This week, we’re talking about the exhibit gallery. Many museums have an exhibition gallery where they display all of their current exhibits. Some may even have a traveling show that is featured in the gallery while others do not!
A good exhibit gallery should be large enough to draw attention to each individual piece but also keep things organized so people can easily find what they are looking for. It should include plenty of natural light so visitors can enjoy the displays as well.
The exhibit gallery is one of the most important parts of any museum. If there is no exhibit room, then why would anyone visit? A bad exhibit gallery will hurt your museum’s reputation and cause people to avoid coming to see the exhibits.
There are several ways to organize and design the exhibit gallery to make it easy to navigate and understand. In this article, you’ll learn some helpful tips for designing and organizing your own exhibit gallery at your museum or elsewhere.
The Louvre Museum
When you enter the museum, you will first be greeted with an exhibition of paintings or sculptures that are called An Introduction to European Painting. This exhibition is organized in order of era, starting with ancient Greek art and moving forward through Italian Renaissance, French Impressionism, and so on.
In this exhibition, you will learn about how artists built upon what came before them by exploring new styles and techniques. They also used different materials such as oils, graphite, and plaster to create their works.
By studying these pieces, you will get a sense of why they were important to the artist and why people still admire their work even centuries later.
The Exhibition is meant for those who have never studied art formally, but there are some interesting things here for more advanced viewers as well. For example, you can notice patterns in painting technique between artists working in various eras. These similarities help us understand how artistic concepts spread from one generation to the next.
There’s also an emphasis on narrative, which we see in many forms in art. Artists use stories to tell us something about human nature, life experiences, and so forth. Take a moment to think about an artwork you know and the story it tells.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met is one of the largest museums in the world, with over 20,000 objects and 5 million visitors per year. It boasts some of the most famous works of art in the world, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and David’s _Mona_ Queen of France.
But did you know that there are several exhibit galleries within the museum where you can find many more treasures? There are seven major showrooms or exhibit spaces at the Met. Some are closed for renovations, while others have become popular gathering spots due to their impressive collection.
Here we will discuss the three biggest room collections at the museum and why they matter.
The Van Gogh Museum
Like many museums, The Van Gogh Museum has an exhibition gallery that it uses to showcase its collection.
The Exhibition Gallery at the Van Gogh Museum is called “Inspiration”. It features works from throughout the artist’s career, as well as pieces inspired by his work.
Some of these inspirations include pictures or paintings of landscapes, figures, flowers, and other objects. These are often referred to as genre pictures or representations of something else of their type. For example, if you look at a painting of a landscape with rolling hills, then after this museum visit you will have learned what a landscape looks like!
There is also an element of composition in how the picture is designed. Artists use proportion and balance when designing a picture.
The Uffizi Gallery
The Uffizi is one of Italy’s most well-known art galleries, with over 100 paintings by Leonardo da Vinci in its collection. He painted several works here including his Mona Lisa which many consider to be his masterpiece.
The gallery was founded in 1764 and has remained popular ever since. It boasts more than 65,000 visitors each year making it one of the top ten tourist attractions in Florence.
Many people refer to the museum as the ‘Picnic Museum’ because you can enjoy the exhibits while eating something delicious from the food vendors nearby.
The Tate Modern
When you enter the Exhibition gallery at The Tate, one of your main focuses will be to find the show it is hosting for this year’s exhibition. It goes by the title ‘Human Condition: Works from the Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago” but we are going to refer to it as the “Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) exhibition” or just referred to as the “exhibition”.
The MoCA exhibition runs from September 1st – October 31st 2018 and is set up in such a way that it does not feature any singular artist or media type. Instead, there are twelve themed sections which focus on different themes and genres. These include landscapes, still life, dance, fashion, documentary photography, architecture, portraits, photo-based art, interactive and digital works, and sculpture.
The Museum of Modern Art
Located in New York City, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was designed to educate and inspire its visitors. As such, it offers many different types of exhibits and programs.
One of MoMA’s most well-known features is their exhibit gallery. This is an open space that allows for free exploration of artworks from all periods and styles.
Many people enjoy exploring the galleries during off hours or before/after work. Some even take time after classes or jobs to visit!
The museum has several rules about visiting the exhibit hall but one thing that varies depends on the curator and what they are promoting at the time.
Usually, you have to be at least 18 years old to enter the exhibition area so there isn’t much trickling into the teen zone. One other rule is that you must be attending school as an undergraduate or graduate student, although this doesn’t apply when the show is not affiliated with your education system.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum
As we mentioned earlier, one of the most beautiful parts of the museum is its exhibit gallery. It takes up an entire wall in some rooms and can be designed to tell stories or showcase individual pieces.
The Smithsonia- you may have heard of it before- has many different galleries that focus on diverse art forms and time periods. Many people know about the “American” gallery but there are also European, Asian, and Middle Eastern ones!
In fact, their latest exhibition is called “Portraits: Life Across Time” and features over 30 portraits (including several self-portraits) from all across Europe, Asia, and North America! There are even two few Native Americans pictured here.
The National Gallery of Art
In this era of digital art, there are many ways to show your artistic talent. Creating paintings is something that has been done for centuries, and will likely continue to be practiced for years to come!
However, creating sculptures is an entirely different way to showcase your talents as an artist. By shaping solid materials into other materials, you can bring out new qualities in the material such as hardness or softness, color variations, and so on.
The Exhibition Gallery at the National Gallery of America is a great place to start looking at sculpture. It features twelve pieces all by famous artists including Angel with Trumpet, Paul Gaugin’s Tahitian Figurines, Niépce’s Moon and Venus, Rodin’s The Thinker, and David Smith’s Untitled (Figure).
There is one piece in particular that I want to talk about because it conveys important messages beyond its content. This is Paul Gauguin’s Angel With Trumpet.
