Last week, I saw a post on instagram, about an exhibition by Madeleine Calloway Vietmeier. I dropped what I was doing to see what was going on, and I’m glad I did.
The proposition for the exhibition was experimental and provocative; what level of engagement is an artist comfortable with from their audience. It wasn’t in those words, but that’s what got me hooked. This nugget of an idea that exhibitions aren’t really finished until a reaction in recorded.
Here, the audience are invited, over a week of open doors, to help curate the exhibition. It was an opportunity for deep engagement, but also to hear the artist vulnerably unsteady in their decision making. From entering the space though I was struck by the unusual confidence of Madeleine Calloway Vietmeier’s prompt (not instruction) to intervene; acknowledging the anxiety of the moment, and my own nervousness as a viewer without prior knowledge of her work.
So we were both on equal terms. An unintentional (I think) psychological leveller.
In my own anxiousness, I explored the room, guided by histories of where the works were previously exhibited, the relationships between canvases and paper scrolls, and which elements were simply too long for installation vs ephemera for inclusion.
A ladder was moved, and three unstretched canvases grouped. I was cautious about curating with any authority because I don’t have ownership over these works, despite the artists offering it to me for that moment. One by one, the three canvases fell into an order that felt right visually and inoffensive thematically.
They were hung at extremes to seek to unite them without a forced symmetry or rigid triptych boxing. And it worked. Then I left, rushing to a meeting I’d forgotten about in the joy of co-curating someone else’s practice.
A few days later, the show opened in its finished state, hung around those canvases through the contributions of other visitors during the week. I had hoped to see it in person, but fate hasn’t allowed that yet. At the time of writing, this exhibition was forcibly closed (see Editorial), but at the time of going to print, it is open again, by appointment.
I’m excited to see it, because I’m excited to hear form the artist again, at the other end of a process, where she tried to exercise losing control, and lost it in ways that were far outside her control. I’m excited to see what happened around the works we hung together, and to hear the rationale for the works hung by others. Most of all, I’m excited to see if Madeleine is more, or less, content with the outcomes of co-curation than her usual process.
Second edition is one of those exhibitions that won’t ever be recreated to the same effect. It’s done, as it should be, and its impact on the artist is hopefully equal to its impact on me.
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Second Edition is open by appointment until the end of May. Contact The Royal Standard or the artists on instagram;
@madeleinevietmeier
@theroyalstandard_
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
