Went to a gallery opening in Brooklyn last night and the digital pieces were all crammed into one corner like an afterthought

The oil paintings got prime wall space but the projection piece was shoved next to the bathroom door. Why even call it a digital showcase if you're gonna treat it like second class art? Has anyone else been to a show where they clearly didn't know how to hang a screen or a tablet?

3 comments

3 Comments

elizabeths5112d ago

Walk into almost any gallery that tries to blend old and new stuff and you'll see the same thing. It's like they think digital art is just a screen you plug in and that's it, no thought to lighting or how people move through the room. I've noticed that same thing with public art too, like those digital billboards they put on old buildings. They slap them up but don't think about how the sun hits them or how the colors clash with the brick. It's like we treat tech as a quick fix instead of something that needs its own space to breathe and be seen right.

roberts9512d ago

Those old Kodak Carousel projectors from the 60s actually handled mixed media better than most modern galleries do, @elizabeths51. They knew how to sequence light and shadow in a dark room instead of just throwing a screen on a wall.

the_faith12d ago

Oh man, @roberts95, you hit on something I think about all the time. It's like we forgot that any kind of art, digital or not, needs to be shown with some care for the actual room you're standing in. A good projector in a dark room can make a photo feel alive, but a screen just slapped on a wall with glare all over it kills the whole thing. I see the same thing in a lot of local museums here - they'll put an old painting next to a cheap monitor and call it a day, no thought to how the light from one messes with the other. Feels like we traded craftsmanship for convenience and lost something in the deal.