<Significance of Exhibition Space: Application of History and Meaning in Elements of Museography>
 
The last seminar with the independent curator Sohyun Ahn took place under the subject theme “Significance of Exhibition Space: Application of History and Meaning in Elements of Museography” on April 26th, 2016.  The seminar took a comprehensive look into the development and history of the exhibition space and the study of ‘Museography’ through which objects of high academic and artistic value are positioned in the most effective manner in the art gallery or museum, from its early research to examples of exhibitions today.
 
Giulio Camillo’s Memory Theater (1550) and Studiolo of Francesco I (1570-1572) were proposed as the prototypes of the art gallery (museum) collection. Giulio Camillo’s Memory Theater presumed an imaginary space and formed an interactive connection among the subjects arranged in the space, generating the very first concept of “arrangement” through which memory can systematically be acquired. On the other hand, Studiolo was a space designed to place collections for research purposes, and was a decorative space consisting of the collections of the Medici family.
 
Cabinet of Curiosities, Cabinet of Paintings, and Cabinet of Miniatures, which rose out of the attempt to capture a microcosm in a physical space, are also important subjects of discussion in the history of Museography. Works based on the idea of ‘collection’, as in the work by modern and contemporary artist like Marcel Broodthaers, are examples that have been inspired by such form of the ‘cabinet’.
 
Discussion on the collections selected for the exhibition also took place in the seminar. It was agreed that the ideology of selection and classification in exhibition draws the conclusion that “no exhibition can be neutral”, and that exclusion and value assessment accompany such selection. The discussion also noted that the arrangement considers the meaning of the object and recognizes the exhibition as a means to contextualize a certain subject, and that “selection” is thus charged with a sense of relativity.
 
Ahn also talked about how color was used in the exhibition space before the notion of the ‘white cube’. Before an exhibited work claimed its independent status, neutral unifying background was necessary for the variety of exhibited works to be read in a multiple and simultaneous manner. The color Scarlet was used as this background color, because scarlet had the effect of unifying the background. On the other hand, green was used as the background wall color in the Louvre because the serenity of the green was regarded to be educationally appropriate. The seminar introduced the book Color Theory by Goethe, which is an excellent analysis of the psychological effect of color.
 
Dynamic study on the effect of complementary colors took place in the 19th century, and since then, background color complementing the dominant color of the exhibited works were applied. For example, Camille Pissaro painted the wall to complement his works, and in exhibiting Georges Pierre Seurat’s works, the walls were painted in colors complementing the dominant colors in the paintings as to ‘frame’ Seurat’s paintings. More emphasis on the authenticity of each art work started to be placed and the artist’s intended method of presentation began to be respected, and the works by surviving artists began to be exhibited widely more than ever before. Ahn said that such changes demonstrate how “the standards of evaluation and reading of the work in exhibition planning started to shift gradually from the external standards of the work to the individual traits and significance of the work itself.”
 
The ‘White Cube’ style was instigated by Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr., the first director of Museum of Modern Art, New York, in attempt to minimize all visual obstacles to focus on the subject of the exhibited work, and since then, this became the international standard and norm in the exhibition space. The pros and cons of MoMA’s white cube has been raised by many scholars including Mary Anne Staniszewski and Remy Zaugg, and Dadaists also dealt with the insignificance of the institution and its standards by constructing non-neutral exhibition space.
 
The exhibition When Attitudes become Form curated by Harald Szeemann - in which no distinction is placed between material and work - is a key example of how artists who argued against the context of the exhibition space were supported by star curators. In this exhibition, artists like Michael Heizer and Lawrence Weiner who strive to invalidate the ‘gallery’ were able to execute their works with the curatorial authority of Harald Szeemann. The seminar also shed light on the example of borderlessness where the artist and the curator are indistinguishable in the realm of Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics. Exhibitions by conceptual artists like Michael Asher which criticized the institution by subverting the space or its history and authority were also observed in the seminar.
 
The efficiency in how successfully works of value are arranged in an exhibition space can now be estimated through statistical research. The statistics which figure out the movement of the viewers through in-depth calculation demonstrate how the audience response (participation) changes in accordance to the way the works are visually presented. The assertiveness in the response of the audience changes according to the exhibition arrangement which stimulates unexpected surprises and curiosities. The multilateral decisions in the exhibition, including the audience movement, work arrangement and perspective, as well as the use of light and wall color are important components in turning the exhibition space into a space of immersion.