Picasso and Paper: Virtual Exhibition


Having reviewed videos of an exhibition I hadn’t seen yesterday today I thought I’d look at one I had managed to get to before the lockdown “Picasso and Paper” at the Royal Academy.

The video, without commentary, did recreate the feeling of going round the show well. It went round room by room, starting by scanning the commentary board, then showing an overview of the layout display and finally focusing on a few works and showing their labels. However I must admit it felt like going round following a particularly annoying fellow visitor as you couldn’t pick the pictures you wanted to see more detail of, OK I know I’m asking a lot, but also looking at pictures from strange angles which seemed unnecessary as the gallery was empty.

 The ethereal music which ebbed and flowed worked well at first but over the 37 minutes could have done with more variation. I think I would have preferred some commentary to add another dimension to the show.

I must admit I found the show quite long and therefore the video also became a bit tedious by the end. I suspect the video was made very shortly after lock down under social distancing rules, in this case one person and a camera, at a time when galleries were still learning about what they could do and what works well. It would be interesting to see if they would do something different now.  

My previous review of the exhibition



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