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The art of the art exhibit

Adam McEwen is a British artist who lives in New York. His work is currently on display at the Aspen Art Museum.

If you visit his exhibit, you’ll be invited to take an unexpected look at objects in your everyday life, like text messages and yoga mats. What you might not realize is you’re not just looking at McEwen’s work, but the work of many others, as well.

 

When you enter the exhibit, you’re confronted with two walls of obituaries for celebrities that are still living: Bill Clinton, Kate Moss, MacaulayCulkin and others.

 

McEwen wrote obituaries for the London Telegraph before fully supporting himself as an artist. Converting obituaries into art has become a signature of his. This is one of the reasons why they’re the first pieces the audience sees. The other reason, according to Heidi Zuckerman, the director of the Aspen Art Museum and the curator of McEwen’s show, is text-based work makes people feel comfortable.

 

“By making people let down their guard, then you can have that much more of an impact. And that’s also the creative part of exhibition-making,” she said.

 

As curator, Zuckerman’s role began with the fundamental question of what should go into the exhibit and why. She looked at McEwan’s entire body of work and landed on the idea of death as the exhibit’s “organizing principle.”

 

“I often say I’m an interpreter,” said Zuckerman. Her job is to help the artist communicate their work in ways that they maybe hadn’t thought to beforehand. Doing this job well, at least in McEwen’s case, involved months of back and forth and discussion, which Zuckerman enjoys.

 

“That kind of intellectual sparring, that dialogue, the pushing and pulling, the understanding, the revelation, that’s the best part,” she said.

 

Not every artist she has worked with is thrilled about her interpretation of their work. She’s butted heads in the past; she also thinks she’s designed a bad show before.

 

Once the curator and artist decide what will be included in the show, the art museum’s installation director, Jonathan Hagman, gets involved. He builds a tiny model of the gallery with magnetic walls. The curator sends him a list of all the works that will be included in the show, which he makes tiny reproductions of with magnets on the back.

 

When the artwork arrives, the installation crew lets it sit and acclimatize. Then they unpack it, and play the arranging game. As in McEwen’s case, if an artist is having a solo exhibition, he or she will usually come to Aspen to take part.  

 

Hagman said McEwan’s show has been straightforward to arrange. They’re not all so straightforward. The final exhibition he installed at the former location of the art museum was by a Brazilian artist -- Ernesto Neto. The audience was invited to interact with the exhibition -- audience members lay down on benches, and bags of crystals were designed to be lowered onto them.

 

“That was a very interactive exhibition,” he said.

 

While McEwan’s exhibit isn’t as interactive, it’s still kept Hagman very busy. He and his crew have hung enormous, heavy pieces and spent days adjusting others inch by inch. While he mostly takes directions, his work with the artist and the curator is collaborative.

 

The largest piece in his show is a photo from the Second World War. It’s a famous photo of the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, and his lover, Clara Petacci. They’ve been killed by a mob and hung by their ankles. McEwen has flipped the photo, so the dangling arms rise high towards the ceiling. The whole piece is over 10 feet tall and is very heavy.

 

Hagman and his team got the piece into position. McEwen stood at the back and told them where to move the piece along the wall until it was perfect.   

 

As Heidi Zuckerman points out, it is simply someone’s job to get the art here and get it up. This might sound thankless, which is why it’s important to her that her team spend time in the galleries absorbing the product of their effort.

 

“Let’s remember what we’re doing here. We’re experience making. We’re exhibition making,” she said.

 

And there is more to it than just what meets the eye.  

 

 

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