The Louvre

I visited the Musée du Louvre on the 20th December 2013, as the gallery is so vast I did not have the opportunity to visit each individual temporary exhibition as well as the traditional galleries. However I did get the opportunity to visit the following exhibitions.

 Living Rooms

This contemporary exhibition by Robert Wilson entitled 'Living Rooms' is exhibited between November 14th 2013 and February 17th 2014 at the Louvre in Paris. The name Living Rooms derived from the idea of transporting both his living and working space to the musuem all the way from the Unites States. As I walked around the exhibition I noticed there was such a wide range of types or art including that of period furniture, Chinese ceramics, contemporary paintings and photographs which seemed to form a collection in itself. I then discovered that Wilson has collected these various pieces over the duration of his career and they form the foundation for his inspiration.  This layout of this exhibition seems to explore the artist himself rather than the work as the viewer becomes interested in the ideology behind the chosen pieces and the assemble of them. This exhibition reflects Wilson's daily surroundings and how he wanted to portray his inspiration to society. This exhibition makes use of many different display techniques. It incorporates the use of plinths and suspending work. The walls are painted in a tone of grey which breaks away from the conventional white cube style it also compliments the various pieces of art work which are hung from the wall in an unorthodox manner. I really like the idea of using shelves within the exhibition as it also reflects the title of the show. I think this is an important element to reflect the shows concept within the presentation of the exhibition, and this is something that our group have tried to achieve within our show. 

Press Release for Living Rooms - http://www.louvre.fr/sites/default/files/medias/medias_fichiers/fichiers/pdf/louvre-louvre-invites-robert-wilson.pdf

Traditional Galleries

I noticed whilst exploring the Louvre that many of the traditional paintings by artists such as Ingres, Constable, Gainsborough and Borghèse were displayed in these ornate, historic corridors and rooms in large frames suspended by wire. The first image depicts a beautifully decorated room filled with golden sculptures and delicately painted walls and the ceiling. This room consisted of large scale paintings and glass cabinets filled with precious jewels and sculptures. I love this traditional style and how the artwork resembles that of the architecture and decoration of the building, this style could be seen as the white cube of our time. The second image shows these traditional paintings hung on a much blanker canvas, this stops the viewer from being distracted by the room and merely focuses on the paintings themselves. Both of these above images show a very different style of curation and display, however each work very well in portraying the pieces of artwork to their best ability.