setter of music between the two of us will put on some CD of a band I’ve never heard of. Occasionally going back to some of both of our favorites like Van Morrison or Patsy Cline. Music always helps. We set up a plan for walls, get some of the heavier labor out of they way, then start unpacking the artwork. This is where the “feels like Christmas” feeling comes in. In small group shows like Quaterra, I usually have a pretty good idea of what artwork to expect, but in many cases, I’ve never seen it in person. On Wednesday, when I unwrapped Basia Irland’s river books from their various layers of protective packaging, I seriously got giddy. These books that she found at the gorge in Taos, NM – then coated in bee’s wax were some of the most interesting objects I’ve laid my hands on. I felt like I was unwrapping relics that I may have been the first person in a hundred years to lay my eyes on. This of course, was nowhere near the truth, but I can imagine that Basia may have had some sort of similar experience when she first found them and began their transformation/preservation.

One of the other really great things about a small group show is the amount of time I often get to spend with the artists. This week, Geny and Ulrike both spent about a day and a half here with us in the gallery. Being able to talk with the artists about their intentions for the work and its display can be a very interesting topic. Sometimes, the way the viewer is presented with a work of art can change its feeling or meaning. I get to hear the history of the work, not just how or why it was created, but where it has traveled, what other curators have laid hands on the work and how their ideas differed. Probably not the most interesting topic for most, but to me, it is valuable information.

Anyway, that’s been my week, in a nutshell…