A blog on blogs…
It’s easy to think that, once an exhibition has opened its doors, the hard work must be over. In some ways that’s true. But no sooner was everything installed for The Classical Now than plans were under way for objects to be shipped back across the UK, Europe and internationally…
Another – rather more fun – labour lies in keeping tracking of public responses. In the case of the exhibition to the Modern Classicisms project, we’ve attracted media coverage from across the world – not just in the UK, but also in (for example) Germany, the States and France. Coverage rolled continually, as when we received a nice Guardian plug (‘What to see in the UK this week’) mid-way through the run.
Other sorts of responses are harder to keep on top of. We had the benefit of lots of social media discussions, for example – but if visitors didn’t use the #theclassicalnow hashtag on Instagram or Twitter, their responses risked getting lost in the ether.
It was fun to see some of our exhibited artists discuss the exhibition on their websites, among them Damien Hirst and Marc Quinn. But another hugely important medium is the blog: we were delighted to read responses by academic bloggers like Mary Beard and Peter Lowe. At the same time, it is exciting to see wider engagements with our work – as with a nice Sotheby’s blog, for example, or a thought-proving blog about ‘what museums are for’ (where our exhibition was praised for getting visitors ‘to look beyond the objects in the room, to evaluate not just visual material but arguments and assumptions—whether in their own minds, the museum, or western tradition at large’). Some blogs were from particular disciplinary interests – like a nice piece by ‘Ian the Architect’. Other bloggers promise their public that every time they ‘come across something interesting, you will be the first to know’, as with a blog by Jude’s London eye.
The inevitable challenge, of course, lies in keeping a record of all this feedback. If you’ve blogged or posted about the exhibition, please do let us know by emailing info@modernclassicms.com. And if you missed the exhibition, you can still learn more about it via internet archives – including this nice radio feature from March 2018.
