Going Public - Millennium, Graves and Cathedral

My Son in the Anthony McCall - Meeting you halfway II

The Going Public along with being in Site and SIA, the exhibit spreads out throughout the City's main galleries, including the Millennium Gallery, Graves Gallery and a new venue, the Cathedral.

The Graves Gallery has an intensive Marcel Duchamp exhibit from the Marzona Collection. The exhibit made me feel like I was routing around someone's shelving unit to discover sketchbooks, leaflets, promotional posters and occasional finished pieces from Duchamp and the Dada movement. I enjoyed the set out of the the "Box in a Suitcase" which is a gallery in itself including display cabinets, prints, information and artwork. After watching a video on how the piece fits together it made me want to see it in the flesh, and it didn't disappoint. In a time where Duchamp was creating his ready-mades the box is a ready-made gallery, if only I could try and put it together with my own hands.

Opening the Box in a Suitcase

My favourite pieces of Going Public lay in the Millennium Gallery from the Cattelain Collection. The Anthony McCall - 'Meeting You Halfway II' (2002) piece is something I could spend all day in, how something so simplistic as a light and a smoke machine can evoke such a sense of happiness is just brilliant. I have been in the exhibit around 10+ times now making sure all my friends see it before the exhibit ends.

Hannah Lamb in Meeting You Halfway II

Another piece in the Millennium Galleries is the photographs by Lewis Baltz - Candlestick Point (1989) which not only is similar to the work I'm pursuing with my polaroids but the layout of the piece was really well set together, simple black frames with the photographs tacked into the corners meant the whole image was on display and en masse looked impressive and told a story.

Lewis Baltz - Candelstick Point

The pieces in the Cathedral that I found myself repeatedly going to see where The Chapman Brothers - Cyber Iconic Man (1996) and the sculpture I unfortunately didn't take the name of at the end of the main hall which was made of our wax and depicted the mental suffering of man. Again, with the Chapman piece I enjoyed seeing the other visitors whince and not quite sure what to make of the piece. I found it a piece that looked like it had had better days but loved the juxtaposition of it in the cathedral in front of a brass set up of saints and torture devices. Micol Assael - Your Hidden Sound (2004) sound piece in the catacombs was also a delight.

Overall I can't say enough about this whole exhibition, I've really enjoyed all of it and the fact I visited it many times over again proves that. I hope that Sheffield can organise something like this again in the future, I've read that it took four years to put the exhibition together and it really was worth it.