Curtain Up Back Up

This exhibition which celebrates the best of international theatrical collaboration between New York and London, which opened earlier this year at the V and A has now transferred to the New York Library of the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center. A very different space from the performance galleries at the V and A, it has given Alan Farlie and I a particular challenge on a reduced budget. The gallery is in two distinct halves, 2 long low ceilinged spaces which then open out quite dramatically into a double height space. We have used the same principle of radiating scaffolding poles off which vertical poles support the exhibits, but have had to lose the theatrical lamps we used before(no sponsorship deal this time !) . The plywood walls, which held many of the model boxes, arrived so battered form the journey, that Alan, quite rightly, decided to paint them all black. This has changed our previous aesthetic of trying to keep the interventions in the space visually distinct from the black background of the gallery walls, but in the new space the black really works helping to give a sense of depth and setting off the displays really well. The double height space gives a great dramatic finale to the show allowing Mary Poppins and Lion King costumes to soar  away into the dark.While the King Swan from swan lake looks magnificent in contrast to the black walls.2016-10-28-21-50-49 curtain up NY 16

Curtains NY 2016

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