Collecting pieces of Identity
During my short experience on the west coast of this great continent, I had the opportunity to create, curate and show my work in an exhibition, which involved 35 artists from 22 countries in 9 different mediums.
It all started on the 25th Oct.
From the first moment I knew Shannon Plath was in charge of the ‘studying abroad’ program, I told her we should do a panel of all the abroad students, in which they could tell about their experience, and about their country and school. This idea came from the poor Public Relations of Israel, my country.
My nagging paid of.
On the 25th of Oct, 2010, Miss Plath approached me, asking advice for a program to run on the International Education Week.
The ‘study abroad’ session started growing slowly, into programs, sessions, and decoration planning.
From meeting to meeting, our eyes got bigger, and our due date got closer.
At some moment we decided to cancel our (already prepared) foreign councils contact details and plans of co-operation.
The plans have been set
OK, November 9th, the plans must be finished, without any changes from now on.
The idea of raising an Exhibition started from wanting to decorate the court around the fountain, in the main entrance of SFAI. That brought the idea to put works on the walls, surrounding the fountain.
Shannon started checking with the people in charge of the walls in school.
Meanwhile, we started to grow. Why only the entrance?
What about the still light gallery? The quad? The café wall?
An answer came from the Diego gallery. Usually scheduled 5 months in advance, we got lucky, and a space would be open 3 weeks from now.
3 WEEKS?!?
We decided to take the challenge, and raise the event.
Such big spaces must have enough high quality work.
We started approaching all the international students, exchange, transfer, non-degree, and former exchange Americans.
We started to arrange a ‘to-do’ list, participation list, contact details.
I asked from each artist who replied to send his best works from which I would try to find the best combination, best merge of the message I wanted to confer:
We, as International students, live in San Francisco, a city combined from dozens of cultures, languages, hectic life, and diversity.
The exhibition should include all of this, and give the feeling of belonging, and dettachment at the same time.
Meanwhile the program was ready:
Art displayed in the Diego Rivera gallery, upper Still light gallery, mural wall, and café wall, an info session for studying abroad, an info session for the peace corps, international music everyday in the quad, and opening reception night involving performance art, short film screenings, international food and music.
FACEBOK LINK
3 weeks… GO!
34 artists replied. Now, we were talking on non-English speakers, emails, work deadlines, files to be sent, music collection from each country, designing flayers, creating a Facebook event, coordinating sessions, and arranging international food.
We’ve decided to approach from the power of inside, and asked the artists for their added skills in:
Making food, choosing their favorite music, anyone have experience in communication design?
We got answers from the students, got Byrthe Lemmens to join our team for the design of the promotional material, Piotr Bujak to help with administrative work, and to curate the other galleries.
I filmed most of the artists, and edited a promotional video, organizing it to show on a 70' wall in front of the mural.
It all started on the 25th Oct.
From the first moment I knew Shannon Plath was in charge of the ‘studying abroad’ program, I told her we should do a panel of all the abroad students, in which they could tell about their experience, and about their country and school. This idea came from the poor Public Relations of Israel, my country.
My nagging paid of.
On the 25th of Oct, 2010, Miss Plath approached me, asking advice for a program to run on the International Education Week.
The ‘study abroad’ session started growing slowly, into programs, sessions, and decoration planning.
From meeting to meeting, our eyes got bigger, and our due date got closer.
At some moment we decided to cancel our (already prepared) foreign councils contact details and plans of co-operation.
The plans have been set
OK, November 9th, the plans must be finished, without any changes from now on.
The idea of raising an Exhibition started from wanting to decorate the court around the fountain, in the main entrance of SFAI. That brought the idea to put works on the walls, surrounding the fountain.
Shannon started checking with the people in charge of the walls in school.
Meanwhile, we started to grow. Why only the entrance?
What about the still light gallery? The quad? The café wall?
An answer came from the Diego gallery. Usually scheduled 5 months in advance, we got lucky, and a space would be open 3 weeks from now.
3 WEEKS?!?
We decided to take the challenge, and raise the event.
Such big spaces must have enough high quality work.
We started approaching all the international students, exchange, transfer, non-degree, and former exchange Americans.
We started to arrange a ‘to-do’ list, participation list, contact details.
I asked from each artist who replied to send his best works from which I would try to find the best combination, best merge of the message I wanted to confer:
We, as International students, live in San Francisco, a city combined from dozens of cultures, languages, hectic life, and diversity.
The exhibition should include all of this, and give the feeling of belonging, and dettachment at the same time.
Meanwhile the program was ready:
Art displayed in the Diego Rivera gallery, upper Still light gallery, mural wall, and café wall, an info session for studying abroad, an info session for the peace corps, international music everyday in the quad, and opening reception night involving performance art, short film screenings, international food and music.
FACEBOK LINK
3 weeks… GO!
34 artists replied. Now, we were talking on non-English speakers, emails, work deadlines, files to be sent, music collection from each country, designing flayers, creating a Facebook event, coordinating sessions, and arranging international food.
We’ve decided to approach from the power of inside, and asked the artists for their added skills in:
Making food, choosing their favorite music, anyone have experience in communication design?
We got answers from the students, got Byrthe Lemmens to join our team for the design of the promotional material, Piotr Bujak to help with administrative work, and to curate the other galleries.
I filmed most of the artists, and edited a promotional video, organizing it to show on a 70' wall in front of the mural.
Back to Diego:
The curating work started. And it was hard. Our first goal was to let as many students participate as possible, to give them an opportunity to show their work at the Diego.
But, wait, too many artists, not enough space at the Diego, a lot more room in the other spaces.
Luckily, art students and artists are bad with deadlines, and we could sort some towards the other walls and galleries.
Still, I couldn’t come and cancel an artist show in the exhibition. When I didn’t find the right piece to join the rest, I had to approach the artist respectfully, meet him personally, and check all of his work and mediums.
I chose all the works I wanted. Now what was missing was the most important part- arranging the works into the given space.
I gained access to the gallery architectural plans, embedded them into photo shop, and started to simulate the works on the walls, changing the wall color etc. That way, I could play with the works, exchange their alignment and much more (without collecting 34 pieces, assessing each one, needing the space to simulate the gallery as there are shows every week, and we would not have the chance to experiment with hanging the works).
To count on 34 people to bring their work on time is a good joke.
I sent numerous e-mails for reminders, deadlines and schedules.
But, wait, too many artists, not enough space at the Diego, a lot more room in the other spaces.
Luckily, art students and artists are bad with deadlines, and we could sort some towards the other walls and galleries.
Still, I couldn’t come and cancel an artist show in the exhibition. When I didn’t find the right piece to join the rest, I had to approach the artist respectfully, meet him personally, and check all of his work and mediums.
I chose all the works I wanted. Now what was missing was the most important part- arranging the works into the given space.
I gained access to the gallery architectural plans, embedded them into photo shop, and started to simulate the works on the walls, changing the wall color etc. That way, I could play with the works, exchange their alignment and much more (without collecting 34 pieces, assessing each one, needing the space to simulate the gallery as there are shows every week, and we would not have the chance to experiment with hanging the works).
To count on 34 people to bring their work on time is a good joke.
I sent numerous e-mails for reminders, deadlines and schedules.
Final projects at other classes?
Thanksgiving falling the weekend before the show was to our disadvantage. Shannon and I planned to be away during the installation of the show.
Bringing my laptop on the trip wasn’t much help, and the other final projects had to be postponed until after the exhibition.
Gladly, I managed to change my plans, and get back a day earlier. Piotr helped me, and we made small changes to the Photoshop file. Installation was an easy job, compared to other installations I did in the past (never curated one, just helped friends).
With the advise of friends, I decided to make the exhibition light, clean, and a space to breathe between one piece and another.
Changing sizes and heights was thought about deeply, as well as the color motion between each work. Of course, a change in media was a great challenge to curate, to make it ‘speak’ the same rhythm.
Bringing my laptop on the trip wasn’t much help, and the other final projects had to be postponed until after the exhibition.
Gladly, I managed to change my plans, and get back a day earlier. Piotr helped me, and we made small changes to the Photoshop file. Installation was an easy job, compared to other installations I did in the past (never curated one, just helped friends).
With the advise of friends, I decided to make the exhibition light, clean, and a space to breathe between one piece and another.
Changing sizes and heights was thought about deeply, as well as the color motion between each work. Of course, a change in media was a great challenge to curate, to make it ‘speak’ the same rhythm.
30th Nov, 2010
The day has arrived. I drove to my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant to buy Falafel for the opening reception, and got to school.
Few more emergencies: one photo has fallen, the disks with the video art are without titles, starched, and not looping, sand from one of the sculptures is leaking, the Diego gallery director is threatening to cancel everything, the projector in the the lecture hall is way to dark, the sound system is having problems, the hard drive with films is making noises, the security lady tried at night to turn on the lights, and apparently I didn’t take into consideration the placement of the big metal sculpture together with the electrical plans of the gallery- almost a lawsuit, almost a broken sculpture.
Survived all that…
Now what to do with the 3 hours of sleep the night before? Need to prepare my speech? Well, 45 minutes sleep in the library, and I’m like new.
Few more emergencies: one photo has fallen, the disks with the video art are without titles, starched, and not looping, sand from one of the sculptures is leaking, the Diego gallery director is threatening to cancel everything, the projector in the the lecture hall is way to dark, the sound system is having problems, the hard drive with films is making noises, the security lady tried at night to turn on the lights, and apparently I didn’t take into consideration the placement of the big metal sculpture together with the electrical plans of the gallery- almost a lawsuit, almost a broken sculpture.
Survived all that…
Now what to do with the 3 hours of sleep the night before? Need to prepare my speech? Well, 45 minutes sleep in the library, and I’m like new.
This is the end?
Not at all,
Keep the show running, make sure the videos are running, volume is right all the time, flayers are re-filled, and much more. In the same evening, got a detailed email about how to DE-install, fill out forms, and on the following Saturday- fill up the holes, re paint, arrange 34 artists (again?) to pick up their work… (I had to threaten to burn orphaned art works
Wow,
That’s it.
Now only 2 weeks before finals… go to work! Only small projects ahead:
Technical challenge in half negative processing, night time lapsed footage, 43 min documentary from my travels to Australia, essay…
12.12.10 – all is done!
At last!
P.S. Don’t forget to send a link to JD…
Keep the show running, make sure the videos are running, volume is right all the time, flayers are re-filled, and much more. In the same evening, got a detailed email about how to DE-install, fill out forms, and on the following Saturday- fill up the holes, re paint, arrange 34 artists (again?) to pick up their work… (I had to threaten to burn orphaned art works
Wow,
That’s it.
Now only 2 weeks before finals… go to work! Only small projects ahead:
Technical challenge in half negative processing, night time lapsed footage, 43 min documentary from my travels to Australia, essay…
12.12.10 – all is done!
At last!
P.S. Don’t forget to send a link to JD…