Margaret and I spent a lot of time in galleries and museums in the last month. The exhibition of Canadian Indigenous Art at the Albuquerque Art Museum was excellent. A show of Black and White drawings and photographs at the New Mexico Art League was great fun.
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| Margaret at Arts Thrive |
Two exhibitions with great promise mostly brought disappointment. The annual Arts Thrive benefit exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum had way too much art on the walls. The Ways of Seeing exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe assembled classics from three private photography collections, but what might have been a great experience was ruined for me by abysmal lighting.
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| New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe |
At the Santa Fe exhibit there were prints from many of Photography's great pioneers including Alfred Steiglitz and Ruth Berhard. Gertrude Kasebier's small photogravure, "Blessed are thou amongst women", was so poorly lit that I was left wishing I had brought a flashlight. In fact, all the galleries in the great old Santa Fe building were dim and dingy looking. The big palladium prints by David Michael Kennedy at least showed that there is still good work being done today in the State.
2 comments:
I had a similar experience at an Ansel Adams exhibit in San Francisco some time ago. I really looked forward to spending some time looking at his prints close up, but the lighting was absolutely horrible.
It appears that light damage is mostly related to UV exposure, so controlling that is certainly an option. Another possibility might be to use proximity sensors to adjust light levels momentarily. Reducing reflections is also a worthy goal. Curators need to step up their game.
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