Is curating 5D art?

When you are a magazine/print designer you think in 2D, and while you take time (a third dimension) and take up space (a fourth), designing is about creating a 2D experience for the reader.

When you create an art exhibition, as I am doing in May for the very first time, you realise that you are working across many more dimensions.

There are the 2 or 3D pieces of art that hang in a space and there are the people that you hope will fill that space and buy the art.

The space in this case is the very thing that the exhibition is about. In 2005 a couple of friends of mine opened Queen Street Studio (QSS), www.queenstreetstudio.com, a non-profit creative development and rehearsal space run by artists for artists. The studio was opened in response to the lack of affordable and appropriate space for artists in Sydney to practice their craft. It gets no grants from state or federal government and all of the money that is earnt from the hire of the studio is put back into the running of it.

Last year when my friend Sam Chester, one of the co-founders, was bemoaning the fact that they needed a new floor and didn’t know where the money was going to come from, we came up with the idea of spaceAid 2007, www.queenstreetstudio.com/spaceAID, a one night only exhibition by visual artists to help support performing artists. Curated by Reg Lynch the event was a fantastic success with enough money raised to replace the floor with some left over.

This year when I was asked to curate spaceAid 2008 we decided to add another dimension to the concept for the event – the performing artists who use QSS. Teaming them with leading Australian visual artists, we asked these actors, dancers and choreographers to let the painters, photographers and sculptors observe the work that they do at QSS and create a unique piece of art that would more closely relate to the reason for having the exhibition.

The final dimension to creating the exhibition will be filling the space with the right people on the night. You want to invite people who will not only buy a piece of art but who will also enjoy the experience of the exhibition. I have had unexpected help with this as many of the performing artists involved in the collaboration with the visual artists have expressed an interest in performing on the night, helping to create not just an art exhibition but an art event.

Luckily I do not have to do this on my own. I have a team of people who are supporting and advising me. At the end of the day however, whether or not the exhibition is a success comes down to whether I have chosen the right artists, come up with a concept that will work and filled the exhibition with people who will want to buy one of the fabulous pieces of art. Fingers crossed and keep an eye out some time after the 17th of May to see whether my many dimensional piece of art, spaceAid 2008, is well received.