After the exhibition
What happens to the art and the artist after the exhibition?
Storage. Reflection. Packaging up the work for collectors. More reflection. Perhaps some radical rest. And of course, getting stuck into the next project or projects in my exciting yet extensive list.
I speak for myself of course, when I say, the end of an exhibition feels a strange interlude. Sometimes it comes with a bit of a crash - my list of works to make far exceeds the time I have available to me + somehow overwhelm hits.
How do I get out of overwhelm? A bit of procrastination and a lot of fresh food, usually. Time in nature, all the usual things we put off when we become overworked.
But - what happens to the art? Do we store it forever? Well, that totally depends. Some of my work I will store until it finds it’s rightful collector, someone to love it and ponder the marks made.
Others, well others end up on a scrap pile, in the fire, torn into a new work, used for basket practice aka throwing into the waste paper basket. I cherish the practice of culling work. That is because, it has seen the light of day, people have enjoyed the adventure the works together have shown them + I have moved on - and I deem some art, experimental, part of the whole exhibition, yet not for continued rumination. Destroying some work helps me reset - I don’t go ham and destroy everything - I wait until I am ready to delve into the emotional labour of the work, sit with all the pieces + only then decide what I am ready to let go of.
I don’t recommend destroying all your work. And I certainly don’t recommend doing it in the fire of an emotion you may be having. Wait. Look. Listen to yourself - and only rid yourself of work that no longer serves this current version of you. Remember that we tread forward + carry the past with us - and yet, it does not need to define our next steps. Culling can be a cathartic practice, a further editing, more than curation, somehow a practice that brings me joy, an ending more final than de-install.
Culling has become a practice that ensures I can move towards my next project with the vivacity that it deserves.