MIA curator for a day

If I were asked to curate a showing at the MIA using the pieces in their collection this is what I would come up with. My show would be called Unnatural Selections. The show would include the following works to be seen in this order.

Constant Troyon,

Landscape with Cattle and Sheep, c. 1852-58

Oil on canvas

Harry Jackson

Stampede, 1958-59

Bronze, Wyoming jade base

Antoine-Louis Barye

Theseus Combatting the Minotaur, c. 1846-47

Bronze

Benjamin West

Destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet, 1804

Oil on panel

Roxanne Jackson,

Lyubia Twins, 2009

Ceramic, glaze, flock

Roxanne Jackson,

White Diamond, 2009

Ceramic, platinum gold luster, flock, glaze

All images taken by Dave Kvam at the MIA unless otherwise noted.

My layout of the works would be in such a way that it connects the pieces and directs the narrative.

Image coming soon.

having trouble uploading.

You would enter through a large doorway to see set directly a head of you is the painting Landscape with Cattle and Sheep. Up against the wall on your right would be the sculpture Stampede. From there would brought over to your left to see the sculpture Theseus Combatting the Minotaur. All of these works would be displayed in the standard museum format of being well lit on white walls. To the left of Theseus Combatting the Minotaur you start to see a change. In the corridor the white walls turn to grey and then black. This corridor brings you into a dimly lit room with black walls where all the pieces are in heavy spotlight. The first piece you see after going through the hall would be Destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet. To the right of that on the floor against the far wall would be Lyubia Twins, lit like you see it in the picture above. Directly above that mounted 9 feet up on the wall is White Diamond. There is no exit in this room so to leave you must go back the way you came in to the exhibit.

The purpose of this new arrangement is to get a narrative across of how our view of the cow as cattle has changed so drastically and to hopefully make the viewer think about how that shift applies to other aspects of our daily lives.

A Giant of a man

image from Format Magazine

Every time I look at a piece by Mike Giant I am in awe. I feel the same way I did the first time I saw an early Chuck Close painting in person. Mike Giant makes such intricate illustrations only with a sharpie marker. They are flawless. His lines are extremely clean. They look as if they could have been done on illustrator. To me he is one of the best at using pure black and white to describe his subjects.

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