How Did We Choose the Artworks for Afterthought?

Throughout the process of selecting works for Afterthought we confronted a variety of different opinions, working with a large group we needed to deliberate each piece to be sure it fit our theme. Each work was presented to the group and discussed. During the discussion we kept the basic idea of our show in mind; Can we justify the aesthetic of this work? Is it well constructed and is it a serious piece of work? Is there reason to question its validity? Ultimately, we tried to include works that were distinct, for some works this was based on aesthetics, for some it had to do with its place in common commuter spaces. If the work resonated with the group then it was included, this was however a limiting factor in our process. As a group we discussed challenging our own perceptions of art, attempting to see beyond our own bias. In practice, it seems that we still limited the selection based on our own opinions. The process of defining our exhibition and selecting the works happened contemporaneously. While the statement is defined and the works have been selected, we see inconsistencies between the two. And so the question remains, could we have done this differently?

There were multiple ideas thrown out of how to include more works, but almost without noticing we found ourselves limiting the number of works we could include. We had the idea of layering the works, making it so an acquired work would be placed in front of a found work to show the difference or the lack of difference. However, this would require us to find works that fit in pairs, making the process extremely restrictive. Another idea, that we are personally still bigs fan of, is exhibiting the works in a way that resembles the salon style. This would make it so we could include more works even if our class did not collectively decide that we liked a work. There is a possibility that we excluded works that other people may have found inspiring. Exhibiting works in a salon style would eliminate the problem of being too selective or not selective enough. In addition, we think it would promote the main goal of our exhibition more. We would provide all the found and acquired works we could possibly fit in the space and our audience would then get to decide what they like/dislike as well as what they think is art or not art.

By deciding to select works based solely on the class’ likes and dislikes, we are deciding what we think is art, whether we think we are or not. This is not to say that the excluded works are not art, just that the included works are better examples that suited our likes and needs more. However, it is still possible that some of the excluded works were on the boundary of being regarded as art by some and not art by others. So again the question remains, what could we have done differently? We (Harris and Hallie) believe that the class should have defined what we wanted out of our exhibition first, not contemporaneously with choosing the artworks. This way the entire class would have been on the same page during the process of choosing artworks with a clear idea of what the exhibition will look like.