Curator’s Introduction to the Relaunched National Portrait Gallery

Interesting lecture at the National Portrait Gallery explaining some of the thinking behind the rehang of the collection following the gallery’s refurbishment.

Lucy Peltz, Head of Collection Displays (Tudor to Regency) gave us an insight into the principles behind the rehang. I was stunned at how long the planning took and the number of people and departments involved.

I was interested to hear how every piece hung had to fit two criteria out of a theme list of UK and the world; power and resistance; innovation, science and industry; culture and creativity; society and identity and portraits and portrait making. She also explained how they wanted the galley to represent a history of Britain without being a dictionary of national biography.

I was also fascinated to hear about how the labels were written to a template which were then edited by one person after input from a number of departments.

I must admit as I go round the gallery I slightly feel like it’s been over engineered. I like the simple descriptions of people but feel there is not  enough about the artists. I understand that some extra information is in the av pieces but I must admit I don’t want to stop and interact with things. There again I’m not sure in the target audience anymore despite the fact, most people I saw during my daytime visit seemed very like me.

 

 

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