Behind the Scenes - Installation
Domestic Detritus is now on view through March 24! Curious about what happened after deinstallation and gallery repair? Well, let’s get into the installation process!
Where did all the art come from?
Once the gallery is prepared and cleaned, we’re ready to receive art. Since our co-curator for Domestic Detritus, Kimberly Loveless-McKinnis, is based in Virginia, many of the artist featured are also from the east-coast. The artwork traveled many miles to be here, so they are carefully unpackaged and assessed for any damage that may have occurred during transit. Each unpackaging is video-recorded and documented, so we may have reference for repackaging later on.
Local artists, like Sam Comen and Marisa De Luca, drop off their work personally. All artists are required to sign loan and insurance documentation, and once that’s complete, they wave goodbye, and we start planning the layout for the show!
How do you pick where the art goes?
Choosing a layout for a show is not as easy as it may seem. There’s lots of factors to consider: what will grab our audience’s attention immediately? What artworks pair well together? How does the size of certain works effect the spacing?
Domestic Detritus features a variety of media, from sculpture to video, photographs and even very tiny ceramics. While our director, Heather Bowling, makes most of the layout decisions, it’s a collaborative effort from the entire staff. Sometimes art will be grouped together by subject matter, other times it’s design aspects and colors. In exhibition design, these are called “wall groupings.”
For this show, we started with the easier, larger pieces. The videos by cristy roberts berkowitz would each get their own rooms, “Hilando Relaciones” by Salvador de la Torre would occupy the large wall in the front room, and “Tiny Vessels” by Natalie Pialto would require a 15 ft. long shelf. From there, we arranged the large photographs by Comen and Matthew Brabant, pairing them with other works. Artworks that require pedestals, like Carmen Mardonez and the Rogers, are also sprinkled throughout. Once we have a general layout, small adjustments and shifts are made.
What happens after you have a layout picked?
You may have already guessed the answer to this one: we install!
Some artworks were fixed with a french cleat, others with wire, some even use magnets! All of our artwork is hung centered to 58”, meaning the center of the artwork is at 58 inches, which is around the average eye-level. That also means we have to do a lot of math to ensure all of the artwork is hung to the correct measurements. Besides hanging the art to the correct height, we have to ensure they’re all properly spaced between one another, and that they’re all centered horizontally on the wall as well.
Here at Brea Gallery, Post-It notes become our bestfriend for installation. We’ll make all of our calculations and leave a note with each corresponding piece. Once all the math is complete, we start hanging!
Depending on the artwork, installation can take a long time. Luckily for us, our team of four was able to install all of Domestic Detritus in about three weeks! We built and installed Pilato’s shelf ourselves, as well as building the projector rooms for roberts berkowitz. While we have main gallery walls that are part of the building’s infrastructure, we also have “modular walls” that can be moved around to create more dynamic layouts and display area. We utilized two modular walls in this exhibition to create the projector room for “The Golden Salad, Eating the Rich, and Staying Healthy.” Installation artists, like Sarah Vaughn, will send installation notes with their work. For “Condensing the Consideration of Time,” Vaughn instructed that her 210 needle-felted wool rocks would be arranged in three columns, with seven rocks per row and ten rows per column. Each rock is spaced 2” apart, while columns were spaced 3” apart.
What else is done during installation?
Besides hanging and installing all of the art, we also have to generate title cards and didactics for each of the artists. Some shows don’t require too much context, but for Domestic Detritus, we felt it was imperative to give viewers an insight into the artists’ motivations.
The title wall, exhibiting artist wall, and our show “blurb,” or brief statement, also needed to be displayed. For these, we use vinyl stickers. Once we have our text or design ready, we upload it to a program that feeds the information to a machine to do the cutting. If you’ve ever seen a Cricut machine at work, it’s essentially the same thing. The vinyl process is tedious, as it requires a lot of steps before completion. After each large piece of vinyl is cut, we “weed” it, pulling all the negative sticker from the paper. Once we just have the text or design, we lay a piece of transfer paper over that sheet, where the lettering will lay, and the backing is removed. The transfer paper with the lettering will then be placed on the wall, after a lot more insurance math for centering. And… viola! The finishing touches are complete, and the show is ready to open.
What’s next?
Brea Gallery hosts four shows a year on average. So in between every show, we must do deinstallation, gallery repair, and then installation for the upcoming.
Our next show, the 38th annual Made in California Juried show, will be opening April 29, giving us only about a month to do deinstallation and installation after Domestic Detritus closes on March 24! We’ve begun sorting entries and can’t wait to show you all some awesome art from across the state.
