I’ve recently been interested at looking at the different ways in which 3D work is presented in gallery spaces.

One of the most popular ways of displaying is the plinth. Although it’s an old way of presenting I think it is still significant and can work well in a lot of situations because the audience can view the object closely from a 360 degree rotation at their own pace.
It’s important though that the plinth is ambient and part of the room, not the artwork. This also depends on what the room is like. If it’s in a modern “white cube” setting then a white box plinth is probably best to blend into the environment (if this is the desired effect). If it’s in more of a museum like the V+A then a different approach is possibly required. There are lots of things to take into consideration to get it right; height of the plinth, width or whether a plinth is necessary at all.

A good piece of work I saw recently was at the Alter Modern exhibition at Tate Britain. Nathaniel Mellors’s ‘Giantbum’ requires the visitor to travel through a maze of felt that doubles as the giant’s innards until they get to the centre and encounter a ‘mini-Cerberus of singing heads. All three were on a large plinth at head height with all the wires and mechanisms on show, (another thing I like is visible wires, it makes the work or the show seem more real and honest).

I remember some young kids coming in with their parents to see this and expecting them to be quite frightened by it, but they seemed fascinated and puzzled. Their parents lifted them up and showed them behind the faces and how the robots worked which intrigued them more. I think that young kids in galleries are a good thing if they’re well supervised (which I think they have in mot cases I’ve seen). It’s comforting to know that art is being taught to the next generation at an early age.

For an exhibition I was in called Klanging Banging in October 08 there were guided tours every Saturday whilst it was on and one week I was told that a family with young children really enjoyed my work which was really rewarding and opened my eyes to how diverse the art audience can be.

There are many tangents I could have gone off on in this post like public site specific work, 'Alter Modern' interactive work, whether globalisation has opened the world up for a larger audience and much more I wanted add, but I’ll do that in my next post. Feel free to comment and discuss.