Installing the exhibition
Posted by Hattie Spires
Art Installation Assistant, Tate Britain
29 September 2008
In my role as Assistant to the Art Installation Manager I help to deliver the exhibitions programme. I deal with the nuts and bolts of each show: from plinths and plans, to carpets and cleaning.
© Tate
The Turner Prize, from an art installation perspective, might be described as a teetering ‘jenga’ tower of goals and deadlines, each mutually dependent on the other. The game in which wooden blocks are teased out and balanced on top of each other seems to me to be an apt way to describe the process by which a show is built and installed from start to finish. Each wooden block represents a job to be done. To get the tower as high as possible and to everyone’s liking is a precarious balancing act of materials, schedules and decisions.
The Turner Prize is a uniquely challenging installation because of its short planning time. The shortlist is announced in May and by the end of September the show has to be installed to the last wall lettering. Artists have a relatively short time to decide upon what work to show and it is not until the list is decided that the rest of the ‘blocks’ can be fitted in to place. Working with living artists involves negotiations on gallery space. This then informs build plans which are drawn up to map out where corridors need to be built, where walls should end, where fabric ceilings should hide the architecture of the built ceiling, how sound can be muffled. Light has to be contained in some spaces, eliminated in others until the whole puzzle turns in to a coherent tour of work.
© Tate
Textures, colours and finishes are all thrashed out and many samples are produced and pored over before a decision can be made on a wall colour or fixing. There are artistic decisions, curatorial decisions, health and safety considerations and those that are determined by time until the whole negotiated bundle of ideas and samples can be turned in to a show. I am just one of many people ‘on the ground’ who help this to happen. I work with a team of art handling technicians, build contractors, curators, registrars, porters, cleaners, conservators and many other departments. A visitor may not notice all the elements in a particular room. They may walk into a projected film space and see a moving image and hear its sound. The room itself might be a self-contained cocoon of carpet and fabric, all quite discreet but aesthetically enhancing and necessary. There are other tricks as well. But the goal is for the visitor to notice only the art on display.
But the devil is in the detail. A fabric ceiling needs to be a certain colour, a certain thickness and at a certain height on the wall. Smoke detectors have to be lowered in the ceiling so that they remain effective. Lighting track has to be fitted below it if other works have to be lit. The ceiling has to be fitted around electrical works and floor-fitting. And the same care is applied to all aspects of the installation. Glass has to be safe and stable, checkouts and ephemeral elements have to be cleaned around, films have to projected from specific plinth heights, strobe works have to flicker at certain speeds. Every task is another precarious wooden block.
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Harry Enfield has a character in his series on TV called ‘i saw you coming’ where people with more money than sense pay stupid amounts of money for old worthless trash. ring any bells?
Re: Peter Martin’s comment.
The point of provocative modern art is to provoke thought in the observer. If you sit and stare at a piece and let your mind wander, you will notice that thoughts and feelings come to mind. Some of these are what the artist feels when they look at their own work. Art is about thought, emotion, and our common humanity. So I say to Peter, I see your point. But don’t just take it on face value. Allow yourself to sit quietly and experience the pieces and experience a slice of life you are missing out on – someone else’s ideas, and your own, for you to contemplate, then reject or accept as you decide.
I’m with Peter Martin on this one. No matter how much you try to justify it Charlotte people see it for what it really is. Worthless trash bought by a minority of idiots with too much money.
I can sit and contemplate my belly button, let my mind wander and notice thoughts and feelings coming to my mind. But would anyone pay money for my belly button?
What really galls me is that there are many decent, fantastic artists out there producing wonderful works of art but who don’t get the recognition they deserve.
Recognition is often not in relation to talent. Think of Paramedics, have-go-heros, good teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen, carers. They do outstanding things, with care and integrity, day-in, day-out. They don’t get the adulation of Brangelina, but they deserve more. Supply and demand is what drives prices. Talented artists are great, and beautiful pictures are numerous, some sell for a lot of money. Does a talented craftsmen grumble they don’t get enough recognition? Probably they do. Maybe we all do. Maybe we should all try to appreciate each others efforts and talents more. But there is also a place in this world, for diversity, different styles, tastes, opinions. And an artist that can make you think by arranging so-called ‘everyday’ items and bring wider issues to the fore has a place in our society too.
I made a video of mty own in an evening using a mobile telephone, some poetry that I’d written and a left over frankfurter sausage.
The results are an autobiographical pastiche of my life as a tragic mother of nine with no social life or friends at all. It makes me cry.
I wish I’d been entered for the prize with it. It’s far more heart-felt than any of the trash on display in the Tate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7sjjinDj4c
Try Googleing ’self esteem quotes’ and cheer up 
Thanks Charlotte. There’s no “e” in googling by the way.
See. I’m a grouch. That’s why I have no friends:(.
Read this and then you’ll realise no one else does either
http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html
Why are the “think” and “report” sections of the debate “coming soon”? We’re all ready to go. Oh well, there’s something to be gettting on with at http://wwww.stuckism.com
Why are the “think” and “report” sections of the debate “coming soon”? We’re all ready to go. Oh well, there’s something to be gettting on with at http://www.stuckism.com
I am no good at these mail-bites – essay and photos on Turner Prize and Stuckists on http://www.alexishunter.co.uk. It is the continual recycling that annoys people. Green though.
If you get more happiness from denigrating others than appreciating what is talented and beautiful then your life must be in a sorry state.
Why don’t people understand Modern Abstract Art IS NOT THE SAME THING as beautiful paintings!!! Beautiful art is wonderful, and we see beautiful works of art, paintings, sculpture, furniture, arcitecture, car design, trees, animals, babies, everywhere if we open our eyes and LOOK!!
Modern Abstract Art is not trying to be a ‘work of art’. It is a CONVEYANCE OF A THOUGHT, OPINION OR FEELING, from the ‘Artist’ to the ‘observer’. Their talent lies not in faithfully painting a beautiful likeness, but in conveying a message, and if that message is beautiful, or thought-provoking, some people will recognise the skill it took to achieve that, or appreciate the beauty of the message.
Maybe people who don’t like it are people who never try to say or do anything great or beautiful, and fear that they themselves are mediocre. Jealousy of another is hatred of, and insecurity in, oneself. Ditto – Google ’self esteem quotes’.
AND WHY DOES THE CONVEYANCE OF A MESSAGE HAVE TO BE ‘WRITTEN’ FOR IT TO BE LEGITIMATE?? GRRRR..
And Charlotte – I liked your Frankfurter Film! I like it all, La Vita Et Bella (An Italian Film about The Holocaust called Life Is Beautiful). Accept yourself, Hurt No one, and follow your own Bliss.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Washington Thurman
CORRECTION!! – Above message to Estelle, not Charlotte! I really need to lay off what-ever-it-is I’m taking!
and stop posting!
Byeee!
Love 2 all – Love yourselves
Oops! This discussion’s gone off topic. Please let’s get back to the original post about installing the show.
Thanks
Sorry about straying off-topic there. It would seem to me that these art installers pay so much attention to detail and play such an important role in the final look of the art that they too should take some credit for the art.
Which is probably why I feel that I prefer a piece of art to be framed or unframed or on a plinth…..something one can buy, put in a bag and bung on the wall at home.
[...] prize online Installing the exhibition If you don’t know what is the Turner prize. The four artist shortlisted: Runa Islam Mark [...]
I know this is off topic again, but referring back to Estelle—if being a mother of 9 isn’t a creative job, I don’t know what is. Wonder if it’s true?
I happened across the Turner Prize exhibition completely by chance three years ago. I was visiting London, and had previously been aware of the Turner prize, by means of television headlines, but not really taken all that much notice, and didn’t know where it was displayed. I am artistic and creative, and have worked in design for some years, as well as being a keen amateur photographer, and I ummed and ahhed about paying £5 to view the exhibition. I am so glad I decided to make the choice to go in. I spent a great deal of time by myself, opening my mind up. I felt excited by my existance and ability to think and feel on an unestablished level. I considered topic such as “what is art” and “fear of new”, as well as future and growth. When a sculpture is installed in a city there is always lots said about its suitability, its message, or its construction…and that’s great. The fact that we can have the freedom of opinion, whether positive affirmation or criticism..that, like the Turner prize is what it is all about….that we have been made to think. When we look back at periods in art, such as say the Rennaisance, it’s easy with hindsight to see what happened, and how art progressed. But imagine being there at that time creating the art of the future…not knowing what we know now. Risking it, being daring, experimenting with reaction. Pushing the boundaries…that’s what these artists are doing, and that is so exciting. I previously viewed a video loop shown in a frame on a wall in an art gallery, thinking, that’s not art because it’s not a 2D picture on a wall in a frame. Then my mind opened up, and I questioned the whole thing, with current technology why would it not be art, why does art have to be on the wall? This is to me the point of the Turner prize…and that doesn’t matter if it’s not the point for you. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and it was very memorable, and I hope to go again this year. I really had not thought about the installaton, but having read this article, it has made me think some more. You must have a very exciting job, that I’m sure involves mega stress and headaches, but how exciting seeing it through, and acheiving the end result. I will think of you if I get to see the exhibition this year. Thanks
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