Part 3 (SL and HL): Exhibition

 

Part 3 (SL and HL): Exhibition

Internal Assessment 40%

Why assess an exhibition?

The exhibition provides an assessment platform for both SL and HL students to showcase the final product of their art-making processes. It allows for the assessment of the observable qualities of technical resolution, the successful communication of ideas and the synthesis of form and function. It also provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their discernment in determining the strongest works for the exhibition and how to best arrange these works to their best advantage and to make connections for the audience between works. Additionally, HL students need to articulate how they have considered possible relationships between the artworks exhibited and the viewer.

Core syllabus areas related to the task

The following core syllabus areas are addressed in the exhibition assessment task.

Visual arts in context

• Informed by their responses to work and exhibitions they have seen and experienced, students formulate personal intentions for creating and displaying their own artworks.

Visual arts methods

• Evaluating how their ongoing work communicates meaning and purpose
• Producing and selecting a body of artwork through a process of reflection and evaluation, showing a synthesis of skill, media and concept
• Considering the nature of “exhibition” and thinking about the process of selection

Communicating visual arts

• Selecting and presenting resolved works for exhibition
• Explaining the ways in which the works are connected
• Discussing how artistic judgments impact the overall presentation
• Considering and explaining the impact of their work on different audiences (HL only)

Possible approaches to creating an exhibition

IB World Schools represent a diverse range of socio-economic circumstances and physical resources. A number of schools have semi-professional gallery spaces on campus, other schools make-do with school halls, gymnasiums or even classrooms to display student work. A small number of schools have even hired professional gallery or exhibition spaces to exhibit student work. It is important to recognize that this component of the course is not intended to assess the quality of the space provided for students in which to exhibit their work. Rather, students are assessed on:

• the technical competence displayed in the work
• the appropriate use of materials, techniques and processes used in the work
• the resolution of the works and the degree to which they communicate the stated intentions
• a coherency in the work selected
• for HL students, the consideration for the overall experience of the viewer through the way the work is arranged and presented within the available space.

It is appropriate, and most likely a necessity, for the teacher to be responsible for proportioning the available exhibition space among the students. The division of space should be equitable, but needs to also take into account such things as the size and scope of individual student work, the need for wall versus the need for floor (or plinth) space or access to power outlets. Exhibition spaces need not be self-contained. Satellite exhibitions might be necessary for students who have produced site-specific work, such as a mural elsewhere on the school campus.

However, once students have been assigned the space in which they will exhibit their work, it is crucial that they are given the responsibility for determining how they will arrange and display their work. This is an important aspect of the task.

There are essentially two main approaches to organizing an exhibition that students could adopt.

Survey	Chronological	Work is arranged approximately in the order that it was produced. This strategy evidences the development of the student skills, which is not assessable in this component, but will establish relationships between sequential works.
	Formal concerns	Work is grouped along the lines of formal concerns. This could include the media forms that a student has worked in, so that all of their paintings are together in one part of the exhibition, their sculptures in another. Otherwise, work that is concerned primarily with colour and value, for example, might be grouped together, while an interest in texture and pattern is grouped elsewhere, irrespective of when the work was completed.
Thematic	Narrative	The work is arranged in a way that best communicates an overarching theme that runs through the entire body of work, irrespective of when the work was completed.
	Sub-themes	Rather than having a single theme running consistently, the student might identify a series of related sub-themes and group these accordingly. Sometimes, this manner of presentation can loosely reflect a chronology within which the work was created, as artists often find that their ideas and concepts evolve as they produce work that is sometimes quite divergent from the original starting point.

Resources

Space: an open, evenly lit space is ideal. A classroom emptied of furniture will often suffice, but building foyers, school halls and gymnasiums also work well when larger spaces are required.

Hanging space: if there are insufficient existing walls in the exhibition space, additional hanging space may need to be created. Display panels work well. If schools do not have these, they can be hired; otherwise, inexpensive display panels can be made with cheap, flat surface hollow-core internal doors. These can be joined with steel mending plates in lines or at right angles with an appropriate right-angled bracket.

Hanging hardware: gallery style hanging tracks and hook systems are very useful and versatile, but picture hooks found in hardware stores are equally effective.

Plinths: simple wooden boxes, painted in a flat neutral colour are ideal for displaying three-dimensional work. Clean tables can also be used.

A guide for students

Task summary

The exhibition is an internally examined assessment task worth 40%.

To complete the task, you are required to present an exhibition of your resolved artworks together with accompanying exhibition text (which states the title, medium, size and a brief outline of the original intentions of each selected artwork) and a curatorial rationale. You will need to document your exhibition electronically.

Formal requirements

SL

• SL students submit a curatorial rationale that does not exceed 400 words.
• SL students submit 4–7 artworks. (You are permitted to submit up to two additional photographs in support of each submitted artwork. These additional supporting photographs or screenshots are intended to enable you to provide an enhanced sense of scale or specific detail to the submitted artwork. These additional photographs are optional.)
• SL students submit exhibition text stating the title, medium and size of the artwork and short (maximum 500 characters) explanation of intent for each selected artwork.
• SL students may submit two photographs of their overall exhibition. They will not be assessed or used to assess the individual artworks.

HL

• HL students submit a curatorial rationale that does not exceed 700 words.
• HL students submit 8–11 artworks. (You are permitted to submit up to two additional photographs in support of each submitted artwork. These additional supporting photographs or screenshots are intended to enable you to provide an enhanced sense of scale or specific detail to the submitted artwork. These additional photographs are optional).
• HL students submit exhibition text stating the title, medium and size of the artwork and short (maximum 500 characters) explanation of intent for each selected artwork.
• HL students may submit two photographs of their overall exhibition. They will not be assessed or used to assess the individual artworks.

Marking criteria summary

Marking criteria		Marks	What the marker is looking for:
A	Coherent body of works	9	a coherent collection of works, which fulfill stated artistic intentions and communicate clear thematic or stylistic relationships across individual pieces. At the highest level of achievement, the work forms a coherent body of work through effective communication of thematic or stylistic relationships across individual pieces. Stated intentions are consistently and effectively fulfilled through the selection and application of media, processes and techniques and the considered use of imagery.
B	Technical competence	9	an effective application and manipulation of media and materials as well as the effective application and manipulation of formal qualities. At the highest level of achievement, the work demonstrates effective application and manipulation of media and materials to reach an assured level of technical competence in the chosen forms and the effective application and manipulation of the formal qualities.
C	Conceptual qualities	9	an effective resolution of imagery, signs and/or symbols to realize the function, meaning and purpose of the artworks, as appropriate to stated intentions. At the highest level of achievement, the work visually elaborates ideas, themes or concepts to a point of effective realization and demonstrates the subtle use of complex imagery, signs and/or symbols that result in effective communication of stated artistic intentions.
D	Curatorial practice (SL only)	3	a justified explanation for the selection, arrangement and exhibition of a group of artworks within a designated space. At the highest level of achievement, the curatorial rationale fully justifies the selection and arrangement of the exhibited works, which are presented and arranged clearly, as appropriate to your stated intentions within the space made available to you.
D	Curatorial practice (HL only)	3	a justified explanation for the selection, arrangement and exhibition of a group of artworks within a designated space and reflection on how the exhibition conveys an understanding of the relationship between the artworks and the viewer. At the highest level of achievement, the curatorial rationale fully justifies the selection and arrangement of the exhibited works and effectively articulates the relationship between the artworks and the viewer within the space made available to the student.

Possible structure

There are two distinct stages to the exhibition task. Firstly, there is the physical exhibition, where you need to select your best works and arrange them so that they present a coherent exhibition. Secondly, you need to document your exhibition electronically to facilitate the process of moderation by which a moderator may view your exhibition to ensure that the way that it has been marked by your school is consistent with the standard set by the IB.

Your teacher will allocate a space for you to set up your exhibition. You will need to plan and decide how to best display your work so that it is shown to its best advantage and best communicates your intent to the audience. You need to consider which works need to be displayed in close proximity and which works need to be further apart. Do any of the works help convey your intentions better when they are displayed together?

Further advice for students

• When choosing work for the exhibition, select your strongest work that best reflects your achievement against the marking criteria. Your teacher is looking for consistency in the quality of work, so including a weak work may be detrimental to your overall mark.
• Once you have selected your body of work, consider your curatorial approach. Does your artwork reflect a strong material practice (that is, focused on visual qualities, exploring the properties of different media and material and the refinement of technical skills) or a strong conceptual practice (that is, communicating ideas, concepts or themes through the use of imagery)? Adopt a curatorial approach that best presents your work as a coherent body of work.
• Document your work photographically before you display it, making use of the best lighting available to you.
• Once the exhibition is set up and you are satisfied with it, take a number of photographs of the exhibition. Choose the two shots that best reflect the work in the context of the exhibition.
• When preparing the documentation of the exhibition for the purpose of moderation, organize the works in the order that you would prefer the audience to view them, based on your curatorial rationale.

Writing a curatorial statement

A well-written curatorial statement is your chance to guide the way the audience perceives your exhibition. It represents an opportunity to communicate directly with viewers, and help them recognize your intent and purpose in your body of work, understand your point of view, and generate intrigue and curiosity about the body of work they are about to experience.

When writing the curatorial statement, it is good to keep some general guidelines in mind. The statement has a word limit. For SL students, it is 400 words. For HL students, it is 700 words. If you exceed this, parts of your statement will not be considered in your assessment.

It can be helpful to follow a basic structure:

Figure 11

Further advice

• If there is a particular work that was especially instrumental in the way you perceived your exhibition, it might be interesting to describe that work in more depth to draw the audience into your thought process.
• It is important to remember that you have an opportunity to write a short statement to accompany each artwork in the exhibition, so do not use up your word limit describing each work. Rather, identify thematic and/or stylistic connections between works.
• Consider the style of the statement. There are two audiences for your exhibition: your school community and the IB assessment system, which will include your teacher and IB moderators. You want to avoid using the kind of art-world jargon that might alienate a general audience but still be specific enough when articulating your vision to engage the teacher and moderator. If there is a specific art term that is central to the main idea of your exhibition, be sure to define it within your statement.
• Your statement should be written in an informative and persuasive tone, but because you are writing about your own work, personal pronouns (I, my and so on) are appropriate.
• Be realistic, frank and honest about your work. Statements that do not reflect the work that is presented cannot score highly against the marking criteria.
• Less is more. While the word limits for SL ad HL are 400 and 700 words respectively, most curatorial statements written for exhibitions in galleries are between 300 and 500 words.

Writing exhibition text

For each artwork you submit, it should be supported by exhibition text that outlines the title, medium and size of the artwork. The exhibition text should also include a brief outline of the original intentions of the work (500 characters maximum—including spaces—per artwork). This can be presented in the following way.

Figure 12

When completed, these can be printed out and included in your exhibition to help your audience appreciate your work more fully.

Mounting printed exhibition text on foam core board can give your exhibition a professional feel.

Exhibition teacher planner checklist (PDF)

 

International approaches to exhibition

An article by Rachel Mason (2013)

IB World Schools often adopt a rather conservative stance to exhibiting student work given recent developments in contemporary art to move work outside gallery spaces. This discussion paper attempts to open up the idea of exhibiting in a gallery to a broader interpretation of public display. To help me write it I distributed a questionnaire to art and design teachers and trainers¹ and studied a public report into creativity arguing for change.

What are the restrictions of the Western concept of exhibition?

It may be helpful to begin by considering possible restrictions in the way the term exhibition is often interpreted and what it actually implies. The concept of an art exhibition is widely understood to be western and associated primarily with gallery displays of fine art². Some IB teachers do not feel the emphasis on a certain kind of art market and competition is an issue because they understand the Diploma Programme visual arts as rooted in fine art and the Western tradition of education anyway. Others consider this interpretation elitist in that it excludes art forms disseminated in other ways.

In principle IB encourages students to become “active, compassionate lifelong learners who understand that other people [and by implication, art forms] with their differences can also be right.” Many forms of art are not exhibited in gallery settings. Currently there is a surge in practices associated with public art—for example making art that is intended to be useful for social causes, working with and promoting awareness of unusual publics and materials or creating work that requires public engagement. Designers and craft artists showcase their accomplishments to prospective employers and clients in business settings at fairs and festivals. Shouldn't IB visual arts be encouraging schools to adopt a broader conception of both art and exhibitions? One teacher told me, “I don't use the term any more and prefer ‘public display’, ‘event’ or ‘action’.”

What does this term “exhibition” imply?

Fundamentally the term exhibition implies the need for an audience. Showing final work this way is a form of communication between artists and their publics with dialogue and collaboration at its heart. As June King McFee once pointed out (1978), artists of all kinds bring their experience of their own cultures/worlds to works they create. As both artists and curators they are able to further suggest meaning and significance through the way their images/objects are used and displayed. Whereas audiences bring their own cultural experiences, attitudes and aptitudes to their reading of the work, this can also be informed by the way it is used and displayed. Since meaning making is central to artistic endeavor, the important point about exhibitions is that they imply a context that gives meaning to artworks. According to Jones and Wright (2007) the boundaries between producers and consumers are shifting across society in general in ways that have significant implications for young peoples’ creative production.

There is a real need to shift the emphasis to the use of different media to express identity and meaning in relation to different audiences. Rather than looking at the values of the creative arts simply in terms of conventional skills, we need additionally to look at the value of creativity as a whole. The main skill young people will need as they grow up will be the capacity to link creativity to meaning in their own terms and in ways that will allow them to match products to purpose and audience.

Whereas the majority of IB visual arts candidates understand the purpose of their art as making meaning in their own terms, they do not necessarily comprehend that the way this meaning is positioned to various audiences is how it gains its purchase and relevance in a wider world. Their practice may have particular relevance for them or their particular cultural group, but may be purchased, admired or criticized by others for a variety of values or functions. A second argument in favour of diversification therefore is that current practice restricts young peoples’ creativity.

What impact can space have on the displaying of artwork?

Small exhibition spaces set within four white walls tend to favour traditional forms of two-dimensional art such as painting, printmaking and drawing. They are unhelpful for showcasing large-scale three-dimensional work, and the new forms of digital and time-based art that are increasingly popular. Public art takes many forms and most aspects of the built environment are seen as legitimate candidates for consideration, including street furniture, lighting, and graffiti. The work may only have a temporary existence and be fashioned from ephemeral materials or integrated directly into architecture and landscaping in a more permanent form³. This lends weight to the argument that the IB ought to be encouraging visual arts candidates to think harder about the kinds of audiences they want to engage with other than IB examiners and colleagues in school. One respondent argued strongly that:

We (IB) need to consider "exhibition" broadly to include the whole gamut of curatorial practices, including ways museums display cultural artifacts for a Western audience, but also more contemporary approaches such as public, private and virtual spaces. In dealing with exhibitions IB examiners should be interested in the discernment candidates display choosing what and what not to exhibit and which works to place next to each other and exploring ways of creating meanings. This implies their teachers need to be explicit in teaching candidates how artworks, images, objects and artifacts are created with diverse functions and purposes within different cultural contexts and paradigm.

What are the most common restrictions on exhibiting student work schools face?

Common restrictions on exhibiting student work in school include a general lack of interest, and/or technical expertise, rigid bureaucracies, problems of security, the cost and time involved in preparation. However, the high occupancy of teaching and non-teaching areas means that space is the major restriction. The status of art in a school as a whole is often reflected in the amount of space and time an exhibition is afforded. In some schools candidates only have a one-day slot or have to share exhibition space with others. Art teachers often have to negotiate space and are not always able to determine or control what is used.

Despite these problems a respondent from Malta felt there is little opportunity for genuine experimentation because headteachers favour known systems of display and view new options as disruptive. On the other hand, Australian teachers reported that students are increasingly following the lead of socially engaged, outreach, and community artists and working with a variety of exhibition forms in community spaces such as houses, artist studios, and old buildings. Alternative spaces like these can be hard to find and since working this way takes more time than is often available in class, much of it takes place out of hours. Given that environment can have a huge impact on how student work is viewed, the challenge for IB examiners is to consistently judge the extent to which a candidate has best used an available space, rather than the quality of the space itself.

What spaces can be best adapted for presenting?

The manner in which student work is displayed in a school can range from hanging it conventionally on a wall, to showing it inside a “cabinet of curiosities”, as a performance in a public space, or a catwalk of “wearable art”. Some schools have excellent facilities; others do not. At the present time the venues range from purpose-built exhibition facilities to large transitional (break-out) areas and foyers, school halls and gymnasiums and general purpose learning areas. The use of screens sometimes functions satisfactorily in spaces with limits. As one respondent said, “I've heard stories of a school using a baseball dug-out to display work! I think it depends on the nature of the work.” Spaces respondents offered as examples of alternatives to the purpose-built exhibition gallery facility inside schools included hallways, and overhead and stair areas, as well as classrooms. But they pointed out that many schools could make better use of empty public spaces in their grounds and the street outside, which have natural light and offer easy access for materials and people.

Organizing student art shows away from school can be problematic since these spaces fall outside the direct control of the school authorities. It is not always easy to find alternative sites and cost and ease of access can be prohibitive. Nevertheless exhibiting student work in this way gives it a particular meaning and has potential to enhance a school’s profile. Suggestions included historical sites, public spaces and hospitals. One respondent had worked with estate agents, getting them to lend a building and indirectly helping their sales by organizing a show in the vacant property. As he pointed out, teachers need to make sure they have permission to use these sites BEFORE actually committing students to start work on sketches, portfolios etc. This way they can get students to research the site, or ones with similar functions, find out who uses it, at what times of the day, etc. Whereas he agreed that “some aspect of curatorial practice definitely ought to be introduced into IB”, he pointed out that examiners need to take two issues into account. First the layout options may have been dictated by the teacher; and secondly, no two spaces offer an equal playing field—each one has its own challenges, advantages and disadvantages, not to mention different helpful/unhelpful individuals in charge etc.

How can we engage students in being more creative with space when thinking curatorial?

The majority of responses to this question focused on the need to introduce information on curatorial practices into art lessons and encourage experimentation with non-standard gallery locations. One respondent said:

I've had a few success stories, with student art teachers discussing layout options with the kids and getting some nice feedback from them... or heads of school that meet me at the door to thank me for getting my students to transform their school. I’ve always dedicated several hours in my lessons to discussions of curatorial practices—partly because I am personally involved in curating many shows here and also because I believe that you cannot avoid this issue if you want the art you do in schools to be relevant. So, for instance, I deal with historical examples of exhibitions, going back to the “salons” and then moving toward the white cube concept and then onto installation, site-specific, relational practices. My student teachers usually get to experience organizing a show in a non-standard space in primary schools, but with secondary schools, the situation is more complex.

Another pointed out that gallery visits should involve more than asking students to look at works. Teachers need to get them to think about how the exhibition has been displayed. “Is this a single medium display? A chronological survey? An integrated display? A thematic approach? Is it a solo or a group exhibition?”

Showing examples of work by artists and artist collectives who do not use conventional exhibition space was considered important. The internet, which is increasingly assuming the functions of exhibition platform, can be very helpful here. The website for Caravan Gallery Partnership(http://www.thecaravangallery.co.uk) for example describes this as an artist collective specializing in photographic essays recording everyday life. Members co-create exhibitions with local communities and exhibit in a mobile gallery and “meanwhile spaces” like empty shops. Increasing numbers of national, regional and local electronic archives of public art housed in libraries and other public agencies can be consulted online too. Examples include the Public Art Archive for the United States and Canada and Channel 4’s Public Art Project (http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/B/bigart/).

But for several respondents the best answer is to ensure that students go out of the classroom themselves to learn in spaces artists actually use. One teacher who gives his students digital cameras and gets them to photograph their work in different places around the school reported that “they come back with some surprising results.” Other suggestions included creating a project for students in the community with, for example, a charity or foundation and setting up a space outside the school building for projects such as garden, tree or pond.

Where can teachers look for more ideas or information about exhibitions?

For one respondent expansive thinking from art teachers comes down to really good teacher training in information technology (ITTE) focused on enquiry. This way they can access vast numbers of websites with information about the diverse contexts within which designers and craftspeople produce and disseminate their work. These range from official websites for biennales, museums, galleries, art studios, and libraries etc, to underground sites like bars, restaurants, and urban and natural sites where artists are collaborating with communities.

Several respondents recommended attending as many exhibitions as possible using new methods of showing artworks and liaising with gallery education officers. Some gallery educators organize educational seminars alongside major exhibitions, where the artist and curator give a floor talk, lecture or offer question and answer sessions.

The chapter “The art industry” in Christopher Marshall’s book Interpreting Art was recommended by one respondent as a useful introduction to different ways galleries exhibit work. And while I was researching this paper, I came across a freely distributed, non-commercial, international web journal called ON-CURATING (http://www.on-curating.org) focusing on questions around curatorial practice and theory.

Other recommendations included setting up school/teacher partnerships with artists and community arts initiatives; networking at art teacher conferences and with colleagues and other school exhibitions; keeping up to date with developments in contemporary art and design through publications such as Frieze Magazine and researching the increasing number of artists whose very art-making practices question the function and role of galleries and museums.

Notes

1. I wish to thank all the survey respondents for taking the time to communicate the viewpoints presented in this paper.

2. According to Wikipedia, the art exhibition has played a crucial part in the market for new art since the 18th and 19th centuries. The Paris Salon, open to the public from 1737, rapidly became the key factor in determining the reputation, and so the price, of the French artists of the day. The Royal Academy in London, beginning in 1769, soon established a similar grip on the market, and in both countries artists put great efforts into making pictures that would be a success, often changing the direction of their style to meet popular or critical taste.

3. See http://www.publicartonline.org.uk.

References

Caravan Gallery Partnership. http://www.thecaravangallery.co.uk. Accessed 01 April 2013.

Channel 4: The Big Art Project. http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/B/bigart. Accessed 01 April 2013.

Jones, S and Wright, S (2007) Making Good Work: Realising the Values of Young People’s Creative Production. Demos. http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/makinggoodwork. Accessed 28 March 2013.

MacDowell, M and Avery, J (eds) (2006) Craft works! Michigan A Report on Traditional Crafts and Economic Development in Michigan. East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Michigan State University Museum. http://www.craftworksmichigan.org/craftworksreport.pdf. Accessed 19 February 2014.

Marshall, C (2001) Interpreting Art: A Guide for Students. South Yarra, Victoria, Australia. Macmillan Education Australia.

McFee, JK (1978) “Cultural influences on aesthetic experience”. In J Condous, J Howlett and J Skull (eds) (1980), Arts in Cultural Diversity. Sydney, Australia. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

ON-CURATING.org. http://www.on-curating.org. Accessed 01 April 2013.

The Public Art Archive: Public art throughout the United States and Canada. http://www.publicartarchive.org. Accessed 01 April 2013.