Multiplicity in visual experiences (ET presentation for a museum show)
June 11, 2007 | Edward Tufte
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In preparation for a visit by some museum people to our sculpture fields,
Andrei Severny and I have made a short movie showing several of my pieces.
Our visitors will see the real works outdoors in the landscape along with the
more contemplative and focused views of the pieces moving in the movie,
as well as prints showing the pieces.
This combination of real-land pieces, a movie, and still-land images is to
demonstrate the multiplicity of visual experiences available from certain art works.
The name of the proposed show, for many reasons, is Multiplicity.
[This is a large, 33mb, Quicktime file.]
Topics: 3-Star Threads, E.T., Sculpture
Today a museum’s director and exhibitions director visited the sculpture fields at Hogpen
Hill Farms and we have agreement on a substantial ET sculpture and sculpture print
show in 2009. I believe museums are much better than commercial galleries for my work;
indeed I have avoided dealers entirely. My earlier shows (In New York and Los
Angeles) were both at small museums. The 2009 show will be about 10 times larger, with
considerable indoor space and a 1.5 acre sculpture garden.
It turned out they had already pretty much decided to offer me a show before they arrived
and by about
halfway through the 90-minute walking tour we were discussing where certain pieces
might go in the museum and its sculpture garden.
We then went indoors and watched the movie (above, but
on a 30-inch monitor) and they particularly liked the engraved pieces (second and third in
the movie) which they hadn’t examined outdoors earlier. So the video served to focus attention on
the smaller-scale pieces after a walk around the big works outdoors. I then showed them a
print of a small-scale piece to make the argument about the multiplicity of sculptural
views in real-land, movie-land, and paper flatland. The movie also made the point that we
should show movies in the show.
The overall presentation was self-exemplifying: a sketch, scattered over 20 acres, of what
a museum show would look like.
We then negotiated through 12 items and found complete agreement.
The movie helped to shift the focus at a relevant time and to make
an good subsidiary point. Of course the more important matter of whether to do the
show had
been decided by a walking tour several months ago and then reconfirmed by today’s walk
and talk.