This is the first week of my ten-day exhibition at The Hub, St Marys, in Lichfield.
There are twenty-five of my diptychs on display (50 images in total), all from the collection Classic Stories, inspired by works of English and American literature.
There were several practical issues to address during the hanging process. The gallery has its own system, which involves attaching the frames to a nylon thread by means of a metal catch. Each thread holds, or supports two, or three frames of the size that I am using (50 -40cm frames). The gallery encourages users to exhibit a significant number of frames; quantity is preferred, across all three available walls.
Ideally, I would prefer to have much more space between each frame. The framses are very tightly packed, and do not allow or encourage individual consideration. Rather, they act en masse. Given that they represent literary works that, for many, would be labelled ‘high brow’, the density of the layout discourages levels of consideration that isolation might engender. It has been a difficult decision to determine how best to use the limited space.
In purely practical considerations of hanging, the main problem is the balancing of the frames, in terms of maintaining a perpendicularity. The threads support from the centre; supporting one perpendicular frame would be tricky – two or three is very challenging.
By the side of each frame I have fixed a QR code which also details the title of the text that inspired the diptych, along with the date of publication of the original text, to give some historical context.
The gallery is, not surprisingly, wary of damage to paint, so a small amount of wall protective tape was used for each QR label. These are light, on white polystyrene. The QR codes, when scanned on a smartphone take the viewer to a recording (stored on Youtube) of a section of the text, most of which were performed by university drama students, some of which were performed by a local primary school teacher. Originally, primary school children did the recordings, but the school’s GDPR fears caused them to ask for the teacher recording to replace the pupil recordings.
I am able to track the usage of this multimedia/audio facility via the Youtube analytics data facility. The two leading recordings are Lady Chatterley’s Lover (by a considerable distance) followed by A Clockwork Orange. They are the two most controversial, not to say notorious of the texts. Both were ‘banned’ – Lady Chatterley for crossing the boundary of sexual explicitness from 1928 until 1961, and A Clockwork Orange kept from public exhibition as a film on the request of the director, Stanley Kubrick, until his death. It should be noted that the book, A Clockwork Orange, has never been kept from the shelves, but the title is best known for the film – and it is the ‘banning’ that gave the title its notoriety.
It should also be added that, if viewers/listeners scanned the QR code of these texts to listen to a salacious or blood curdling episode, they will disappointed. The Lady Chatterley extract is the opening few lines of the book, read rather well by one of the drama undergraduates, followed by a brief contextual analysis from me. All of the extracts, except Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, have a short reading followed by some contextual input from me. I felt that the Charlie extract (at two minutes long) required no further extension.
I have tried several strategies to promote the exhibition locally, including the roll-up banner outside the library doors on the ground floor, leading to the staircase up to the gallery. The banner takes the image inspired by Harry Potter. I have met with indifference, not to say obstruction from the local library, leading me to believe that there is some tension between the Hub and the public service library. The library staff are not willing to accommodate a talk from me, nor are they able to display any posters or leaflets that I have offered to them.
The Hub staff have made use of the posters, and the organisers of the literary festival, to be held later in the year, have also shown mild interest. I hope to pursue this further, and have made contact with the literary festival team with a view to improved links.
The Hub itself is increasing its repertoire of activities, and has recently opened a coffee bar which has drawn a pleasing number of viewers to my exhibition.
There are also, this week, a number of school half-term activities, and in the afternoons and evenings, some theatre/drama/music performances, for which the exhibition acts, literally, as a sideshow.
Though two of the posters suggest that this exhibition is up for just one week (half-term week) I have managed to secure an extension until next Thursday (27th February).
The Hub staff have offered to give me their general feedback at the conclusion of the exhibition regarding attendance, engagement and general presentation.
Two smaller frames in the display contain instructions regarding the QR code multimedia facility, and my own contact details along with a press release/ artist’s statement introducing the collection.
Clive Edwards 