What absolutely infuriates me is being in a show where all the curators are either painters or non-artists who think that sculpture is a kind of very thick painting and they display it as such. I've seen sculpture lined up like vehicles in a used car lot, I've not only seen it backed up tight against a wall so that you can only see the front and the sides, I've also seen it tucked into a corner so that all you see is the top and the front. I swear, I think if they could figure out a way to frame it and hang on the wall, they would.
Sometimes I wonder if they do it deliberately. I was standing with a sculptor friend mine while he was talking to a curator of a very large art show when he asked her, politely, not to place the piece butt up to a wall, which would hide the back side of the piece. So she didn’t. This is the instance previously mentioned where the piece was crammed into a corner so that all you could see was the top and the front. This was an incredibly complex wood carving with loops and whirls all through it, kind of looked like and Escher print and so she stuck in a place where it was basically one dimensional and all the work put into it was totally wasted. And it was on a pedestal at about knee height. Six year olds appreciated it. There were more instances at this show where there was no understanding that the work being displayed was three dimensional. Sculpture has: a front, a back, two sides, a top and a bottom. I really wish some of these people would get this concept through their heads. I’ve decided that from now on I’m going with the notion my work will be curated by someone with no concept of sculpture and so all my work will be on turntables so at least the viewer will have a chance to see the work from all sides, despite best efforts of someone to make it look like a painting.
Sculpture is the stuff you trip over when you are backing up trying to look at a painting. (Jules Olitski)
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