Gallery Visit: Judy Chicago

Visit to BALTIC - Judy Chicago:

-This exhibition was about life and death, created by Chicago over 50 years. In this exhibition there was a variety of works, from pencil drawings to film, then to working with tapestry. There were a lot of pieces to look at in this exhibition, that used the space in a really interesting way. Some of her pieces were one large piece using the whole wall, and others were a whole wall full of framed drawings. When walking into the gallery, Chicago's tapestry piece would instantly draw you in. It was bright and colourful which feels like it was placed there to lure you in. This exhibition is full of pieces to draw you in. There is a wall that has drawings on black paper. It's called 'The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction' and her drawings were just really intricate and detailed. They also included text, which gave some context if you weren't to read about the pieces. On the wall behind this piece, there was frames of child birth and information about that, so the layout of the exhibition felt really thought out. The exhibition was full of many things that are all different to its really difficult to give an overall summary about what it was like.

I actually really enjoyed this exhibition because I felt like there was a lot of things to look at. Instead of going from one of the same thing to the next, you were constantly bouncing between different media and scales so I found that was really interesting. I've chosen 2 things in particular to describe what I like about them because I feel like these were the things I liked most. 2 of the images above are drawings on black paper. I really liked these pieces because I liked the way she had drawn her images. They have this texture to them which I really like and I'm unsure whether it's how she has drawn it on the paper, or if it's the mix of the pencils and the black paper. Either way, I liked the morbidness to her drawings, and I really liked the texture so I think that's why it was my favourite thing throughout the whole exhibition. The image in the middle shows a story of her accident she had. What I liked about this was the story telling, and the repetitiveness to it. All of her pieces of work had a identical layout, which is something I really enjoyed. Not only the way it looked, but I also liked how she discussed something really personal to her and told a story. Again story telling is something I've sort of done throughout my project so I thought this was really interesting. I didn't manage to take a photo of her collection of 140 drawings of her year, but again similarly to this she is collecting things from her life to put into her artwork, which I find really interesting.

Overall, I found some parts of Chicago's exhibition really interesting, like the pieces I have mentioned before. Purely due to my practice I found myself drawn to the drawing instead of the photos and film, but I think it was a well thought out and interesting exhibition. The only thing I will say I struggled on is what was the meaning to it, which I only understood once I read about it.