Last month I curated and installed my first exhibition showcasing the work of Binghamton, NY artist, Michael Celbar. Curating and installing my first exhibition at Pink Arrow Arts in Montrose PA made me really assess my current strengths and weaknesses within the gallery world. Going from intern to gallery director has been insanely stressful. Not only am I juggling every job I did before as an intern but also every other responsibility that comes with the job title. Including curating entire shows, managing programing for the year, being more present during an opening reception, etc.
Selecting the Artwork
Thankfully I spent most of last year processing the artwork for this last exhibition and organizing it myself. I was able to select pieces for the show pretty quickly, I know the area decently as well, and what sells, or doesn’t sell by this point. And that’s what I started with, going upstairs where the art is being stored and selecting 24-25 pieces I thought would go well together. I needed to keep in mind that some of the frames for the artwork were severely damaged. Prior to Pink Arrow storing the artwork it was all kept in a basement that had flooded. So, many of the pieces unfortunately had some slight damage if not moderate. A lot of the glass was cracked as well so I couldn’t put those pieces out. There was also a large number (7-800) of pieces that weren’t framed at all, only maybe 10% of his artwork was ever framed. And while I could have put up the pieces that weren’t framed I decided not to for this show.
I ended up selecting 12-13 paintings, 4 framed oil pastels, 4 photographs, and 4 mixed media pieces. Everything I selected except the 12 paintings were framed and in decent condition. The oil pastels, except for 1, had some moderate damage to their frames but were in good enough condition to be hung. Most of the artwork did not have any hardware or wires strung along the back. This wasn’t too big of an issue for the paintings but did make hanging the photographs a little difficult. Thankfully the gallery uses a T-track rail in the main gallery room so all I had to do was measure where I wanted them to hang. The second gallery however does not have any sort of hanging rail or tracks so I just used nails. I’m not too happy with how I hung the pieces in the second gallery room. There’s a significantly tall molding that goes all the way around that room that covers more than half the wall. And there are 4 entrances into that room, 2 of the entrances are pretty wide openings. It’s hard to hang pieces in that room with the limited wall space. I think I hung pieces well in the main gallery room and gift shop though, there are no tall moldings in the main gallery so all I really had to figure out was the spacing. The T-track made everything extremely easy to hang, once I figured out the spacing for one of them I really just had to put the hanger on the exact same spot as the one before it.
One thing I didn’t do that I absolutely should have was re-paint the walls. That is usually my main job but with everything happening at the gallery and all the internal changes, on top of all my new responsibilities, it just slipped my mind. The walls weren’t too bad, I had just patched and re-painted them a month before this show, but some spots definitely needed a touch up and I didn’t notice until well after the opening reception.
Hanging the Show
I think I curated the show well. I tried to pick cohesive paintings and oil pastel works while keeping in mind the area and the kind of art people like to buy in Montrose. I took an entire day to go through the artwork and then place them around the gallery to see where I wanted them hung. I started in the main gallery room and placed the artwork along the floor or sometimes up on the T-track if there was already one in place to see how it would hang. The second gallery room was a little more tricky, I have helped hang stuff in there before but it’s never been just me hanging pieces in there before. And again, I think I did okay with it but I’m not too happy about it either.
Before I started hanging pieces I had to clear the gallery out. There wasn’t any artwork on the walls but the board had left a bunch of stuff just all over the gallery from our Christmas show. So before I really got started hanging anything I had to bring a bunch of tables and pedestals back down to the basement. Clearing everything out by myself took about 2 days. Once that was done I decided to move the gift shop around, there had been some smaller “retail” items hanging around the gallery and I wanted everything that wasn’t a piece of artwork put into the gift shop or book shop. Moving the gift shop around took about another day.
Once the galleries were clear it was finally time to start hanging all the pieces. The main gallery room took me maybe 2 hours to hang, I already had everything where I wanted it so it just became a matter of actually hanging the pieces up. A lot of the pieces in the main room were the same size or very close to the same size so it was pretty simple to hang once I got the first measurement. And any pieces that weren’t the exact same size were pretty easy to adjust.
The gift shop was also an easy room to hang in. The only difficulties with that room were the walls. The gallery walls are pretty sturdy but the gift shop walls feel like they’re made out of cardboard. There is one T-track rail on one wall in the gift shop so I took full advantage of that wall and hung 3 of the paintings there. One of the walls I had to change what I wanted to hang since I felt it was too heavy for that wall and didn’t feel comfortable enough to leave a piece up there. Just as an idea for what these walls are like: I put a nail where I was going to hang the piece, pulled on it a little bit to make sure it was in and the second my finger even grazed the nail it completely fell out. The nail was at a slight angle tilted up not down so I don’t even know how that happened. But safe to say I was not about to put a $500 piece there.
Preparing for the Opening Reception
Once I had every piece up on the walls I went around the gallery to level each hung work. Once every piece was as level as it could get (the floors and walls aren’t level so it’s a bit of a hassle to get the pieces level), I made tags by printing labels out on paper and then glued them to foam board with spray adhesive. I think I made the labels extremely well, only a slight “problem” with that, I forgot to change my box cutter blade and it was a little dull, so once I got to the end it was taking 2 passes with the blade to cut through the board. Not a major issue, just a slightly annoying one. None of the pieces were priced but the estate owner had given me complete control not only over the curation and hanging but also pricing the artwork. I did find 1-2 pieces that were priced and tried my best to go off of those prices to price everything in the exhibition.
I was able to finish everything just in time, it took about a week of work to clear the gallery and get everything hung up and labeled and the day after I finished everything we opened. The opening reception went very well I’d say, it was supposed to be 4-6 but people started showing up at 3 and stayed until 7! No pieces sold at the reception but that’s not unusual, if we do sell pieces at receptions it’s usually only one or two, most of the pieces we sell get sold throughout the weeks the exhibitions are up for.
Overall I think most things went well, there is definitely room for improvement in curating and hanging the shows. But I’ll keep learning as I go and each show will be better than the last.
