DOCUMENTING THE CITY | Closing curatorial reflections

Some closing curatorial reflections by John Wilson on the exhibition DOCUMENTING THE CITY:

"As virtual museum's develop, the role of actual museums will shift; they will increasingly be seen as places for going back to the originals" (William J. Mitchell, City of Bits, 1995)

DOCUMENTING THE CITY: ART AND SOCIETY IN NEWPORT |

John Wilson, Guest Curator | Newport Museum and Art Gallery, 2007



Documenting the City: Art and Society in Newport | A project to celebrate Newport's coming of age as a City, showcasing art works from the permanent collection of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery.














Documenting the City has now entered its last week as a temporary exhibition at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery. We now look forward to further work in building our online resources:

• Online gallery and archive | art_newport on flickr
  

• Project web-pages | Documenting the City
  

DOCUMENTING THE CITY | VIDEO OF EXHIBITION OPENING

View the video of the Documenting the City exhibition opening below, or here in Google Video

"What we're re seeing here is a declaration of our self confidence as a new city and our pride in the robust, gritty history of how its come to be what it is now" ~ Paul Flynn, MP, Opening Speech.

EXHIBITION

















We have been overwhelmed with the positive public response during the two months of the exhibition hanging. The Gallery Talks showed that there was a strong appetite for this theme.

Local people took pleasure in new perspectives upon their everyday environment and pride in Newport's coming of age as a City following the bestowing of city status in 2002. Whilst visitors from further afield expressed surprise at such a wealth of imagery drawn from the Newport Museum and Art Gallery's own collections.

One visitor suggested that the whole exhibition be re-hung in the Celtic Manor Resort for the 2010 Ryder Cup.


ONLINE

"As virtual museum's develop, the role of actual museums will shift; they will increasingly be seen as places for going back to the originals" (William J. Mitchell, City of Bits, 1995)

Our online resources have been commented upon positively by visitors and the press, with wide acceptance of migrating art works to the Internet as an obvious move to make. And so the public art gallery collection enters the Web2.0 world. Moreover people have discovered the website from as far afield as Australia, and our online resources have led to a number of professional enquiries.

The enthusiasm of visitors to the gallery for the Documenting the City exhibition - a large-scale exhibition of 120 works filling the gallery - confirmed the sense that an online archive works well as a first point of enquiry whilst the art work itself nevertheless remains a primary source for engagement, bringing to mind the words of William J. Mitchell ( City of Bits, 1995): "As virtual museum's develop, the role of actual museums will shift; they will increasingly be seen as places for going back to the originals." We were also pleased that the Gallery Talks led to new art works coming to light and being acquired by the gallery.

Our online resources even raised a chuckle, as the pen of a local cartoonist mused upon the contrast of the traditional art gallery and the virtual gallery on the PC at home:




RECEPTION

• "What we're re seeing here is a declaration of our self confidence as a new city and our pride in the robust, gritty history of how its come to be what it is now" | Paul Flynn, MP, Opening Speech ~ View video of the Documenting the City exhibition opening.
  

• "Painstakingly, scouring not only Newport Museum and Art Gallery's own collection but also council offices, committee rooms and annexes, Roger Cucksey and friend and colleague John Wilson have amassed an actual and virtual art collection telling Newport's story from its rustic beginnings, through its flowering as an industrial Hercules in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the re-invention of itself as a city for the 21st century". | South Wales Argus, 31 May 2007

• The exhibition also celebrates the city's desire to carry itself steadily forward into the future. This unique collection will not only be museum-bound as people can access and admire the anthology from their very own homes - an online gallery and archive has been set up to further enhance Newport's reputation as an extremely forward moving and thought provoking metropolis. | Buzz Magazine, June 2007

Whilst one press report (x) mischievously dubbed the exhibition a coup for Newport's collections over neighbouring Cardiff, the exhibition has begged the question of whether a similar art historical job could be done for other centres such as Cardiff or Swansea.

"The exhibition offers a historical tour de force" enthused Metro Magazine. "An online gallery and archive has been set up to further enhance Newport's reputation as an extremely forward moving and thought provoking metropolis", said Buzz Magazine. | See the News archive here.

In the final assessment, Documenting the City has succedded in kickstarting debate upon the future shape of the art world in Newport as the city engages its current phase of regeneration and transformation. We have also opened a more enlivened dialogue with the Newport College of Art, and hope to collaborate together on future projects documenting the city of Newport through the changes ahead.


PROSPECTS

As a postscript to the above we may note recent debate upon the issue of a National Centre for Contemporary Art in Wales, with Newport touted as a keen contender: see POSTSCRIPT | May - June 2007 | Newport - Towards a new National Centre for Contemporary Art in Wales?

DOCUMENTING THE CITY: ART AND SOCIETY IN NEWPORT | John Wilson, Guest Curator | Newport Museum and Art Gallery | 2007 | Project web-pages: Documenting the City | Online gallery and archive: art_newport on flickr