Exhibition making

Curation

The word ‘curate’ stems from the latin word ‘curare’, meaning ‘to take care of’. The role of Ancient Roman ‘curatores’, or caretakers of the Empire’s public spaces, morphed into the definition of modern curators as custodians of objects within a museum. 5 Twentieth and Twenty-first century perceptions of curating have expanded beyond the care of objects to include ‘storytelling’, through the selection and arrangement of objects. Despite these shifts, contemporary exhibition making retains the original idea of care for objects through conservation and presentation.6

A curator traditionally oversees the selection and framing of objects, which shape the histories, narratives, and values of culture. By shaping the interpretation of objects through curatorial framing, the curator influences the legacy and ongoing value of an object. However, the evolution of contemporary art, with a bold engagement with current issues and new forms, has seen a parallel shift in curatorial practice. Today, curators of contemporary art experiment with innovative formats that often seek to disrupt or rewrite previous narratives and activate objects and collections in unexpected ways.7

Buxton Contemporary hosts a dynamic program of three exhibitions per year, offering a combination of solo and group exhibitions. The exhibitions at Buxton Contemporary are constructed to activate an aspect of the Buxton Collection – whether it is a solo exhibition of an artist in the collection or a group exhibition that includes an artwork or artist represented in the collection. By introducing new artists to the gallery while remaining anchored to the collection, exhibitions at Buxton Contemporary represent diverse contemporary art practices. Buxton’s rotating exhibition program continually introduces different artworks of mediums and materials into the gallery and therefore poses new technical challenges. As the gallery is based within the University context, Curators at Buxton aim to prioritise student engagement by framing exhibitions around an overarching theme or context that encourages critical thought.

Thematic Exhibitions

Visit the exhibition pages to read about the curatorial rationale, see images of artworks, and download the exhibition labels.

The same crowd never gathers twice

Spanning moving image, sound, sculptural intervention and performance, The same crowd never gathers twice tests the limits of the arena. The artists consider the social and structural architectures that define these spaces, and by extension, the elastic relationship between performance and reality, audience and participant, public and private.

nightshifts

nightshifts considers the importance of solitude through contemporary arts practice. Shifting in and out of focus like a dreamscape, the exhibition looks to the shadows and ‘after hours’ as metaphors for the work and thinking that happens beneath the surface, away from the public gaze: time alone in the studio, during the quiet of the night and while asleep.

Still Life

Exquisite drawings and models from the University of Melbourne’s Herbarium Collection represent artistic and scientific traditions in which natural organisms are depicted in isolation from their environment. These teaching tools contrast with contemporary artworks by eleven artists that celebrate the complexities of nature, emphasising interdependence and shifting states of being.

Observance

Observance brought together six First Nations women with strong culturally led practices. Offering a selection of works that delved into the ongoing impacts of colonial violence, artists share their experiences of generational grief for family, language and Country.

Exhibition Design

Curators and external exhibition designers work closely together to determine both practical and conceptual aspects of an exhibition space. This includes the optimal pathways a visitor might take through the gallery space or how the ‘story’ of an exhibition unfolds, emphasising important works or defining themes or ‘chapters’. Exhibition designers are responsible for creating construction drawings for exhibition builds, such as walls, plinths and display cases. This is critical for both visitor and artwork safety, to ensure that pieces are securely installed. The designers can also help curators make key decisions relating to wall colours and other design elements such as exhibition texts. Thoughtful exhibition design will ensure that the safety of the artworks is a top priority. For instance, a particularly fragile work might be placed in a more secure location within the gallery and protected from unwanted physical interaction. Lighting design is another key consideration when ensuring artworks are looked after when on display in an exhibition. There is a careful balance to be achieved between lighting that allows works to be viewable and presented in optimal conditions, and lighting that won’t harm an artwork in the long term, especially in exhibitions that run for an extended period. Signage and labels within the gallery, which provide a line of communication to visitors and are critical to ensuring artwork safety, are created by a 2D design team, usually graphic designers.

Commissioning

An artwork commission involves approaching an artist to create a new artwork, rather than borrowing or purchasing an existing artwork. Curators will often commission new artworks for exhibitions to support an artist’s practice and present an unseen work of art. Commissions can involve a collaborative process between the curator and the artist to develop the ideas of the artwork, especially when it is being created for a specific context or function. At Buxton Contemporary, commissions are either acquisitive – meaning the artwork is produced and then purchased for the collection – or, more often, non-acquisitive – where artwork is returned to the artist after the exhibition. There are several logistical considerations at play when commissioning a new artwork. Curators and Collection Managers work with the artist to plan the production, transport, installation and display of the commissioned artwork safely.

Case Study

Yona Lee’s Upper-floor composition, 2024, is one of Buxton Contemporary’s most recent commissions to be exhibited in The same crowd never gathers twice, curated by Annika Aitken. The work is site-specific, responding to the heritage architecture and beams in Buxton Contemporary’s Heritage Galleries. The work features everyday objects such as an outdoor bench, a street lamp, a balcony table setting, a clock and mirror, a bed with pillows and a doona, a moving ceiling fan, festoon lights, and in the centre of the space, a bath containing running water from three shower-heads. These everyday objects are physically and conceptually connected by one primary material: metal tubing. During only two site visits to the gallery, Lee was able to conceptualise the work and take precise measurements of the architecture and space. Back in her studio, Lee designed the bending and linear metal tubing forms using 3D computer aided design (CAD) software, and had the pieces fabricated. The pieces were pre-cut and welded by the fabricator, and assembled on-site at Buxton Contemporary. The main metal tubing elements of the work were transported by air freight in a single crate.

Interpretive Materials

Labels

Artwork labels are prepared by the curator to identify the artwork, including title, creation date, artist name, and materials. Exhibitions will also include exhibition texts, which introduce visitors to the exhibition content, and extended labels, which enhance the interpretation of the artwork using accessible language. For all exhibitions, portable large format labels are available for visitors with visual impairments. Signage is often used around the gallery space to indicate what visitors can and can’t interact with. This protects the condition of the artworks while they are on display to the public. Some past exhibitions have provided QR codes to access audio versions of wall texts.

Publication

Each exhibition is accompanied by a publication, which includes images of the exhibition’s artworks and essays by the curator and guest contributors. The publication is sold in the foyer of Buxton Contemporary and allows visitors to learn more about the artists and the concepts behind the exhibition after visiting the gallery. After the exhibition’s conclusion, publications become a main source of documentation and make up a key part of the gallery’s archives, which are used as a point of reference for research and teaching programs. The publication often contains images of the artworks installed within the gallery space, which allows audiences to view the works presented in-situ long after the exhibition closes.

University Student Collaborations

Some exhibitions have drawn on the creative output of university students, resulting in the creation of supplementary materials. A recent example was the ‘Surface Library’ project for Nadine Christensen’s solo survey exhibition Around (2023-2024), created by students from the Bachelor of Graphic Design. For this project, students selected materials that appear on objects and places in Christensen’s paintings and then located and photographed the surface material in real life. The students wrote a small text about the material’s quality and presented it alongside the image on a card available in the foyer of Buxton Contemporary. The cards were presented as free supplementary material that visitors could take home to learn more about the details of the objects in Christensen’s paintings.