Art Curation Project.

I entitled the project “Winter Through Different Lenses” and the theme deals how different artists over the years (and different cultures) have addressed different aspects of winter.

             In viewing the videos on curation, I noticed that several of the curators noted the importance of the exhibit’s theme to the particular place/culture of the exhibition and how the culture of the exhibition place also affected choices regarding the exhibit. I’ve lived in western NY all my life and I thought about what themes tends to define life here. For better or worse, what came to my mind were our winters and sports, but I preferred winter as a theme. I wanted to show how different artists depicted different aspects of winter, including different media and works from different cultures.

            I chose a clean font and ice-blue slide background that I felt would support the theme, be easy to read, provide sufficient contrast, and not be too “busy” to distract from the pieces.

            I wanted to include my favorite artists (Hiroshige, Van gogh, and O’Keeffe), so I googled their names and found a variety of works they had done on this theme, ultimately choosing works that I felt fit the theme well and showed diverse views of winter. I also chose a piece from Burchfield because I wanted at least one piece to have a close connection to the WNY area and thought this one especially captured the fury of a WNY winter.

            For the remaining pieces, I wanted examples of different styles, media and cultures represented. I used the text, provided links, and Google to find additional pieces, but was less successful finding pieces outside of American and European artists (with the exception of the Hiroshige print).

            I ordered the paintings first, in chronological order to show how styles of interpretation changed over time. Then I put the 3-dimentional pieces in to contrast with the paintings. Lastly, I put in the Burchfield piece to tie the project back to the Buffalo area.