Round 1

Cam Starr & Lisa Daniels ready for the Curatorial Smackdown

Curatorial Smack Down: Round 1

January 26 to February 1, 2010

The Challenge:

Using work from the Gallery Lambton Permanent Collection “out-curate” the opponent.

The Objectives:

1. To learn more about curating.
2. To learn more about the collection.

The Process:

1. Using works from the permanent collection; select, place, inform and defend your choice.
2. In response to your opponent and within 12 hours; select, place, inform and defend your choice.
3. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
4. On day 7, each contender, in addition to their final selection, has the option to switch or replace one work from the exhibition.
5. Discuss, critique, share and enjoy the process and the exhibition.

The Questions:

How do collections produce meaning?

How do curators produce meaning?

How does meaning of the work and of the exhibition shift?

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Although the gallery has been busy with tours and promotion for the new gallery lambton, Cam Starr & Lisa Daniels were able to sit down and talk candidly about their first selections.

Lisa

John Boyle, a London Ontario artist was involved in the artist run centre/london arts movement. His work is considered extremely Canadian to the point of being almost anti-American. Coming from a strong group of artistic supporters, Boyle has an interesting tie to Sarnia. During his career he wanted to have a painting in a group show at the London Museum but his painting, that of himself, naked in a chair, was considered to risqué. Since he was denied admittance to the show, all of his friends pulled their pieces out of the show in protest. The shows next stop was in Sarnia where all of the pieces were displayed.
Lisa explained that the past curator had acquired 52 works by Boyle, an artist that she herself has a difficult time with. As a curator one must seperate themselves from works that they are naturally drawn to and expand to display works that are more difficult and challenging. She found herself asking why the gallery has 52 of his pieces. She also wanted to display this piece as it has never been hung in the gallery and set up for public viewing.

Some of the other things that Lisa commented on were the harsh yellow, nearly florescent colouring combined with raw canvas makes the piece very difficult to light, especially considering the lighting available in this gallery. She wondered also if the artists intention was to light it in a particular way, if it was to create a portrait that seems like more of a memory that one has to squint at in order to make out the image.

John Boyle's, Vincent

Cam

After spending much time looking through the permanent collection, Cam decided to chose a piece that was also not something he would ordinarily be drawn to: Edward Godwin’s Western Summer: Day’s End on Moab #5, 1980. Originally focused on more modern prints and almost choosing a John Boyle himself, Cam selected this large painting due to its combination of traditional painting techniques and the odd cropping of the image. Quick to comment that the painting was cropped much in the same way as a portrait would be, Cam explained the draw of this image.

The scene represented in this painting is very fleeting; one can never step in the same river twice. Noting that this image was probably not painted from a photograph, but rather from a sketch or a memory, Cam found the image to be very personal. He commented that even if one was to find that exact same location, they would never be able to recreate the feeling in this painting, that this was a “portrait of a moment.”

Not usually inclined to gravitate towards landscape images, Cam also stepped outside of his comfort zone in his selection.

ted godwin

Both Cam & Lisa will be providing a more thorough and researched statement about their selection, but their candour provides an interesting look at their first selections. They will write out their statements and responses on typewriters which sit in the gallery, available to viewers who are passing through.

typewriters

typewriter

typewriters

This “smack down” will be going now through monday the 1st. Stay tuned for the curators responses and watch the exhibit flourish.

first moves

first moves

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Round 2

Cam & Lisa review their responses.

Day Two

The second day begins the day of responses. Cam and Lisa, now forced to decide how to respond to the others moves choose pieces that reflect the previous persons decision. Here’s what happened in the next instalment of the ‘smackdown.’

Cam [Skin by Angelina Voskopoulou 2009]

Cam setting up video

Cam chose a short film, Skin by Angelina Voskopoulou as his response to Lisa’s selection of the Boyle work. At first casual and sly about what he was going to choose, Cam soon emerged with a screen and dvd player. The three of us gathered around to watch Voskopoulou’s warm red and yellow imagery of a person searching for the other half of themselves through poetry (written in greek), music & images of arms and legs encompassed in what appeared to be a womb.

Cam discussing the comparisons between the two pieces.

Cam discussed the comparison of how Voskopoulou is looking for her ‘twin’ almost in Skin and how in Vincent by Boyle, the piece seems to be missing it’s twin, or the shadow that would normally fill in where the canvas has been left clean.

Skin

the yellow connection

Cam, seemingly distressed about the fact that he could not find a connection between the two pieces beyond their aesthetic similarities, opened up a conversation about the practice of curating.

ladders and curating

Lisa described the curatorial process as one that keeps the public in mind as well as the show as a whole. A show should affect the public on multiple levels: thematically, aesthetically and intellectually. The piece of art itself is simply the starting point. A curator needs to think about the art, how people will experience it, what the artist was intending to say and what works should be placed next to it in order to say what the curator wants to convey. Much of the time, the artist themselves have no consciousness of what their art can become or what it will become.

video

discussion

Regardless of what the artists intention was with a piece of work, they must understand that once they release it into the public sphere it becomes part of something else. In order to illustrate this point she told the story of an artist who was “his own worst enemy.” During her schooling she did a project on an artist who lived up north that had received many grants and had many shows over the course of his career but whom not a lot had been written about. After looking into the artist she found that he tried to force his concept of what a piece meant onto his viewers and if they did not “get it” he was very obnoxious about his work and convinced that those who didn’t understand did not appreciate it. Lisa continued to explain that the artist never truly allowed the piece to float and weave through people’s own relationship to work thus limiting the artist and the potential in his art.

more discussion

A curator’s job is to take artwork that they may or may not truly understand the intention behind and find a way to link it to the people who are coming through to view it as well as to the other work around it. Cam’s dilemma with a piece being solely based on an aesthetic connection was addressed by Lisa as well. Although the aesthetic connection was an obvious starting point, the pieces placed with it as well as lighting, and even time itself can bring curators to another conclusion by the end of a show. Much of the time a piece grows and changes and what may start out as being a curator’s least enjoyed piece may in fact grow to be the one they like the most by the end of the allotted time for the show. This process is something that is very difficult for many young curators as they are often inclined to chose the work that they like the best and fill the whole show with those pieces, when really they should be focusing on the message and the viewers. Even though this piece may only connect for Cam on this one level, in time he will engage with it and perhaps will see it in a different light as the show continues on. Artworks placed around the piece may change a viewers perception and as the exhibition grows over the week, more connections between the pieces may be revealed.

Quick to notice a change in the rules, Lisa called him on a low blow, choosing a video that was not part of the permanent collection. Marks off!

Cam said “it’s all Greek to me.”

Lisa [Little Me, Louis de Niverville]

Lisa’s selection, Little Me by Louis de Niverville was chosen even though it seems odd in terms of an aesthetic relationship besides the colour tones. Instead of focusing on this element, Lisa listened to the way that Cam had described his first selection, the Godwin. Some of the things said were that the work was disorienting due to cropping, that it had a intangible quality such a memory would have and that it was connected in a way to the surrealist movement and the painters involved within.

De Niverville , a surrealist himself, moved from England at a young age and lived in many places such as Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, working with CBC in film and demonstration. His artwork, which is influenced by nightmares and childhood fears portrays a portrait of his experience which lends itself in a way to the discussion about memory in the Godwin and Boyle pieces. This piece, in a way is as abstract as the Godwin, in the sense that until one steps away it is hard to tell exactly what the image holds, is very dreamlike and soft, with a smokey poetic feel and has as Lisa describes “a rhythmic quality to it.”

Little Me from a distance

In a way, the relationship of the Godwin piece and the de Niverville is an obvious one: both have a very basic depth of field, share a similar hue and colour and focus.

The question Lisa found herself asking today is if there is a theme developing, that of memory or will another piece be added tomorrow that is coming into the exhibition that could enhance or overlay that. She begged the question of whether or not an intellectual relationship between the pieces was enough to link a show together.

curators discuss

More talk occurred about the process of curating, in particular the difference in the role between public and private art galleries. Lisa explained that in the back of a curators head there is always the thought of how a community will respond to an exhibition and an idea. On one hand a public gallery may have a collection that they want to show off but an exhibition cannot simply be about showing off these pieces because the gallery becomes stagnant and people will not return. In terms of any exhibition, a curator is restricted to some degree by the audience that they are presenting it to. One must be informed and conscious of their audience, they must not alienate or bore the audience, but also cannot simply give them what they want or expect. A curator must understand how far to push something and when to back down. There is the desire to shock an audience but not to the point of exclusion.

viewers

The room soon filled with people from the talks being held in the gallery and the curators ended their discussion and went to engage with the true judges: the general public.

Round 3

Well, round three. the response to the responses? i think so. Seems the show is becoming more about making the whole room more cohesive. Let’s check out their responses.

Lisa: (Patrick Thibert’s : The Cantoria of Anger, No 2, 1998-99)

Cantoria of Anger No. 2

In her third move, Lisa selected Patrick Thibert’s, The Cantoria of Anger, No 2, 1998-99, a mixed media hanging sculptural piece of resin, wax, iron and aluminum. The piece is positioned on the wall down from the video installation and the Boyle work, kiddie corner to the Godwin piece.

Patrick Thibert received his BFA from Windsor and has a studio in Strathroy. Often he works in large sculptures, but this particular piece is actually quite small. The Cantoria of Anger No. 2 was used in Lisa’s first permanent collection show when she started at the Gallery but finds that it works better in this exhibit.

Lisa explains the relationships

Commenting on how the whole process has begun to change Lisa explained that her selection needed to respond to the exhibition as a whole. In her attempt to respond solely to Cam selection of Skin by Voskopoulou, Lisa found the process to be a struggle. When she chose works that responded only to Cam’s previous selection, none of the pieces that she tried really fit or added what she wanted to see in this exhibition. As a curator she has an awareness that it is not about each individual piece but how they are informing each other in the context of the room.

What particularly struck her was how Cam’s choice of Skin really affected the space itself. By using a video piece with an audio component that is very droning at points and then swells to a happier sound about half way through, she felt that the pieces already selected developed a new context in relation to how a viewer would see the images, the audio shifts and changes the perception of how one views the pieces already selected and the one’s that would be selected in the future. For instance, in the de Niverville piece, the music causes the image to oscillate between the nightmarish portrayal of dreams and childhood mythology represented in fairy tales.

Lisa feels that the sound that resonates from Skin actually works as a unifying and grounding factor in the exhibition. Her choice is affected by this music too: the faces swings between anger, anguish and fear or in their open mouthed cries they seem to be choir boys when the uplifting music begins. She compared it to the billboards one is likely to see in Toronto that flip between two different images. On the other hand, Cam finds that the shift in music affects the piece inversely and when the happier more vibrant music begins, the higher pitches make him feel as though the faces are screaming in agony. Both agreed that the doom found in the music, though it is not Canadian, at the same time feels very Canadian: even when things are happy in much of Canadian art, they still deal with the human condition, dealing with the harshness of the landscape.

Thibert and Godwin - a choir on the harshness of canadian landscape.

This began a discussion of how much of the art selected in this particular exhibit is Canadian based, and more locally so, very London, Ontario based. Another connection between the art is that even though there are different hues and textures, movements and colours, there is a tone to the exhibition coming together.

Cam (Twin by Rudolph Bikker)

Rudolph Bikkar's Twin

When choosing his piece, Cam found a similarity in the shape of the dog in the de Neverville to the that of graphic design elements in his choice: Twin by Rudolph Bikker. Cam also found that the piece that he chose, that which focuses on the formation of the egg and umbilical cord, related to the video piece Skin. The video addressed the half finding the other half, so Cam positioned this new addition across the gallery from both the Boyle and the video. Boyle’s work is more monochromatic whereas the Bikker piece contains complimentary colours in it. Lisa commented that the colours and the way the piece was laid out was similar to a horizon and had a landscape quality to it.

Cam finding the connections

In his research, Cam found this particular artist is considered a master print maker in Canada. Cam commented that the print was almost 99.9% perfect and was amazed at how phenomenal the print was. Not surprised to find out that he is considered a master print maker, Cam explained that many artists would go to Bikker to have their work printed because of his skills. In this piece Cam found that there was a child birth memory/duality theme going on. There is a sense of aloneness in memory that can be found

In his explanation for choosing the Bikker, Cam stated that he keeps choosing things that he is challenged by or that he is just naturally inclined to like, however afterwards he had found that he has a deeper tie to these pieces. In realizing this he noted that many of his pieces tie back to his time spent in London, Ontario as a student. There he became friends with the NIHILIST SPASM BAND that the Boyle’s piece developed out of, he has had friends who had Bikker as a teacher and one of his co-students in London was the daughter of a member of the Regina 5 that the Godwin piece developed out of. All of this time having such a personal connection without knowing this prior to choosing the pieces.

Canadian relationships

Both began to see this connection of locality develop. Lisa commented how small the Canadian scene can be especially in public collections and how they work and relate to the community. People start looking and reading into the pieces and recognize the relationships, thus transforming the pieces into a nostalgic thing. Commenting on the past years Group of Seven discussion, she described how the curator must encourage the connection between the public art gallery collection and personal nostalgic experiences. Pieces tend to develop and evolve as they are presented and again, with how they are presented. Both agreed that in a way they were representing a Canadian Identity, one that emerged after the Group of Seven. They also agreed that they may be influenced by the Salon in the Sadie Knowles Gallery that is displaying many pieces of the Group of Seven. In a way without realizing it, they might be responding to the other exhibition.

Cam & Lisa have begun logging their choices onto the type writers.

Cam working on his analog typing skills.

Cam's choices.

The competition, logged & recorded.

And now there is a poster you will see up around town. Perhaps it led you to this blog. Made by the Graphic Designer at Gallery Lambton by Guy Lalonde. Look for it around town.

Fight Night! ...errrr...week.. ha.

Round 4

Lisa & Cam join me on the floor and discuss the moves over coffee

Cam: Peter Von Tiesenhausen: The Watcher

Although Lisa called Cam on yet another low blow by choosing a piece that is not actually part of the permanent collection yet again, Cam argued that the bust created by the Watcher is actually part of the permanent collection and that it is buried underneath the street at Lochiel and Christina, thus linking the watcher piece to the permanent collection. Also the Gallery is in the process of purchasing it for the permanent collection and so, according to Cam, it is on it’s way in.

When determining what piece he would like to choose, Cam tried to think of the space as a whole, rather than just necessarily responding to Lisa’s last choice. Although this sort of bends the rule of the game, it is a necessary adaptation to an exhibit such as this onw. First he saw that there was a big empty space in the far corner beside the de Niverville and wanted a piece that would relate the faces from the Boyle and the Thibert to the rest of the room. First gravitating towards a totem pole, he remembered Von Tiesenhausen’s piece that was in storage. Although he really wanted to use the totem pole he felt that von Tiesenhausen’s piece bore aesthetic similarities to Lisa’s next choice the Bolt. He hoped that this would link things in the room together a lot more.

The Watcher

The Watcher, to Cam, was made out of the same wood found in the forest painted in his first piece by Godwin. In a way it also ties in with the overall theme of the “missing half” – the twin- in this case a twin you cannot visibly see as it is buried underground.

It also fits in with the Canadian theme that is being developed and nurtured in this exhibition. The Watcher’s Von Tiesenhausen series has become sort of Canadian Mythology. http://petervontiesenhausen.net

The image one sees when they first go onto the website is that of several of these “watcher” figures along the east coast – a very strong Canadian image. Von Tiesenhausen’s work is tied to many Canadian communities, as well as our own, re: the burial of the bust under the street. Even though Cam was not present when this burial happened, he hopes to develop a connection to the piece over time.

the bust being buried

Lisa and the bust last winter.

Lisa explains how Von Tiesenhausen burns all of his pieces and so there is a connection to fire, the idea of a piece of art being allowed to decay and this cycle of death and rejuvenation; there is a weaving of the mythology of space and time . This connection that Von Tiesenhausen has with all of these communities and the watchers that are spread out across Canada, acts like a network of subconsciousness that is further evolving in the space.

Lisa: Ron Bolt, Boys Night Out

Although Boys Night Out was not Lisa’s first choice, having first pulled out a huge piece Alpha and Omega another artist, she did not feel that the pieces worked aesthetically and had too much influence over the exhibit as a whole. She then decided on this piece by Bolt, Boys Night Out.

bolt & thibert. complimentary faces?

Bolt, who usually does minimalist and hyper real landscape paintings present a very different aesthetic in his piece Boys Night Out. The piece which is very similar in it’s subject matter and layout as the Thibert piece deals with a Mexican Festival as a subject matter and is a series of eerie skulls and masks in bright colours. Lisa, quick to comment that she had a difficult time with this selection due to the fact that it’s connection to many of the other pieces is on such an obvious level. To her this was not about throwing a dirty hit, but rather a consciousness of needing to make the room and exhibition link together and have some depth. In a way she felt that her piece was a lazy choice, but also a necessary one that would anchor the exhibition together. In a way she is hopeful that this piece will develop a new capacity as more elements are added to the exhibit.

the bolt addition.

Commenting on the earlier selection she states that the relationship of Cam’s first piece, The Godwin, is changing and becoming less about landscape and more and more about the human memory. The rest of the works in the room are not letting it be a landscape. How does the meaning shift she asks? Everyone may recognize this piece as landscape but once you are looking at the exhibition as a whole the intention of the piece changes and develops. Cam commented that his first work is darker, and is less about the landscape and more about the spoke in the pond where the reflection of trees zig zag down. He is interested to see how this work gets incorporated into the finished product.

Round 5

Round 5:

Round Five tends to bring out the worst in people or does it bring out the more competitive side? It’s hard to tell, but for Cam, Round 5 brings a cross, cross jab from Lisa. But does he get knocked out?

Lisa:

Lisa chose two pieces in an attempt to assert more influence over the competition after Cam chose two pieces that were not included in the permanent collection.

Her first choice Floating in Space by Angelina Voskoupoulou. She felt that the Godwin piece was becoming less and less integrated into the exhibition. Lisa felt that the piece was almost being forgotten about which was a challenge that they had been dealing with for several days, almost since the very first selection was made. She felt that the piece was being over powered and losing its presence in the room.

Floating in Space, 2009

After being impressed by how a video could really add to an exhibition, something that she had never really thought of or dealt with, she decided to choose a Voskopoulou piece that Cam had shown at one of the gallery’s past video screenings.

She chose this video in particular because of its surreal underwater shots, the organic flow that would connect it to the flow of water in the Godwin piece. Lisa also felt that it would animate the faces in the sculptural component of The Cantoria of Anger, No. 2, 1998-99 as though the faces were coming out of water for breath.

In one sense Lisa toyed with the idea of turning the sound down on this Voskopoulou piece for fear that it would interfere with the noise from Skin, the other piece by the same artist. Cam, argued that this would be the same as cutting a sculpture in half or putting a coloured gel over a painting as a video is meant to be viewed as a whole if that is the intent of the artist.

Here they delved into a curatorial conversation about the difficulties with using a new media component in a group showing. Lisa found it very uncanny how the pieces do not conflict, but rather work together to give an ethereal layering effect that is actually quite beautiful. They both reffered to one of the past exhibits “Interplay”, in particular the Robochorus by Michael Waterman. In that work, Waterman had layered audio of a literal robot chorus in the same space. Seeing that working with new media in a such a way is a real possibility they agreed that seeing Waterman do it really broadened their capacity and understanding of how new media can work in a space as well as in a group exhibition.

detail of michael waterman's Robochorus from Interplay

Thomas Ackermann, Qaheen
Lisa had no idea what Cam’s next selection would be, but was struggling with her previous choice of the Ron Bolt, “Boys Night Out”. In turn she chose Ackerman’s Qaheen even if it was merely for superficial and aesthetic reasons. In terms of colour and movement, she felt that Ackerman’s painting would really ground the Bolt and start to bring all the pieces in the corner together. When adding the Ackerman she took the whole exhitibition into consideration and wanted to bring to it another energy and dynamic. She felt that it both added to the Boyle piece as well as toned it down. Also she felt it has a real connection to Von Tiessenhausen’s Watcher. Cam commented that in a way it ties the de Niverville into the show in a more particular relationship: that of the toy dangling in the de Niverville’s hanging light to the bodies of the moving, curled and bending people in Ackerman.

Ackerman & Von Tiesenhausen

Lisa felt that one of the strongest features of the piece was this oscillation between the surreal freaky and ghostly dark consciousness in the room presented with the playful childlike fairytale consciousness. This concept of the Yin and the Yang. To her fairy tales are some of the darkest narratives of the human condition. The exhibition in her mind really has the capacity to do that, to go to both extremes of the human condition.

Cam:

John Stephen Livick
Boy in Yellow shirt and Clown Face

the far corner of the room. Livick uniting the exhibition.

Cam chose this photograph done in a very different process than most traditional photographic print, that is with Gum Bichromate. Mostly the similarities of the faces in the Bolt, the Boyle and the Thibert really connected to the young boy in the Livick. He was worried that the Bolt in particularly fitting in. When Lisa, who had been attempting to do the same thing, tie the Bolt into the exhibition, saw this selection she found herself thinking “thank you Cam.” In choosing this particular photograph, that of a boy leaning against a wall at what appears a carnival of some sort, in a mask that distorts your perception of his face, almost being unreal, he managed in one fell swoop to unify much of the show. It also worked with the well with the Boyle and could almost in a way be Vincent as a child in a clown mask and the colours and their intensity were mirrored in the Ackerman pieces. Compositionally, the stripes and the colours bring the outside to the centre in a way that is mirrored in Thibert. There is also this feeling of childhood fears that related to the climate in the de Niverville in the sense that most children are afraid of clowns in mythical sort of way.

At the end of the double punch Lisa and Cam agreed that the sound in the two Voskopoulou pieces work amazingly well with the other pieces in the room. There is a disorientation of space and time in painting and time based works. Lisa commented that she wished that she could have wall mounted the second Voskopoulou, Floating in Space, so that it was more of a living organic painting, but sadly could not due to the limitations of the Gallery.

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of the Curatorial Smackdown. Once this post and the next are up, the blog will be reordered again so it can be read as a story straight through in case you were wondering but for now i’m going to leave this up the way it is so everyone can see the new post.

So come back and find out who won? What lessons were learned? What were the final selections? Did anyone on their last move take something out or add something in? who knows…. better wait and find out………WHO WON!!!

Round 6. the final moves.

The last day brought a lot of changes and reorganization of the exhibition. Lisa, having already selected her first piece, explained her decision.

Lisa: Footfat

Lisa chose this piece to tie in with the Godwin which as previously mentioned, seemed to be disappearing into the landscape of the exhibition.  She chose this pieces because the colours really tie the Godwin to the rest of the room and because it almost looks like a closeup of a tree in the Godwin.

foo fat and voskopoulou

In order to bring the room together and to fill some of the empty space, a lot of reorganization was done. Then both Lisa and Cam went into the permanent collection and spent some time deciding on a “joint piece.”

Joint Piece: Atkinson, Eric: Christian Island

This piece was chosen by both Cam and Lisa in an attempt to fully link the room together.  It anchors the room in the entry point of the room being on the same horizon as the Godwin.

Christian Island

It works very well with the Von Tiesenhausen in the sense that if one is to go onto Von Tiesenhausen’s website one would see a photograph that was taken of the Watchers on the coastline of Canada. This choice of Christian Island really brings to mind this image almost too much. There is almost a unintentional longing in the juxtaposition of these two pieces: The practice of Von Tiesenhausen creating the network and the memory in the communities that he enters, it seems as though the painting is just a memory of this happening. Lisa said that normally she would never choose this painting but Cam said that he was very drawn to it, especially in this context.

Anchoring the room w/ von tiesenhausen

Unfortunately for the pair, or in some ways, fortunately for the pair, a lot of reorganization was done in order to make sure that the pieces placed together created a solid exhibition.

So Christian Island, just like many of the final pieces was moved around and tried in many different areas in the room.

trying it between the Boyle and the Livick

and then…

Christian Island on the move.

and then….

Might this be the right place?

Finally Christian Island found its place as an anchor near the entrance of the room.

The curators discuss.

Cam makes his final selection

Thomas Sherlock Hodgson,  Moon Glow

After spending more than an hour pulling pieces out, looking through the final collection, Cam settled on Thomas Hodgson’s, Moon Glow.

Cam hangs Moon Glow

In this choice Cam kept in mind the Voskopoulou work that creates an imagery and narrative of a person being submerged: Cam felt as though this painting was the first frame of this act of submersion.  The painting with the deep purples and the strong sharp streaks of yellows and red really tie a lot of the colours in the room together.

and more....

The abstractness really lends itself to a melody of memory and Lisa commented that it looks similar to the “big bang.” Cam also feels its position in the room to the Boyle demonstrates the colour that is missing in Vincent by Boyle. In a sense the deep rich purple is again the yin to the boyle’s yang, it completes the colour where the canvas has been kept raw.

more hanging fun.

Both Curators spent some time in the room. Looking to make sure that exhibition was complete. Cam had flirted with the idea of bringing in a totem pole by Yosef Drenters, entitled Manitou, 1974 but had chosen Von Tisenhausen’s the Watcher. But having the ability to bring in or remove a piece on the final day, he had the chance again to bring in the totem pole and it was decided that he would. Placing the totem pole across from The Watcher,  Cam brought the room together with his final selection.

Von Tiesenhausen gets moved to accomodate.

watching each other.

Cam stands in front of the totem pole

So finally the exhibition was done. The curators both agreed that this was an important learning experience for both of them. Throughout the week they were tested and stretched to their limits, but the result was something wonderful. Here is a look at the final outcome:

At the end of the day, the smack down was over. Lisa seemed satisfied as the lead curator with ending exhibition.

And both cheerfully shared a congratulatory high five before they had to take the whole exhibition back down.