Matt Mullican exhibition, Camden Arts Centre and South African Art at British Museum

We had a class visit to the Matt Mullican exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, to think about how we used and reflected on an exhibition.   I found it a totally unappealing exhibition.  Other students loved it.  I found it hyper-regimented, repetitive, symmetrical and unintelligible.  I failed to understand the purpose of the exhibition, despite reading the script outside the front door.

As a class we debated how the exhibition made us feel (uncomfortable - me), what the curator's intention was (I had no idea) and what the artists intention was (to represent a library - which was completely lost on me).  The entry script was too long, too obscure and when I had waded through all of it, I summed it up as "art bollocks".  When I shared this in the class discussion, I got a look of disapproval from Danielle!

Matt Mullican Exhibition
Image courtesy of Camden Arts Centre.  

Matt Mullican Exhibition
Image courtesy of Camden Arts Centre

I started wondering whether I was an inadequate art student as I really did not get the exhibition.

Then Lieta and I went to the South African art exhibition at the British Museum.  We both very much enjoyed the exhibition.  Lieta was critical about how it jumped from ancient history and indigenous drawings to the advent of European invasion.  I liked the nuggets of social history included in the exhibition - how the South African coat of arms is derived from rock painting, the motto is written in an extinct ancient language which means Diverse People Unite and includes indigenous symbols - the sun, secretary bird, protea flower, the spear and club, elephant tusks, ears of wheat and motto.

South African coat of arms wef year 2000
Courtesy of Wikipedia

I also liked the beaded necklace which had Victorian pennies as snuff box pendants on the bottom.  The object description said the white Europeans thought this was a respectful symbol of acceptance of white superiority, but actually it was a subversive sign that the indigenous culture was a head-hunting culture and they were wearing a disembodied head as a necklace!  Love it!  Understanding the codes, enriches the reading of the object.

Xhosa necklace with snuff boxes, courtesy of British Museum.

So analysing the difference between the 2 exhibitions - I like a bit of narrative with the event.  I like reading clearly written curatorial statements.  I like thinking about the political aspects of creating and staging an exhibition.  I like finding things that are a bit subversive - where the under-represented group has thumbed its nose at authority … and got away with it.

I like the object - and it surprised me that I found the first exhibition so difficult.  But I like the object with a narrative that is available to me, and I often like an object with a patina of wear - like my Mum's old wooden spoon.  Maybe this is why I don't like things in modern contemporary galleries - too new and too perfect?  Too much like a posh shop?  I am not into shopping.  Or collecting for myself.  I prefer museums to galleries.  And I consider London's bigger art galleries to be museums.  I like to look, think, and reflect.  And I enjoy a day out.