0 for 2

After writing about (complaining?) about the scheduled time of the Wilson Building reception on Tuesday night, traffic ended up being light and I made it there by 6:30. 0 for 1.

The Wilson Building collection is truly remarkable. I was quite impressed by the collection... seems a little bit of everything is presented. Sure, some pieces and artists probably don't belong in this company, but that's made up for with impressive pieces by "big name" artists. The commission clearly spent some money pulling this together. Other highlights for me included the curatorial presentation of the work, meaning, who was put next to who. There's some interesting juxtapositions throughout. I also appreciated the quality of the framing of the work. Sure, with such a collection, everything has to be behind plexi. We all know that some pieces just aren't meant to be behind plexi and this makes for pretty awkward viewing situations. A large Maggie Michael painting on canvas behind plexi? So it ain't so! But, I (we) should accept that it has to be this way and asknowledge that the framing is well done. There isn't a cheap frame in the building.

It wouldn't be right if I didn't have one real complaint. Though it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, this complaint is quite unfortunate as I would have expected different. The name plates for each piece are very elegant. They are mostly unobtrusive and I appreciate that. However, I just hate how the information was presented. At the top of each plate is the title of the piece in large, plain font. It's fairly easy to figure out it's the title. Then, there is a space followed by the medium of the piece in a smaller font. Immediately under the medium, in the same size font, is the artist's name. Below the artist's name is the year the piece was completed. Let's look at a rough visual (imagine it being centered on the tag):

CATCH OF THE DAY

encaustic/wood
Pat Goslee
2006

What does this say to the viewer? Title is most important... I disagree but I am fine with that. Second most important is the medium... say what? Then the artist's name followed by year completed? To me this says that the Commission doesn't value the artist. Why would it be hidden within all that other information? It makes it hard to figure out who made the pieces. I'm going to assume that this was not a conscious decision... maybe someone made a mistake, I don't know. I heard several other people complain about this. If you were there, did you notice this too?

Overall I am very impressed with the collection. I think Sondra Arkin (Curator) deserves much recognition for this accomplishment. I hope to see the collection grow in years to come. Who knows, maybe this will become the Washington Art Musuem that Lenny has been pining for.

For those who couldn't make it to the reception I urge you to go see the collection asap.

I said I was 0 for 2 didn't I? Well, I had my wisdom teeth removed yesterday and after dreading it I can say that it has gone so well thus far. No pain. No swelling. No bruising. No nausea. Knock on wood. My second incorrect prediction... that I wouldn't be able to post again until Monday.

Comments

[Anne Marchand]

I too think the wall labels are difficult to read, especially the artists names. The plexi is distracting on some pieces but the overall collection of work is impressive and a great statement of support for Washington Artists from our city government. Let's have more of this!

[Sondra Arkin]

Thanks so much for your great words about the collection.

Regarding the labels -- sort of funny that you picked on them. They are the way the commission does all of the labels for the Art Bank program, and they are the one thing we didn't alter for this program. Frankly, I didn't pay a spec of attention to them -- without my glasses, I'm pretty much lost these days so I don't expect to be able to read labels at exhibitions. The week we were to install them, I saw the WETA documentary about the DiRosa Preserve (this huge art collection of CA artists -- Jack Rasmussen used to be the Executive Director there). One thing I was struck by was that the collector didn't have ANY labels at all and his reasoning was that in museums people looked at the label before the art and he thought that was wrong. I have to say that I agree. During the installation, there were a lot of people from the building looking very closely at the art. I joked that we weren't going to put any labels up at all.

Mostly I'm proud that we designed a jig that cut our label installation time by over 75%. You'd have to know me to realize how funny that is -- the metrics and all.

Regarding the framing and plexiglas, I wish we didn't have to go that route, but we just don't have a choice in this kind of public facility. Better safe than sorry.

This has been a lot of hard work and fun and delight, and really my pleasure. I hope that we set a precedent for something. Everyone deserves applause for this project.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Sondra,

Congrats on the great job you and everyone else did. I am applauding you now... though you'll have to take my word for it.

Obviously, if the one thing that I can pick on is the labels, you know you've done well. I agree about labels... I think they should go away and instead have a reference sheet or something to get the information from. But, if we're going to have labels, they should be as good as they can be.

I visited the National Gallery of Art over the weekend and noticed that their format (order of info) on their labels is the same as the Wilson collection. Except... the artist's name was the biggest font on the card. Second biggest was the title. And eveything else was the same small size. It worked really well. Just a thought if you all ever re-do them.

Congrats again. All the positive press is well deserved.