Ask curators where art belongs, and the answer will often be philosophical. That’s why experimentation with spaces for art exhibitions has been ongoing for many decades. Explore some interesting examples of non-traditional exhibition spaces, each chosen with a specific purpose.
In 1986, Jan Hoet made a revolutionary move by relocating contemporary art from Ghent’s Museum of Contemporary Art to the homes of local residents. The project, named Chambres d'Amis, presented artworks by 51 artists, including Daniel Buren, Joseph Kosuth, and Christian Boltanski, in people’s bedrooms, dining rooms, attics, and other domestic spaces. Visitors wishing to see the art used an exhibition map and rang doorbells to enter private homes and encounter artworks in an everyday environment. In this way, Hoet explored the difference between institutional and domestic exhibition settings and their effects on the public.
While Hoet’s experiment was creative, the 1994 solution developed by Colin de Land, Pat Hearn, Paul Morris, and Matthew Marks was largely pragmatic. New York City’s real estate market was unfavorable at the time, making traditional art fair booth rentals prohibitively expensive. The dealers made an unconventional move by renting several floors of the Gramercy Park Hotel, with exhibitors displaying artworks literally across hotel rooms and beds. The event, known as the Gramercy International Art Fair, later became associated with the development of the modern Armory Show, demonstrating how economic constraints can inspire new approaches to exhibitions.
Artists continue experimenting with unusual spaces for art exhibitions by doing the reverse: bringing an improbable environment into the gallery. One illustrative example is This Is How We Bite Our Tongue, an exhibition held at Whitechapel Gallery in 2018 by Elmgreen & Dragset. The exhibition involved building a full-size swimming pool on the gallery’s ground floor. It was carefully stylized to look derelict, featuring cracked municipal tiles, scattered leaves, and a light fitting inside the empty basin. The installation was accompanied by a wall inscription narrating its invented history. Although fictional, the project evoked the real process of civic decline and decay, creating a highly relatable experience.
These examples demonstrate the ever-changing relationship between artworks and their exhibition spaces. Some art emerges as a natural product of its environment; for other works, the environment is carefully crafted to reveal their meaning and message. This ongoing dialogue can therefore be viewed as an artist’s and curator’s search for possibilities beyond conventional museum and gallery walls.
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