Changing the Space

I was on a call with Emma Gillespie, Curator at National Galleries Scotland, reviewing their space and digitally hanging Hanna Tuulikki’s artwork.

We got to chatting about the importance of context for an artwork, and how its surroundings can completely revive the meaning, the expression, and even sometimes the colours (J.M.W Turner’s paintings really come alive when hung on a light blue or plum purple wall).

I wonder, would the Mona Lisa be as impactful if she was removed from the Louvre’s pedestal. Would she have different things to say if you met her in a quiet, small room?

The context has changed even more so, now we find ourselves deep in the phygital era on theVOV. How does the narrative of the work change when it is moved out of its physical space, and put it into the digital?

When digitally hanging the Andreas Gursky show with Ralph Rugoff, Director of Hayward Gallery, Natasha and I watched him curate the space. It was mind-blowing. At the beginning of the call, the artworks were randomly hung in the space as they had just been uploaded. Ralph chuckled at how much easier it was to digitally hang the ordinarily tonne-heavy artworks in a digital space, and in a couple of clicks, everything became clear. The photographs looked completely different at the end of the call, after he had moved them around and created a pattern with them that he was happy with. They were hung differently to the original show and so they had different conversations with each other.

Come and find out what they are saying to each other now, on theVOV.

with love, from Lottie @theVOV