London Essay

London is crazy. In all the times i have been here, it seemed to be now that time flew faster than ever, just when i needed to grasp it most.
I had initially planned to enter around 4 galleries, and what was was apparent for me was that i was not prepared to go anywhere just for the sake of viewing the gallery space and hanging techniques in preperation for ppd2. The work itself was just as important and so i set about researching current exhibitions. I could have easily gone to the 'Tate's' and Barbican but as i have been to such places more than once, i felt it could help to refresh myself with new space, and challenge myself in finding something exciting.

The first place i visited ironically is incredibley famous, it's just that i, have never visited it, as i never pre planned well enough to find myself with a decent map to locate it.
This seemingly elusive treasure is infact the Saatchi Gallery.
I've always wanted to go but only realised this right as soon as it had closed down for relocation around 4 years ago, so now was the time.

It was actually very easy to find, literally five minutes walk from Sloane Square tube station.
Here is a little information about the building itself, which is beautiful, yes it is wikipedia so it may not be precise but i have faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_York's_Headquarters

The traditional idea of gallery architecture is very much embodied in the granduear of this building, and you sense the realisation of why lower and working classes would feel daunted and want to avoid coming here as the walls enclose around the premises, the clean cut shaped grass front and looming pillars make it feel more like a stately home than a free for all public gallery space.

However stepping inside, this immediate visual experience is displaced with contrasting contemporary interior structures and design. Brick work is gone, and the walls are stark, white and new. The ceilings are still tall, looming above the viewer, but they are bright and without the victorian cornering you might expect.

Some would probably call this sacrelidge for such an admired piece of architecture but i believe you have to really go one of two ways when altering interior on buildings, either recreate the original aesthetic or alter it completely, moving as far away from what it was originally as possible. Here, the latter works more relevantly as the attention art demands could not be given in a distracting, highly decorated place.

Although we are in half term school, holiday week the gallery was surprisingly quiet, or at least due to teh vastness of each room you felt independant from any other crowds which was a refershing change from the Tate Modern which gets jam packed and cramped during holidays *grumble grumble*

Anyway with my curators thinking cap on, what i wanted to consider was how piece were presenented in terms of physical placement, height, additonal props such as shelves, lighting, space in the gallery. And of course the all important choice of works, how works complimnented eachother [both in terms of the variety of works and artists]....if that makes sense.

The space is split into almost fifteen rooms [there's a few small one's for the school prize, and one for another gallery] each being great in size. Lighting was the same throughout the gallery, supplied by small spotlights from the ceiling, however a great deal of the light came from the glass ceilings, which were panelled and appeared like skylights, Impossible of course seeing as there were two floors of gallery spaces above.
This consistancy of such lighting allowed individual pieces to be viewed in all of their detail, nothing to be missed whilst remaining sincere to original colour of the pieces. For them to be seen as the artist intended.

As much as i have considered the importance of lighting in general gallery situations the possibility of synthetic light that appears natural had never really occurred to me. Such a seemingly small idea had a truely positive effect on the whole gallery concept and allowed the space to seem much more promising than normal spotlighting would have allowed for.

In terms of space, i generally find contemporary art galleries to be fair with their allocation per item, in this instance i wasn't sure if such allocation was only relevant to this exhibition 'The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today' or whether it the layout would be approached in a similar minimalist manner everytime, i presume the latter.

Room One opened the visitor up to the prospect of the minmalism to come, as it contained only one piece along the left hand wall, spanning from the entrance along the length of the room. This could have seemed like a waste of space but you could understand why the enttire room was needed both in the practical sense of the size of the installation, and in terms of viewing, other works may have taken away from the qualities the piece intended to put across.

Smaller pieces of work meant the remaining rooms [with the exception of rooms ten and eleven] had around four or five pieces in each.

The work ranged between painting, sculpture / installation and photography, within each room these were placed in varying ways, some rooms mixed artists, subject matter and media, while others remained loyal to one particular artist or theme. On one occasion when an artist held multiple works of a running theme, they were split between two rooms, to avoid being repetative and aid a fresh experience, upon entering the second room. On another occassion, one artist held a series of four portrait photographs, of of which appeared slightly different in theme and so rathet then pull it down, it was merely distanced slightly from the others. Obviously the exhibition under question was themed on Indian Art, and so it was only natural that consistancy occurred, whether this be found in thematic value, media, palette, it allowed for the works to compliment eachother. For example sculpture involving electronics was placed together in one lesser lit room to bring attention to the use of media. Meanwhile running further than that there was, really, an underlying sub-catagorization in the way artist's works were placed together, to ensure the pieces worked well together.

Paintings where hung fairly low to allow the viewer to come face to face with the work, whatever the scale may be, sculpture however became a little more complex. This was more down to an understanding of how each individual piece ought to be viewed, smaller sculptures were placed on plinths to avoid placement appearing accaidental [so it seemed] and for larger pieces some needed the addition of height, as they appeared in a state of scale limbo. Whatever the case may be, plinths were made to scale, 4 sided and always white, again remaining minimalist to avoid detracting from the pieces in question.

The space throughout each room was great, and the rooms could have easily been filled a little more without being cluttered, however Saatchi's choice of works is generally for one's of a theatrical / powerful
nature meaning both he, and the works themselves demand to be viewed, alone; So rooms were kept to a maximum of 5 pieces. Each work was placed alone, acting as a stopping point for the exhibition goer, so they could review the work rather than be distracted by fiorth coming pieces.

Each piece was placed at the side of the room rather than the middle, in general one piece per side, which worked better for space, as then visitors did not crowd the centre of the room, nor did the block the view of other works. The centre of the room was left open for the visitors to stand from all angles of the room. Sculpture was placed slightly out from the wall to allow it to be walked around and viewed from all angles. Playing further onto this idea of accessibilty, there were no ropes or wires in place to distance the viewer from the work, instead i was allowed to be as close to the piece as possible, practically taste the texture of the paint, and be daunted by sculptures that loomed over me.

Art should be seen, felt and even touched and i have a love / hate relationship with the red velvet rope. i love it because i want to climb over it, it adds mystery but i hate the elitism of not being allowed access to what lies before me. Cultural figures are always commenting on how galleries are becoming ever more accessible but really when you place restrictions underway that completely contradicts this 'freedom for all' idea, the freedom to be educated, as you can 'look but you mustn't touch'.
Well the point being that this gallery throws that concept out of the window, and wants as many people as possible into the vacinty to learn and to do that they must lean in.

The final gallery room took all these concepts and threw them on their head, as it was in this room that the gallery allow an external gallery to come in and exhibit their work and sell it.
'The Frank Suss Collection' had some lovely pieces in it, but as it had the top floor of the gallery [with sloped ceiling] it already felt smaller, this added to the greater amount of works on view meant it felt much less personal as an experience, and far more corporate. In here they had regained the typical gallery rules, with labels saying 'Do Not Touch'. The only labels to be seen downstairs were of the general information of the piece. Not even information on why the work was made, and i quite liked being left to my independant ideas on why it had come to exist. The only exception to this rule was in room ten and eleven where two larger works, one a commision and one an ongoing project took up entire rooms and so required further information on the artist.

And finally here is a video tour of the gallery in case you can't get through all of this.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/video-tour.htm

In the words of Gordon Ramsey... Saatchi, Done!