Exam Queries/Questions

[Yendall]

The exam is on Monday, if anyone has any questions we could work together to produce some decent answers!
My question:
Do you think VCAA will throw in a new type of question?
I have a feeling we will all be shocked with a new question perhaps regarding something new that hasn't been touched on before. What do you guys think?

[m.arcus]

No way. That would be really unfair. Wouldn't they have to report any changes in an official document thing? I hope not though. I'll be screwed.

[Yendall]

I'd say they would have to. But who knows, it's VCAA. I'm scared for this exam.

[m.arcus]

You sound extremely prepared from what I read in your posts. I'm the one who should be scared

[Yendall]

You sound extremely prepared from what I read in your posts. I'm the one who should be scared

Is there anything I can help you with? I learn from teaching others!

[m.arcus]

I don't really feel confident about questions regarding galleries and exhibitions. I can do the general stuff fine, but it's the specifics of each gallery/exhibition that I seem to be not so good at.

How do you ensure that your response is comprehensive when a question asks you to compare and contrast the defining characteristics two different exhibition spaces? What points should you include?

And what about when they ask about the role of the curator or the artist in displaying the artworks in a gallery/exhibition? What would you talk about? This was in our practice exam and I thought I did okay, but I only got 5 out of 8 marks for this question.

Both of these questions were from my practice exam actually. For the first one I only got 6.5 out of 8, which leads me to think that gallery questions are my weakest area :/

[Yendall]

Galleries:

Well, you should have visited a public gallery and/or a private art space or commercial gallery.

So the differences between a public gallery and a commercial gallery are:

Public Gallery:

• Owned by the government
• Set up by the government
• Majority of the funding is supplied by the government
• The role is to Collect, Preserve and Display artwork
• It consists of significant artwork from a cultural or historical perspective
• A public galleries main service is to provide education and entertainment for the community
• The Federal Government funds the NGA which is public
• The State Government funds major galleries with supplementary funding from the Federal Government
• It is common for some Local Governments to fund regional galleries (Like Bendigo Art Gallery)
• Each Public Gallery has a mission statement where they include why they are presenting art (ie. Increasing artist awareness, appreciation and understanding of the visual arts and maintaining a collection of works in order to preserve heritage)
• They are responsible for the maintenance and preservation of out national heritage

Commercial Gallery:

• Their role is to exhibit and sell artwork
• Promotes artists as they work together
• Has an impact of the expectations and aesthetics of society
• The purpose of the gallery is based on financial profits
• The sale of artwork benefits both the artist and gallery
• The role of an individual exhibition is to sell to the market and place the artists name in the public domain and public memory
• Selling artwork in order to profit and cover costs such as wages, advertising, building, electricity, rental etc.
• Promotion of artists in a friendly and professional manner
• The gallery operates as a percentage of sales as income
• Commission allows majority of galleries to receive 30% of sales
• The expected audience is the art market, buyers, collectors and sellers of art
• Success is based on the amount of artwork purchases
• Artist and seller both profit

If you visited an alternative space like an Internet Gallery or private gallery, there are different criteria however most internet galleries are similar to Commercial Galleries, just independent. I'm writing on an internet gallery and talking about the layout of the page and how it attracts audiences and it's main aim is to promote art in order for business and also to sell artwork for a profit + merch etc.
Curators:
The role of the curator/artist depends on the gallery you visited. You just need to talk about what a curator actually does, so:

• In charge of organising the exhibition/gallery
• Decides on which artworks will be featured and why
• Determines the exhibitions title, name, theme and subject
• Creates a catalogue for the exhibition
• Determines the colours of the walls, alignment of paintings etc.
• In a case like Top Arts, decides who is displayed, why they are chosen (criteria) etc.
• The criteria for chosing work is: aesthetic, practicality, communication and dimension

Artists:
This can depend on what the artist is actually trying to achieve for their gallery, so I would be specific and talk about sales, attractiveness, themes etc. It's a pretty broad question if you talk about artists. I generally talk about the curator of the NGV.
Hope that helps a little

[m.arcus]

Thank you very much I realize that I was just trying to compare too many aspects at once and ended up forgetting a whole bunch of information. Oops.

[Yendall]

Thank you very much I realize that I was just trying to compare too many aspects at once and ended up forgetting a whole bunch of information. Oops.

No worries! What were you writing previously?

[m.arcus]

No worries! What were you writing previously?

As in what I was writing about? In the first question I was writing about the ways the two different galleries I visited acquire their artworks, and then I talked about how the exhibition spaces differ in terms of size, lighting, storage area etc.

For the second question I discussed the roles that the curators in each gallery play, and how one curator has more responsibility than the other because she didn't have as many staff members to help her with different duties.

[Yendall]

No worries! What were you writing previously?

As in what I was writing about? In the first question I was writing about the ways the two different galleries I visited acquire their artworks, and then I talked about how the exhibition spaces differ in terms of size, lighting, storage area etc.

For the second question I discussed the roles that the curators in each gallery play, and how one curator has more responsibility than the other because she didn't have as many staff members to help her with different duties.

You do have to talk about that stuff also, it would be something like this (simply):

The NGV is a gallery that provides the general public the opportunity to experience the finest cultural and historical artifacts of our modern and pre-modern artistic world. Through their defined mission statement outlining the need to preserve and protect our artistic heritage and artworks, it opens doors for our community to allow themselves room for cultural enrichment. As the NGV is a public gallery it runs free of charge with no door commission. Being funded by the state government of Victoria, inflow of money allows for state-of-the-art preservation tools in order to conserve artwork and allow for an inflow and outflow of culturally inclined members of society; to browse and admire local and international art. On the third level of the NGV the space is rather large and had been divided into smaller areas for presentation purposes. As some were large accommodating for larger works and highly scaled pieces, others were quite isolated to create a feeling similar to those felt by admiring the works that encompassed the area. The NGV provides a space for all artworks and truly captures our Australian artist culture, whilst articulating the individual characteristics of each piece through careful placement in selected art spaces.