20 December 2001

pARTs Exhibition Backgrounder

With the closure of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery looming, staff are placing a premium on researching the ultimate visitor experience through the permanent collection, for use in the new Christchurch Art Gallery.

The recent pARTs exhibition was planned as a developmental exhibition showcasing works from the Gallery’s permanent collection and providing an environment where exhibition design and resources could be developed over time to reveal correlations in visitor satisfaction and understanding of curatorial intent.

Various exhibition display and interpretation techniques such as the quantity and size of didactic panels, varied label text lengths, providing resource sheets for each artwork, a touchscreen multimedia console and a “TechnoGuide” (a handheld device equipped with customised software to present audio and visual content) were developed, implemented and surveyed with a view to selecting the most effective practices for the new Christchurch Art Gallery.

pARTs, an exhibition of paintings, drawings, sculpture and photography from the Permanent Collection, presented works containing multiple parts, featuring work by: Michael Eaton, Rosemary Johnson, Richard Killeen, Colin McCahon, Julia Morison, Richard Reddaway, Michael Shepherd, Grant Takle, Bronwyn Taylor, Ray Thorburn, Imants Tiller, Ruth Watson, Christine Webster and Gail Wright.

For more information contact: Catrina McDiarmid at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Ph: 03 372-2981

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