The opening of Cupcake Royale on Capitol Hill earned ecstatic notices from Seattle art bloggers, some of whom are personally involved.
Joey Veltkamp of Best Of will serve as art curator after the first show, curated by Roy McMakin, who with Ian Butcher (both from Domestic Architecture) designed the space. (Check the Best Of link for artists now on view.)
Not only is the place lovely, it features seriously good art perched in various nooks and crannies. If you want to know who did what, however, you have to follow the corridor to the bathrooms to find the credits.
Museums and (more frequently) galleries tuck identifying labels into obscure locations (or print maps available at the front desk) when they don’t want to disturb the pristine experience of viewing the art. But this is a cupcake shop. There is no pristine experience. Put the artist’s names and title beside the art. Hiding the who/what/when is pretentious beyond belief.
As a curator, I invented a menu system for exhibit identification whereby art objects are numbered with inch high numerals that can be read at a viewing distance. The numerals correspond with information found on a single menu copy available from the gallery director or assistant sitting the gallery. I have been using this system for about eight years, and instituted it as a method of saving resources and operating my galleries in a sustainable fashion. Many label systems are NOT sustainable, using toxic adhesives to adhere to walls which must also be recoated each exhibit.
I will stop short of using a KINDLE for the exhibit menu.
Paul Pauper
Curator and Janitor
Form/Space Atelier
Some Portland bloggers noticed: http://tjnorris.net/blog/2009/07/summering-riding-the-wave/