Saturday 6 December 2008

How to destroy an exhibition

Well I arrived in Athens on the 20th November, for 2 days of discussion around the notion of Mediterranean photography and portfolio reviews and a chance to see my exhibition at the
Artower Galleries in Central Athens.
After finishing my last portfolio review, a group of us went down to
the gallery to see my exhibition.
What followed was a series of disappointments, to put it politely. My initial impression, as I
 entered the Gallery was I didn't like the way it was ordered and spaced.
As I moved closer to the images, I noticed that there was some damage to the corners, they had clearly fallen from the wall. As I move round the exhibition, cursing very time I saw a damaged photograph,  I begin to look more closely at how they have hung them. It was a double sided tape that couldn't take the weight of 100x70cm photographs mounted on sintra board.
To finally top it all off I notice a small pin nail in one of the images, I re-looked at all the large images and in every image there were 2 nails hammered through the photographs, and not in the corners but half way down and sometimes 5cm into the images. It looks like the were trying to find areas in the image where the nails wouldn't be so visible.
I go back to Athens in 10 days time, it will be interesting to see how they managed to get them off the wall without completely destroying them.