Museum/Gallery Visit: The NoShows

I was fortunate enough to be able to do something different for the museum/gallery visit assignment. On Friday night I was showing work in a group art opening at The Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem, PA. I am a photographer, and ten of my pieces were included in this show. Six other incredible artists (and close friends of mine!) also had their work on display. Collectively, we call ourselves The NoShows. The exhibit included photography, jewelry, graphic design, mixed media/painting, and pottery. It was a night of close friends, live music, eclectic art, and of course food and wine! If anyone is interested, some samples of the work included (not everything is shown here, unfortunately) can be found at www.myspace.com/thenoshows229.

The night before the opening, my friends and I were at the gallery for about four hours hanging the show and preparing for the big night. I took this time to reflect on some of the pieces that my fellow NoShows brought to hang. Although there were many different types of media included, the majority of pieces were photographs. Five of the seven artists were showing photography. There can be a tendency with photographs to bleed together in a show. However, we mixed everyone's work together on the walls which is a fairly uncommon gallery practice. This made me think about the infinite possibilities and approaches within one medium -- or genre, perhaps, in the case of poetry -- and how each photograph stood on it's own and was completely different from the one that came before it. Each photographer in the show had a unique style and vision: from the shot itself, to the edits, to the way it was printed and framed. With this in mind, I actually chose three different photographs of flowers by three different artists that were all hanging together to take notes on. Although the medium and subject were the same, each photograph was distinct. Not only did I reflect on each piece individually, but their similarities and the ways in which they were all related crept into my notes as well.