CHUANZI KATE
HUANG
THE ART OF IMPOSSIBLE
04th Aug-24th Nov, 2019
Beijing
IOMA ( IMS of Modern Artland )​​
798 Art Area, No.2 Jiuxianqiao Rd, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
During the Summer of 2019, I worked as part of the curation team in Beijing IOMA (IMS of Modern Artland). The Art of Impossible, a theme show of Monument Valley Game, was the second project I worked with.
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My works almost covered every step of curation before the opening ceremony of this show. Including:
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Participated in gallery design
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Communicated with the construction team ( checked the quotation and followed structures construction)
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Conducted research and summarised knowledge about optical illusion art history in various disciplines
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Installed art works
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Trained interpreters and tour guides
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Space Designing
Early before the last exhibition EXTRA finished, we started to design the space. In the monthly meeting, we gradually updated schemes of each small space of the whole gallery. Space design is the real meaning of curation, which goes beyond "which work should be placed in which place".
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As a part of the curation team, I did a lot of research in finding similar cases in other galleries, comparing architectures in different cities and artworks to support our plan.
Work with Construction Team
It was my first time to negotiate with a construction team about quotation. We compared the price and craft from several construction companies via reading lots of documents then picked one at the end.
Every exhibition in reality has its budget, so as this one. How to balance the cost and the effect was the biggest challenge at that period. As a curation team, we have to consider both of them. It was also my first time to learn the cost of different materials and crafts.
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It took us almost one month to install this show. As the construction team's understanding towards our design and curation sometimes were different from our expectation. During installing the show, I kept communicating with the team and explained a lot of details.
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Illusion Art History Researching
One of the five galleries of this exhibition is dedicated to show the history of optical illusion art. My work was to find as much theoretical support and historical materials as possible among different disciplines(e.g. psychology, mathematics, photography, painting, multimedia art, music), which is related to illusion, and sort out a clear timeline.
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In the process, I learned a lot about the artists including M.C.Escher, Akiyoshi Kitaoka, Bridget Riley and great works as Euclid's Elements, which indirectly influenced my thinking and artistic creation.
Guided Text Writing and Interpreters Training
As the one of those who was in charge of researching more background information of optical illusion art, one of my work was guided text writing and interpreters training.
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As a curator, I must considered the reality that most of our audience might not be familiar with art. Besides, interpreters in IOMA are also not majored in art. For this reason, how to explain this show in an approachable way and communicate the ideas to audiences was significant.
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The opening ceremony
