Our class visited an exhibition of Kawanabe Kyōsai in Royal Academy today. Below shows my observation on how the exhibition is curated and audience reactions to the arrangement.
It’s interesting that people browsing the gallery in a route that the Signage 2set out, right after entering the introduction pathway (where Signage 1 is at). Then naturally start browsing the exhibition in clockwise orders.
Such browsing habit (in clockwise order) carries on from East Gallery, all the way to Central Gallery and West Gallery.
Look at the location of Signage 3. Most people tend to miss this signation as they naturally follows the habit from last gallery room (East Gallery). Hence the curation failed to introduce the theme of Central Gallery to the audience right from the start.
The gallery rooms are painted in black background. Looks like ink strokes. This matchs with Kyōsai’s work where most of them are mainly black ink on white papers. Some of his works are shown below.