The Museum Show, parts 1478 - 1481

1478. Buboni could not have been more correct about this consideration. His knowledge of the problems of gallery placement relative to the artists in a group show came from the many years in which he had been asked to be one of the judges for the many gallery and museum shows he and his colleagues were involved in. Buboni was often selected because he could be relied upon to represent a historical and conservative point of view.

1479. He said that many times his judgments had led to confrontations and arguments in the museum setting. "There is nothing quite like seeing an artist enter the exhibition space, their face beet red with anger. They scan the room looking for their enemy and their eye lights upon your countenance. Then, with measured angry strides they walk up to you quivering in silent rage and stand in front of you. 

1480. They eye you up and down as if mentally comparing you to some insect they intend to crush, and finally their invective bursts forth. They rush from one partial sentence to another unable to decide whether they want to condemn your entire career, your personal life, or just the question of where you have placed certain of their works of art.  Remarks bordering on death threats are common. The judge's response must be invariably the same.

1481. "My favorite reply," said Buboni, "was to suggest that they take their picture out of the exhibition as soon as they liked, and take it down to New York City, and get in the line with all the other artists involved in doing the exact same type of work, and hope it gets the recognition it truly deserves." "Because," he said, "no matter what one may be doing, someone somewhere is doing something similar.

The Museum Show, parts 1474 - 1477

1474. And yet there is something even worse than that: to have one's work hung salon style and to be placed down by the floor and over in a corner, so that one must crouch down to get a good look at it. It could even be worse, if there is also a door blocking the view, dark shadows because no light falls on the picture. Such treatment has led to many a disgraceful scene between gallery owner and artist, between artist and museum director.

1475. Arguments ending in the slamming of doors, ultimatums, oaths to never darken your doors again, to speak evil of you to everyone. Artists are especially guilty of this kind of outburst, and there is hardly an artist's biography that does not contain examples of this type of scene.

1476. The exhibiting artist, unless it is their first time, never stops to consider that almost all of the others who submitted works were rejected. All the rejected artists are envious of the little painting hung down in the dark corner, salon style, they wish some day to arrive at that dark corner, but alas, a lifetime my go by and the dark corner of the exhibit hall will never be attained.

1477. But the artist down in the corner is insulted, and wants to have nothing to do with that gallery ever again. Such is the, "Theory of Relativity," when applied to the life of the artist, and their experience of the vagaries of recognition. One can't forget that Warhol was a great artist, but was consumed by fears that he was second best after Jasper Johns, feelings created by just such subtle considerations as to where in a room one's best works were hung.

The Museum Show, parts 1470 - 1473

1470. On the other hand, what if you have a wall all to yourself, at the farther end from the entrance to a room, but it is a smaller room just off of the main hall. Although this is very honorable treatment for an artist, still it is often looked upon as a deep insult. It makes the obvious point that your painting is not the best, but it is some how second best.

  

1471. This question of placement is actually more important than prizes and awards, blue ribbons and honorable mentions. A blue ribbon actually looks rather silly next to a painting, but where a work is hung is the most important message from the artist's point of view.

1472. Now imagine the feelings of the poor artist, whose work is hung in a set of pictures, four in a square, by four different artists. All of the pictures in the set are still life, or perhaps all are figurative work. This sort of treatment says, "This painting falls into, thus and so, category of work, it is, this sort of a thing." No artist wants to have their work placed into a grouping that categorizes it into a set of similar things done by other artists.

1473. Finally one arrives at greatest affront of all, your work is hung, "salon style." Salon style is a wall where hundreds of paintings are hung helter-skelter, as many as possible on the wall surface, from up by the ceiling right down to the floor moldings.  The name, "salon" is derived from the French salons where as many paintings as possible were crammed into the exhibition space.

The Museum Show, parts 1466 - 1469

1466. She filled out the paper work application, paid the fee and went home.  After that she looked everyday in the mail for the reply to come, the reply would be a little pink post card she had filled out at the time she submitted her painting. On the postcard were little boxes to indicate acceptance or rejection. Years later she would discover that the prizewinners would receive a signed letter from the judges, but everyone else got the postcard.

 1467. A week later she received her postcard; her picture was accepted. You can be quite sure that the next question that flashed into her mind, a question every artist in a big group show is obsessed with, where will they hang my picture. 

1468. Even though I was telling my story of Mrs. Festini's first experience submitting a painting to a show, and even though I was being quite complete in remembering all the details of Agnes' story, still Buboni was so interested that he felt he had to interrupt me and expound on this exact point. Where in a show are works hung, and what does it signify to the artist?

1469. "Picture," he began, "that you are entering an exhibit hall to see a big group show in which you are one of the exhibitors. You have no idea how the people in charge of the exhibit have handled the painting you submitted. You enter a large room and in the distance on the far wall you see your painting all by itself, nothing to the left or right, nothing above or below it.  This is what every artist, especially those consumed by vanity, wish to see."

The Museum Show, parts 1462 - 1465

1462. She took her picture down to the museum where she found a long line of artists waiting to submit their works to the show. For the past few years she had seen every one of the juried shows at the museum but the line of artists submitting works, and their paintings was something entirely new to her. She had no idea that for every thirty or forty pictures submitted only one or two would find their way into the show.

1463. The line of artists was therefore an exhibit unto itself, an exhibit mostly of works soon to be rejected. Agnes knew nothing about art at that point but she could see in an instant that the majority of the things people were submitting were never going to appear in the show. What, she wondered, would the judges think of several paint by numbers landscapes complete with thick globs of paint filling in all those little shapes.

1464. Would they ever accept a portrait of Elvis done in oil from a glossy photograph, where the features had all but disappeared, encroached upon by the surrounding flesh?

1465. One man had a white canvas on which he had poured black ink. Once the ink ran from the top to bottom he had turned it on its side, and let it run in drips in the other direction.  Agnes looked again at her first still life painting and had a surge of hope, just from her visits to the previous shows she realized her picture was probably going to be accepted.

The Museum Show, parts 1458 - 1461

1458. She thought painting the background black would make the flower part stand out better, but it did just the opposite. She had painted the petals of the flowers with great attention to their subtle tints and hues, even managing to show the differences in the shadows, but the black background made all her little tints look like one drab pink color.

1459. She started all over again. She did the background first to be safe, and then did the flowers and the vase in exactly the same way as before but found that even though it looked precisely the same, it somehow lacked a certain vivacity that her first attempt possessed. Now she had spent three days and many hours on a project she thought would be very simple. She threw her second attempt away and started over.

1460. She threw her flowers in the trash, put her mother's vase back on its shelf, and in frustration painted the entire thing over again from her imagination as quickly as she could in a frenzy of intense concentration. When she finished she had a little watercolor painting that it would take her twenty years to surpass. It was her first true work of art, born of a combination of frustration and inspiration. 

1461. Although she was completely happy with her painting, she was disappointed with the frame and the mat because it was old and dingy looking. She worried that the judges would take one look at the frame and reject her entry.  The mat looked almost all right after she painted it white, but, even so, some watermarks showed through the white paint down in the corners. 

The Museum Show, parts 1454 - 1457

1454. She did a watercolor still life, and was on pins and needles for two weeks in anticipation of whether her picture would be chosen by the judges to be included in the show. This was her first painting done entirely on her own, outside of the art class of school. According to the show prospectus, works on paper had to be framed appropriately so her first consideration was to find a frame and a mat suitable for the picture she planned to paint.

1455. She went shopping in second hand-stores and found many frames that could have been suitable, but most had art work of sufficient value to make the purchase too expensive, but she managed to find a suitable frame with a glass and mat, the only problem being that the mat which was probably white at one time was now a depressing brown color. She took it home and took it apart, and painted the mat white with house paint.

1456. She set to work to paint her watercolor painting of some flowers. She thought this would present no problem but it turned out to be otherwise. She was so long trying to arrange her flowers in an interesting way that she had to go to bed before she even started working on the painting. In the morning all the flowers were drooped and wilted so she had so start over again.

1457. Her second attempt was more successful but once she finished the flowers and the vase she considered that she simply had to do something else with the background. She was very pleased with the flowers; thought the vase was adequate, but promptly proceeded to ruin the entire thing by painting the background all black.