Die, blockbuster, die

Nicholas Penny, new director of the National Gallery, London, has told the press that it's time for the institution to re-assume its role of showing audiences work that they are unfamiliar with, rather than staging rote shows based on well-known names. From the Times:

“The responsibility of a major gallery is to show people something they haven’t seen before,” [Penny] said. “A major national institution should be one that proves a constant attraction to the public. What is important is encouraging historical and visual curiosity in the general public.”

Jonathan Jones has written a long and interesting response in the Guardian. He notes that it's not the 'blockbuster' that's at fault:

A blockbuster suggests to me a mighty, epic - and yes, crowd-pleasing, why not? - romp through a great artist or period or theme. Britain's galleries don't do exhibitions like that - they do squibs that sound good on paper, and in the paper, whether it's a Caravaggio show with no Bacchus or Medusa, or a Duchamp exhibit that prefers to dwell on his snapshots than explore the mysteries of the Large Glass. By the time anyone notices the exhibition is actually a bit shallow, it's too late to ask for your money back.

By the by - the term 'blockbuster' dates from WWII and colloquially referred to bombs big enough to wipe out an entire city block. On that sobering note - thanks for reading, enjoy your weekend, get out to Waikanae if you can!

BYO white gloves

I was quite excited when I first saw the Tate's 'Your Collection' feature. From the blurb:

Tate Britain displays British art from 1500 to today. Yes, it's a museum, but it's also like a big living room. All those works of art are yours.

Tate has devised a new way of looking at the Displays with a range of themed 'Collections'. These suggest a number of personal journeys you could take, reflecting different moods and enthusiasms and revealing the extraordinary breadth of work on show.

The general idea of Your Collection is that you can use it to virtually curate your own selection of works from the Tate's collection. This is a feature many galleries, museums and online image databases are interested in.

The Tate's sample Your Collection collections include like 'The I'm in a Hurry' collection, and 'The Rainy Day' collection. At first I thought these were 'user-generated content' (i.e. made by visitors to the site) which had been created, submitted and posted.

Then when I had a play at forming my own selection, I discovered a few things:

1. You can only pick from about 40 images - not from the Tate's online collection
2. Your 'exhibition' must have 6 images - any less and you're sent back to the storeroom
3. You can't submit your collection, although the site will auto-generate a (heavily branded) leaflet in PDF format, and allow you to email this
4. You can only submit a generic blurb, not a comment on each work you've selected
5. The details of each work (artist, date, title) are not available.

So - despite a very slick interface, and that lovable Tate branding - the Your Collection feature is a disappointing outcome of an interesting and useful idea.