Artworks at a threshold: thinking with Tim Ingold about art gallery technicians
Artworks at a threshold: thinking with Tim Ingold about art gallery technicians
Art galleries are places where audiences are invited into the imaginative space of art, populated by artful things, practices, and histories. They often play host to artworks which evidence a skilful process of making, and the relationship between artwork and artist is conventionally understood as a hallmark of authenticity from which value and meaning arises. However, between the artist’s studio and the gallery-going public comes a whole host of intermediaries who realise the artwork’s transition from one context to the other. In this chapter I will focus on gallery technicians as one part of this intermediary process, use ideas drawn from Tim Ingold’s work to illuminate their often “invisible” work (Crain, Poster, and Cherry 2016), and, in so doing, trouble the conventional location of skill and making in the art gallery. Seen in this way the art gallery emerges as a unique site of practice, steeped in its own set of skills and demands, and corresponding with (but not collapsing into) the artworks that are carefully placed within it.
60-75
Harris, Laura
400fa14a-eb29-4d11-9377-97680f5401d4
1 January 2023
Harris, Laura
400fa14a-eb29-4d11-9377-97680f5401d4
Harris, Laura
(2023)
Artworks at a threshold: thinking with Tim Ingold about art gallery technicians.
In,
Porr, Martin and Weidtmann, Niels
(eds.)
One World Anthropology And Beyond: A Multidisciplinary Engagement With The Work of Tim Ingold.
1st ed.
Routledge, .
(doi:10.4324/9781003162773-7).
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Abstract
Art galleries are places where audiences are invited into the imaginative space of art, populated by artful things, practices, and histories. They often play host to artworks which evidence a skilful process of making, and the relationship between artwork and artist is conventionally understood as a hallmark of authenticity from which value and meaning arises. However, between the artist’s studio and the gallery-going public comes a whole host of intermediaries who realise the artwork’s transition from one context to the other. In this chapter I will focus on gallery technicians as one part of this intermediary process, use ideas drawn from Tim Ingold’s work to illuminate their often “invisible” work (Crain, Poster, and Cherry 2016), and, in so doing, trouble the conventional location of skill and making in the art gallery. Seen in this way the art gallery emerges as a unique site of practice, steeped in its own set of skills and demands, and corresponding with (but not collapsing into) the artworks that are carefully placed within it.
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Published date: 1 January 2023
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© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Martin Porr and Niels Weidtmann; individual chapters, the contributors.
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Local EPrints ID: 478376
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/478376
PURE UUID: 37cbba0c-9a3b-44d8-a672-7dec0423392b
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Date deposited: 29 Jun 2023 16:48
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:17
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Contributors
Author:
Laura Harris
Editor:
Martin Porr
Editor:
Niels Weidtmann
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