Opening Night

Photos from opening night of One Hand Clap/Four Walls

Am currently gallery minding and listening to Ahi's Lady GaGa album for the 50th time this week. Sanity is close to being destroyed.

Aside from that opening night went off without a hitch, to the point where we had to shoo people out by the end of the night. Lots of laughs and people bumping into art, with my own Dad destroying my television install in one fell swoop!

The show really only came together in the three days before opening, where a new concept was proposed to the group in order to make use of the changed gallery space. Instead of fighting the two spaces in one, we decided to do one show under the facade of two, hence the second poster that came pretty late in the game.

I also noted that the walls were very object like, so we painted one of them a pastel pink (a colour that seems to come up in all our practices) rendering it even more so and also like a middle no mans land between the two galleries. From there, we installed with the idea that one space was dealer-like, and the other more artist run. The two shows would inform each other and ideally, come together to be seen as a whole. We also opened up two different entrances and had two different drink/food tables on the night to suit each space (thanks to Andy who discretely brought along cheezels for our 'casual gallery' table, they were enjoyed by many).

We had always wanted from the beginning to see how our works could be installed collaboratively to work with the space. Lots of decision making and politics, stepping around egos and what not. But we came out unscathed and with a new found respect for everyone in the group. I guess those wondering whether the pilot project actually works in developing skills for putting together a public exhibition (and trust me I was initially a doubter) can be rest assured, I learnt more about the finer details of assembling a show than I thought I ever could...

But mostly we just had a lot of fun with everything even though the situation was pressing (late nights, wall paint not drying enough, and Claudia with a bacterial throat infection and fever). It was important that we didn't let go of that side of our practices, that play and humour was still evident as a flipside to our more serious concerns. And as hellish as it became at some points, I would happily do it all again.

As for now, am still trying to catch up on sleep (failing miserably) and trying to pen the accompanying 'pilot essay' that needs to be handed in by monday (failing even more miserably).

Those of you with a weekend, come say hi. It is on till Saturday, 10am-5pm. Those of you who've already seen it, thanks for coming along!


- Agnes