Reading Group; Contemporary art and Illustration, session conducted by Dr Alison Rowley.

In this session we investigated our forthcoming graduate exhibition, and the need, or decision for us to create a catalogue for the event.

A catalogue for an exhibition needs to be a coherent source of information, and is both an introduction to the event, but also as a lasting artefact that represents the whole of the event, which can be reflected upon after many years.

A classic example of a catalogue for an artistic exhibition may be that which was created by Prof Caroline Christov Bakargiev, for the dOCUMENTA 13 exhibition in the Fredericarnium in Kassel, Germany.

The catalogue for dOCUMENTA 13 is known as "The book of books". It consists of some 100 notes / thoughts / writings, which were created by some of the most intellectual writers and commentators over the preceding five years, before the 2012 exhibition.

[Likewise we need to consider how does our own show fits into the context of exhibitions that have already taken place in the past?... We focused also on to writings from artists based at the Goldsmiths College in London, those being Michael Craig Martin and John Thomson].

We previously, also read Prof Caroline Christov Bakargiev's introduction to "The book of books", and discussed one of the projects that did not come to fulfilment in document 13, which was a proposal by the artists Guillermo Faivovich and Nicholas Goldberg.

Their proposal was to convey the largest known exisiting meteorite that had fallen on earth to Germany, and exhibit it within the Fredericanium. They therefore adopted an approach which was to write an introduction "To see the exhibition from the point of view of the meteorite itself"

The idea of a metiorite, suggests an extremely fast trajectory that is a viewpoint from the outside onto the world in which we live.

The "surprise" provides a vehicle for the unravelling of quantum mechanics which I identified with some of the theories for example Schrödinger's cat. In an artistic context it is this "not knowing" which is what is important. Contemporary art holds a lot of its living with contradictions. This is an exploration of the "nonhuman" thing, however ultimately we are all made, meteorites and humans from the same stuff.

Conclusions;

• In reflection of the readings today, what we need to do as students in preparation for the graduate show, is to examine the exhibition title, and how we are going to convey this?
• Equally important, how will individual statements relates to the overall statement of the exhibition in its entirety?
• Need to consider how does our own show fits into the context of exhibitions that have already taken place in the past?... e.g. review Michael Craig Martin and John Thomson.
• Provocation! We need to provoke viewers and spectators in order to engage with the work we create.