Hot Topics: Community Curates II

Hot Topics comes from the desk of Jacquie Severs, Manager, Communications & Social Media

At the RMG our statement of purpose indicates we are dedicated to sharing, exploring and engaging with our communities through the continuing story of modern and contemporary Canadian art. There are many ways in which we do this, but from my office, a large part of the sharing, exploring, and engagement I work on is digital and social.

I recently worked with Assistant Curator Sonya Jones on developing our second Community Curates project. Last time, we developed a weekly survey through our blog, and voting determined the outcome of an exhibition. We felt that approach was successful but getting people to come back and vote every week for ten weeks wasn’t the easiest task. When managing a social community it isn’t advisable to drown people in repetitive requests week after week! So this time, we decided to make the voting a one-time survey that we could host on our website.

We’re a few weeks into promoting the survey through social media and gathering responses. I love looking over some of the data that is collected. We’ve had responses from Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. That means we’ve engaged international audiences in our Canadian art collection, and I think that’s a very important part of what makes social media so powerful for museums and galleries. Going back to the original intent, engaging with our communities, it is important to recognize that for art museums our communities is defined not just as our local community of Oshawa, the Durham Region, the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario and beyond, it is also the larger international community of people interested in art.

Social media has changed how museums and galleries can communicate and share art with fans and friends around the world. And we want to hear from you!

Have your say in the Community Curates II survey, and help select the works for an exhibition at the RMG.

Community Curates II

Community Curates

23 September 2011 – 11 March 2012

Opening celebration: First Fridays 7 October 7pm

In most cases, art is a visual experience that is meant to be experienced in person. However, the far reaching impact of the internet has undoubtedly done wonders for the art world—bringing otherwise inaccessible art into homes around the world. Despite this wider access, can one truly appreciate an artwork by viewing it online? Details that greatly affect the impact an artwork has can be lost when viewing on screen: size, texture, presentation and location.

For example, every art history student studied The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault in art history text books, but it cannot be fully appreciated without seeing the jaw dropping size of it (491 x 716 cm) in the Louvre. On the other hand, arguably one of the most iconic artworks in the world is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci; however many people comment on the underwhelming experience of seeing it in person, mostly due to its size (77 x 53 cm) and the fact that it is presented behind bullet proof glass.

This past summer we invited the general public to participate in the exhibition process. Each week, for ten weeks, five artworks were posted to the RMG’s blog and the community was asked to vote for the ones they’d like included in the exhibition, Community Curates. Selections were chosen from our works on paper collection, which rarely get shown due to conservation concerns.

This project brought the RMG’s collection into the homes of this community, it also raised questions into how we perceive artworks online versus in person. We trust that viewing the results of this project online will encourage the community to come in to the RMG to experience the selected artworks first hand.

Now that the exhibition is launching and you will soon be able to see the works in person, what are your impressions? Are the works you liked online the same ones you like on the wall? Do you think this was a successful project? How should we approach a similar idea in the future? Share your feedback with us in the comment section of this post.

Thank you for your participation!

Community Curates Week 10

Our last week has arrived! Now that we are wrapping up this project, our first crowd sourced art exhibition, we are starting to review the successes and drawbacks. Please be sure to leave a comment on this post with your ideas for how we could improve this process. We’d like to try it again and shake it up, make it even more fun and interactive. We have enjoyed interacting with you and we encourage you to come to the gallery and see the results of your decision making.

The Community Curates exhibition will be hung from 23 September, 2011 to 11 March, 2012. We’ll celebrate the exhibition and show you how to leave comments on it using your smartphone at our First Fridays event on Friday 7 October 2011.

Thank you for your help and we hope you’ve enjoyed the process!

Community Curates Week 10

1. Paul B. Keele (Canadian, 1948 – 1973)

Buffalo prints won’t you come out tonight c. 1973

lithograph on paper

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Tony Urquhart, 1978

Mclaughlin_drawingfromlifeprovincetown_2003mi56

2. Isabel McLaughlin (Canadian, 1903-2002)

Drawing from Life, Provincetown c. 1948-1950

charcoal on paper

Gift of the estate of Isabel McLaughlin, 2003

3. Ray Mead (Canadian, b. England, 1921 – 1998)

Lattice 1954

watercolour, gouache and pastel on paper

Donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1988; gift of M. F. Feheley

4. Gordon Smith (Canadian, b. England, 1919-2001)

Winter Sea 1973

lithograph on paper

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest and Rivette Herzig, 1993

5. Horatio Walker (Canadian, 1858 – 1938)

Lady Beside Lilypond n.d.

oil on paper, laid down

Gift of Rita M. Pretty in memory of husband Harry A. Pretty, 1984

Community Curates Week 9

While you may assume that because an artwork is in our collection, that we have ownership of it and can use the image as we see fit, this is incorrect. Artists still maintain copyright of their work and we must seek permission to use it. As a result, copyright is a huge factor in everything we do online. Some artists have given us permission to use their images for educational or promotional purposes, others have given us full permission, while in other cases we have gained full permission as the copyright has expired (as it does 50 years from the death of an artist.)

Our collection has recently been digitized (meaning it has been carefully photographed and recorded digitally) and is now available to be searched online, yet not all images have been cleared to be published online. As a result, it is an ongoing project for us to obtain permission to use works of art in our online directory and in projects such as Community Curates. It is our hope that someday the majority of our collection will be approved for viewing online so that a more comprehensive view of our holdings is easily accessible for all.

In selecting works for Community Curates, we are limited to using works that we do hold copyright to. Here are five more works for you two choose from. With just one week left, week 10, we’re nearing completion of the project. We’re very excited to debut the results in the coming weeks.

Community Curates Week 9

1. Michael Behnan (Canadian, b. Pakistan, 1947 – 1982)

Spadina and Dundas 1974

ink on paper

Gift of the artist, 1975

2. Charles E. Heil (American, 1870 – 1953)

Haystack at Bourg-la-Reine 1896

watercolour and graphite on paper

Gift of the heirs of the Hortense Gordon estate, 1976

3. Lynda Hayward (Canadian, b. 1941)

Weedscape I 1977

photo-serigraph monotype on paper

Purchase, 1977

4. Susan Low-Beer (Canadian, b.1943)

Untitled 1993

watercolour and graphite on paper

Gift of the artist, 1994

5. Michael Snow (Canadian, b. 1929)

Carla Bley 1965

photolithography and relief printing on paper

Purchase, 1970

Community Curates Week 8

Crowdsourcing is defined as, “the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “crowd”), through an open call.” The term, coined in 2006 has become a shorthand to describe the ability to leverage mass collaboration that has been made easy because of the speed of communication created by the internet.

The Community Curates exhibition is a crowdsourced art show, where the community who follow us online are acting as our curators. What we learn from this and how we interact with the community as a result of the information we gather by creating the project are the benefits to us, while to you it might be the opportunity to see more of our collection that is often hidden from view. We also think it is interesting to hear when you feel the choices are difficult to make; we experience this often when curating exhibitions.

Here are the selections for Week 8:

1. Joan-Marie Dean (Canadian, b.1934)

Isis 1977

etching and aquatint on paper

Purchase, 1977

2. Fred Haines (Canadian, 1879 – 1960)

The Harvest Moon c. 1922

aquatint on paper

Gift of Charles Goldhamer, 1983

3. Kent Monkman (Canadian, b.1965)

Untitled c.1993

watercolour on paper

Gift of the artist, 1994

4. L. A. C. Panton (Canadian, 1894 – 1954)

Christmas Card c. 1940

woodcut on paper

Gift of Charles Goldhamer, 1983

5. Mary E. Rawlyk (Canadian, b. 1934)

Wringing Shirt 1974

relief etching, screen process and card relief

Gift of the Ontario Arts Council, 1974

Community Curates Week 7

Summer rolls on and our Community Curates project is soon to wrap up, with only two more weeks of voting to go after this week. We are beginning to plan the installation of the works you have chosen. We plan to include a QR code on the text panel of the exhibition. A QR code is a matrix bar code that can be scanned by a smart phone. The code will lead to you a place where you can leave comments on the works that have been chosen. We hope you’ll continue to participate with us on this project in this manner!

Presenting your images to select from for Week 7:

1. Charlotte Brainerd (Canadian, b. U.S.A., 1921-1995)

Sun Roots 1965

etching and aquatint on paper

Purchase, 1968

2. Ron Eccles (Canadian, b.1944)

Time of Aphelion 1975

etching, aquatint and engraving on paper

Purchase, 1977

3. F. W. Jopling (Canadian, 1860 – 1945)

Whirlpool Rapids Illuminated – New York Side 1916

mezzotint and drypoint on paper

Gift of W. Ross Murray, 1976

4. Jock Macdonald (Canadian, b. Scotland, 1897-1960)

Untitled 1954

watercolour and ink on paper

Gift of Mary Hare, 1990

5. Rick Zolkower (Canadian, b. U.S.A, 1950)

Reclining Statue #1 1988

toned silver print

Gift of Ernie and Rivette Herzig, 2000

Community Curates Week 6

There are as many opinions as there are experts. – Franklin Roosevelt

Everyone has a different opinion about what they consider to be art and opinions vary on what galleries should hang on their walls (or display on the floor). This project has been very interesting to us as we watch the various views, (all correct of course), funnel through the polling process and curate an exhibition. After all, opinions and preferences when it comes to art are personal and are correct for each of us. It is one element of curating that is very interesting.

A work of art can be an emotional experience for one viewer, while the same work may leave another person cold. Have any of your own choices surprised you? Have you chosen a work that in another venue, you might not have liked? Is it hard to choose between a figurative or abstract work? We’re archiving all the comments made during this process, so please feel free to leave us any and all feedback you might have in the comments.

Here’s the Week 6 selections! Top 2 make it through to the exhibition.

1. Caroline Benedicks Bruce (Swedish, 1856 – 1935)

Untitled n.d.

watercolour on paper

Purchased with the assistance of the Government of Canada through the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, 1986

2. Gary Michael Dault (Canadian, b.1939)

Piano Lake 1983

collage on paper

Purchase, 1983

3. Brian Kipping (Canadian, 1953-2007)

Untitled 1973

mezzotint on paper

Purchase, 1977

4. Virginia Luz (Canadian, b. 1911)

Haunted Borley 1951

gouache, pen and ink and graphite on paper

Gift of Yvonne McKague Housser, 1977

5. Sydney H. Watson (Canadian, 1911 – 1981)

The Red Glass 1949

gouache, ink, graphite on paper

Gift of Alexandra Luke, 1967

Community Curates Week 5

Each week we have been striving to include works from local artists. By local we mean artists who either called Durham Region home, currently live here, or grew up here. Some examples include John Landers, Barry Smylie, Isabel McLaughlin and Linda Selbie Ward. This week, we include Jeff Morrison. You can learn more about Jeff Morrison by visiting his website http://www.jeffmorrisonart.com

Last week we had another tie. This is an unexpected hurdle for us with this project, but it is part of the fun as well. The tied-for-second-place images will be put in our Window Wednesdays album on Facebook (early in the day on Wednesday) and you can go there to vote in the tie breaker.

Week 5

1. Stephen Arthurs (Canadian, b.1951)

While Living In A Vacuum, Any Intelligence At All Would Be Deemed As Genius, Any Effort Viewed As Supererogatious 1981

acrylic on paper

Purchase, 1984

2. Bertram Brooker (Canadian, 1888-1955)

Abstract Still Life n.d.

pen and ink on paper

gift of Doris Huestis Speirs, 2001

3. Clarence Gagnon (Canadian, 1881 – 1942)

The Heavy Sea n.d.

linocut and woodcut on paper

Donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1988

4. Tom Hodgson (Canadian, 1924 – 2006)

Flowers 1962

watercolour and ink on illustration board

Gift of Alexandra Luke, 1967

5. Jeff Morrison (Canadian, b. 1957)

Portrait of Despair 1980

watercolour and inks on paper

Purchase, 1982

Community Curates Week 4

Welcome to week four of our Community Curates project. Nearing half-way through, we’ve been surprised by some of the results. The majority of selected works have been landscapes. In response to this, we’ve selected two works this week for your consideration that are challenges to the traditional approach to landscape.

As yet, no abstract works have been selected. We think this is because people are most drawn to what is familiar to them, but it could be any number of factors leading to the popular choices! Out of the six works selected, three have been historical, two are figurative and four are landscapes. It’s interesting to watch the results!

On to this week’s voting!

Week 4:

1. Barry Smylie (Canadian, b. 1948)

Corollary 1988

lithograph on paper

Purchase, 1989

2. Linda Ward Selbie (Canadian, b. 1949)

Treacherous Terrain 1991

Konica colour print on paper

Gift of the artist and Andrew Selbie, 1991

3. F.S. Coburn (Canadian, 1871 – 1960)

The Actress n.d.

conte and coloured crayon on paper

Donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1988

4. Michael A. Sowdon (Canadian, b. 1948)

Untitled No. 1 1974

offset lithograph on paper

Gift of the Ontario Arts Council, 1974

5. William Ronald (Canadian, 1926 – 1998)

Untitled 1953

ink on paper

Gift of the artist, 1970

Community Curates Week 3

We’ve encountered an unexpected result in last week’s voting! We had a tie for second place. As a result, we’ll be hosting a tie-breaking vote on our Facebook Fan Page in our Window Wednesday album. If you want to help settle the tie between Milne’s Red Church and Seguin’s Untitled, be sure to like us on Facebook to recieve the notification we have posted the showdown! Bevington’s Tracks was our first place winner.

In this week’s voting we present five diverse works for your consideration. Be sure to vote and let us know what you think in the comments. Thank you!

Week 3: