Virtual Exhibitions: Part 2
You can read Part 1 here.
The Art Institute of Chicago call this a “Virtual Walkthrough” of the exhibition. It’s led by Gloria Groom, Chair and David and Mary Winton Green Curator of Painting and Sculpture of Europe. The video was posted on YouTube on June 10th, just 4 days before it closed.
As soon as the video began I fell in love. It starts with footage of the AIC from the outside and then closes in on the beginning of the exhibition. Gloria Gloom narrates you through the rooms, commenting on paintings of note and the themes of each room. At the beginning of the exhibition she says how she loves the blown up mural of Monet’s Waterlilies that greets you because that’s what the exhibition will explore later - Monet’s technique which you can see clearly from the zoomed in image.
The camera pans slowly around the rooms and it’s as though you’re really there, without any other visitors and you’re getting a private tour from the curator herself.
The exhibition is expansive, there are so many of Monet’s masterpieces on display and to study. There are even sketches and caricatures he made at the beginning of his career, and catalogues and ephemera that show Chicago’s history and connection with Monet.
I can’t recommend watching this video highly enough. I’m devastated to have missed out on seeing this exhibition, and I will be booking my ticket to look at the AIC’s own collection of Monet’s ASAP.
David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020, Royal Academy of Arts (YouTube)
Unlike the AIC which only gave you a few days after its post for you to visit if it interested you, the RAA has given you a few months as this exhibition is running until 26 September 2021.
This exhibition displays paintings from David Hockney’s intense period of work on his iPad during the course of Spring from beginning to end at his house in Normandy during the pandemic. The 116 iPad paintings have been printed onto paper and overseen by Hockney himself. The RAA has also put some of the screen recordings of his process on display so we can see witness his creative process and decision making.
Unlike the AIC’s tour, there is no curator voice-over, only instrumental music as the camera focuses in on certain paintings or scans a room. I don’t feel like anything was lost doing it this way because what is also different from the AIC’s virtual tour, is that the RAA give you the text to read on screen. It scrolls on the screen so you have time to read what’s on the wall, so you do feel like you are actually able to see and learn exactly what you would have if you’d been physically present.
These virtual exhibitions have given me something I never would have been able to experience if it wasn’t for YouTube, but have also made me yearn to see them in real life perhaps more than I would have without watching these videos. Ignorance is bliss!
