Research: Curation - Interview with Richard Hatfield

Interview with: RICHARD HATFIELD,

Director and Exhibitions Officer, The Ropewalk, Barton upon Humber

Background

Richard Hatfield is a Director at the Ropewalk, Barton upon Humber, a regionally acclaimed centre for the arts housing four gallery spaces, artists studios, a printing room and other facilities. It is supported by the Arts Council England. 

Richard is also a highly acclaimed artist in his own right, specialising in landscape paintings. I interviewed Richard separately in relation to his painting practice, which will be the subject of another  post.

Curation

I started the conversation by asking Richard about his approach to curation. We took the current North Lincolnshire Print Open Exhibition as an example, and walked around the galleries. I began by asking whether he looked for themes, grouped relevant artists or what was his aim for the show?

Richard said that his approach to the Open Exhibition was different to dealing directly with an individual artist.
For the Open Exhibition his aim was to see the show as one big exhibition. As regards the hanging of the works he would blend in sizes, colours and types of work.
He pointed out that some curators go for contrasts, putting works next to each other which may appear quite random e.g. a Rembrandt next to a Picasso, without apparent context or visual connection. Richard’s aim is to visually connect the works for the viewer, but so that as they walk around they may not necessarily be aware of those connections.
There are two galleries at the Ropewalk, but Richard dealt with both rooms in the same way, so that in effect, there were two groups of works and two exhibitions. He aimed for a mix of works in each.

A “mix” of work, “which visually connect”, The Ropewalk, North Lincolnshire Print Open Exhibition

A key factor was that as the current exhibition comprised of prints, there was a predominance of monochromatic works. This raised the issue of blending in the colours. This would not necessarily mean placing such works together, but to aim for a balance.
From a practical point of view, Richard would generally deal with the more “difficult” works first so that they do not jar visually. He took as an example some highly original works by Andy Dakin who had incorporated print into 3D objects. To facilitate these works Richard had introduced a separate plinth for them (see below).

 

Andy Dakin, Artefacts with indeterminable functions, Offset Lino Print on found object

 

 

Andy Dakin, Artefacts with indeterminable functions, Offset Lino Print on found object

Richard would then spread the works around and then start to divide them, looking for any “problematic” works which he did not want to jump out. He would also try to hang an individual artist’s work next to each other. He would move coloured works together, but pick out the bright and strong as he would not want to put those next to something “quiet”. All the time Richard would be looking for little connections, such as something which feels similar e.g. a linear dimension, such as the two works below – ferns and the contours of a map.

Stef Mitchell, Rhododendron looking over to Arran, nature monoprint

Susan Wright, New Topology 2, Etching

Richard considers how the works look visually, the deciding factor could even be the frames (e.g. black/white), something else like texture,  or the subject matter. He gave other illustrations such as the Artist’s Book, Water, by Jan Stead. He had decided to place it separately because of its individuality, rather than with her other works (see below).

 

Jan Stead, Water, Artist’s Book

 

Looking at one of the main walls in the Art Space gallery, Richard had decided to “book end” four large, monochromatic individual screen prints by artist Lee Sass. In between he had placed other monochromatic works with the same “feel”, such as woodcuts” and others with muted monochrome colour schemes, such as blue. On other, smaller, walls he had grouped works and would use starts, corners and plinths as punctuations. Richard often starts with the big pieces and then links them with the others.

Picture Hanging

As a general rule, Richard hangs works at “eyeline” i.e. the centre of each work will be 5 feet from the floor. This way it is the best and easiest to look at a picture. As regards a double hanging, he creates a regular gap between the pictures and then treats the works as one picture i.e. he adds up the dimension of the gap with the depth of each picture and divides by two, this gives the centre line for hanging purposes. He always puts  a smaller picture beneath a larger one, as he thinks that it is easier to look down rather than up.

Exhibitions by Individual Artists

Richard says that his approach to setting up an exhibition for the works of an individual artist is more concerned with the overall concept and theme of the artist’s practice. Some artists come with a pre-conceived approach. For example, Sinclair Ashman is a graphic designer, so he had a defined view of how he would like his exhibition at the Ropewalk to look. Sinclair had designed the layout himself beforehand and produced his own video of himself working which was shown throughout the show. Richard said that this approach was unusual, which gives him scope as the curator to exhibit the works to their maximum advantage.

Summary and Conclusions

I learned a lot about curation from my interview with Richard, which I can use in my own practice. From a practical point of view, his methodology for hanging pictures and his "5 foot rule" will be very useful to get the viewing height correct. I can also build on his insights into grouping works with subtle connections and use them in connection with setting up exhibitions of my own work. The ideas about getting a good "mix" and blending in the colours will also be useful, as will the fact that it is a good idea to deal with more individual or "difficult" works first. It was interesting to learn how to display works and invoke the attention of the viewer in subtle ways, so that they are not necessarily aware of the time and effort which has gone into the thinking behind setting up and hanging an exhibition or show.

https://www.the-ropewalk.co.uk/meet-the-team/