Tabish Khan loves art and visits hundreds of exhibitions a year. In this column he points out failings and in this case positive attributes about the art world.
Avid readers of this column will know I’ve railed against how video art is often presented – with poor seating, unclear narratives and timing.
Well this time I’ve spotted a major improvement in the Matthew Barney exhibition at Hayward Gallery. The show centres around a two hour plus film that’s broadcast on a large screen and with comfortable seating. Now if that’s not winning enough, the ticket also contains a link to watch the film at home. This is a major bonus for anyone who doesn’t fancy wearing a mask for that long or walks in on the middle of the film and doesn’t want to wait for it to start again.
Visitors can get the atmosphere of watching it in the gallery setting as intended but without having to fully commit to a full viewing of the film in the gallery — on top of seeing the rest of the exhibition on their visit.
It’s such a simple thing done well that it makes me wonder why it isn’t done in every exhibition where there’s a lengthy film on show, and hopefully it will be for future exhibitions I visit.
It’s worth noting that some platforms like Daata have been offering video art at home for some time now, and it’s great to see major exhibitions catching on.
Photo: Mark Blower.
For more in this series, see my thoughts on the Hockney roundel, art finds a way, art being free, Online exhibitions, Turner Prize 2019, artist’s request for feedback, the reaction to the shredded Banksy, #FriezeWeek, Blockchain hype, Finding art, Private views, Art itself, Appointment only exhibitions, Artificial Intelligence replacing artists, Everyone’s a Critic, Photo London, The Turner Prize, Art for art’s sake, Conceptual art is complicated, Condo, How performance art is presented in museums, Frieze week floozies, too much respect for an artist’s legacy, opinions not being welcome, an exhibition across three countries, tackling race and gender in art, artist-curators, art fair hype, top 5s and top 10s, our political art is terrible, gap left by Brian Sewell, how art never learned from the Simpsons, why artspeak won’t die, so-called reviews, bad reviews are bad for business, the $179m dollar headline, art fairs appealing to the masses, false opening hours, size matters and what’s wrong with video art.
