In contrast to the large-scale exhibition spaces of places such as the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall or the ‘gallery of galleries’ type exhibition as exemplified by the Frieze Fair I would say that most artists display their works either in small high-street galleries, or through their own spaces, or these days through their websites and social media. Between these two extremes there are the short-term temporary events involving many artists and usually organised on a regional basis, an artist’s group basis or on a subject theme.
Examples of these types of exhibitions include local Open Studio events where artists or small groups of artists open their studios or create spaces for people to visit, with the publicity and organisation being handled by a local committee. The annual Open Studio event in Cambridge runs for four weekends in July and showcases over 300 artists including painters, sculptors, ceramicists, photographers, woodworkers and jewellers in Cambridge and the surrounding villages. Publicity takes the form of guide books, website and downloadable app with descriptions and examples of the artists’ works.
https://camopenstudios.org/july-open-studios-2023/
Other local events include exhibitions put on by groups such as the Cambridge Drawing Society.
https://www.cambridgedrawingsociety.org/exhibitions/
A theme-based event is organised by Pint of Science, an organisation that runs annual events in many cities across the UK including Cambridge. This seeks to link together scientists with artists and present a series of lectures at which the scientist can explain their work to the public and an artist can present an interpretation of the work using an artistic medium.
https://pintofscience.co.uk/events/cambridge
An example of this collaboration this year was the linking of the artist Mark Cheverton with a scientist studying the Hawking radiation around black holes. His interpretation used the ‘Beyond Black’ paint and growing a crystal structure over several weeks to represent the radiation:
The interaction of the scientists and the artists can open up new ways of thinking for both and the combined presentations reach wider audiences than might be the case for each on their own – a symbiotic relationship possibly.
During my own career within science and engineering I was involved in organising and curating an annual art and craft exhibition of works by the staff of the laboratory in which I worked. This was held in the atrium of the lab which was not open to the general public but could be viewed by the staff and visitors.
Other non-gallery exhibitions:
Jenny Holzer’s 2018 exhibition was set in Blenheim Palace with the works creating interventions in the stately home, once home to Winston Churchill and his ancestors. Holzer’s works were very critical of the way the wars in the middle east were being conducted by the western military and their setting within the stately home that contains so many artworks depicting the glory of past battles created a real sense of tension. Many of her works showed the redacted pages of reports and instructions regarding techniques for the torturing of captives:
Other works involved the placing of bones within the display cabinets or on the dining tables within the house:
And another intervention involved creating a bedspread to be displayed on Churchill’s bed:
This exhibition demonstrated how the combination of site-specific works and the careful juxtaposition of works within the surroundings can create a much more powerful reading of those artworks.