Arriving in Walsall at just after 9 am, I headed over to the station to catch a train over to Wolverhampton with the hope that by the time I arrived and had navigated myself through the unknown territory, the Wolverhampton Art Gallery would be open for the day. After enjoying a croissant and a cup of hot chocolate in the local Greggs, I boarded for an hour long journey. With trusty maps in hand, I safely arrived at Wolverhampton Art Gallery at around 10.30.
'Edwin Butler Bayliss: Poet of The Black Country' exhibition showed me that framed canvases could be arranged in a more interesting way than simply lined up. The centre of the 'clusters' of paintings were always in line which made them appealing and not just look mismatched. A glass covered table top allowed the displaying of books and articles alongside brief explanations.
Downstairs there was the 'David Hancock: Cosplay' exhibition. The video at the entrance to the gallery was shown on a wall mounted TV, with the wires enclosed and so not detracting from the video. As I entered the gallery, I noticed the vast difference in sizes between some of the pieces. I've realised that 'clustering' smaller works together means they aren't overlooked in favour of the larger pieces. Hancock's watercolours were dazzling, looking photorealistic. The dividing wall provided a work space for younger viewers as well as creating further wall space to display works. The choice of white frames reflected the delicacy in the paintings and I particularly like the way some of the works were compressed between two glass sheets.
Next door was the 'Pop Highlights' exhibition, that hosted a wider variety of artworks than the other two exhibitions. The frames were uniform throughout the exhibition which made it feel cleaner and the plinths were white to match. The floating glass shelf was a nice way to display 3D pieces. The way that they had curated the use of colour in the space was interesting. On the pale white walls, the colours from the works jumped out. But in the middle of the room clustered the colour focus. With a cabinet full of bright objects and a wardrobe of colourful clothes a top of which stood King Kong seemingly bellowing at the unsuspecting rainbow coloured mannequin.
In the 'Northern Ireland Collection' I particularly liked the use of suspended glass cases to display works. I noticed that the larger works were cordoned off with rope and metal posts and wondered if this was the artist's or gallery's preference. I also noticed that black tipped bulbs were used to light the reflective pieces of work in order to minimalise glare.
Heading back to the train station, I returned to Walsall to visit The New Art Gallery. Only managing to take one photo before being told to put the camera away was a bit of a blow to my day.
I was disappointed with the Damien Hirst Artist Rooms. His artwork had been distributed into other collections (mainly the Garman Ryan Collection) and so I think it lost a lot of its power. However, after taking the lift into Jochem Hendricks' collection, I was hit by the eery silence upon entering the big open space. The dogs at the other end of the room were unnerving as they seemed ready to charge at whoever enters the space. The relationship between the sound of shattering glass that became apparent as I walked into the space and the huge collection of large metal canvas with holes blasted through them put me on edge. Continuing through the space, the sound got louder and I am confronted by multiples of head casts at human height (due to the size of plinths) as well as broken casts. Moving to the dark room I found the source of the noise - a projection on the wall where stones are being thrown out of a large building, shattering all it's windows in the process. The pattern of the shattering is inconsistant and I found my eyes trying to guess which window would break next. To get to the stairs, I had to return to the main room and pass by the dogs, turning my back on them as I go almost expecting them to react to my presence.
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