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I saw an article in Creative Review: By Megan Williams 09/07/2021
Tom Hingston on designing for arts venues... As Hingston Studio’s type-led identities for the Serpentine and the V&A greet the general public, the designer talks to us about the importance of creating designs that give institutions flexibility in these times.I was interested in the idea that design being used in a museum, not just for gallery locations, but event design, a way of intriguing an audience and tempting them into the show. Advertising not just to the arts patrons but to a new audience, younger, family and accessible to all.
The notion of the what makes a show, what makes art worthy within the gallery setting, why should we care and how can we see beyond the attention seeking headlines of a show and really gain some inner understanding of what might touch us.
Art is a conversation, between audience, artists and subject (also the light, medium, colour, history and all other artists before us)... with this in mind institutions have to link an audience to the creativity, old ideas such as Alice in Wonderland are being used in the V&A show. Here is the BFI national archive remastered copy of the 1903 original film version:
From this old film we can see the playfulness of new and emerging technology, suspending belief and for 1903 this was a REAL amazement, here in this image we can see the use of a real cat (as the cheshire cat) superimposed into the film.
This idea is where we see AR, Augmented Reality, superimposing another dimension into our existing world. Tom Hingston - designing for arts venues article. He says “I think what will happen is that [physical] exhibitions themselves will become even more ambitious in their immersive qualities and if they’re not that, then they will probably only exist in a virtual space,” he says. “So I think bigger shows will become even more adventurous in the way that they are curated and designed because ultimately, that’s giving your audience and your visitors a reason to want to come and visit the physical space.”
Hingston talks of "where an identity for a show does transform either the exterior of a building or certainly the entrance of a museum,”
Transforming a building can be seen in artists work, Christo for example, completely covered the Reichstag (1995). His art was a form between, the painter and the sculptor - he allowed just the form to reveal itself from the material, the lines of binding define the features - much like drawing. giving a known landmark a new identity and fresh way of seeing.
Art certainly can become 'Curiouser and Curiouser'.