appliquéd inscription,around three sides of gallery along radiator cavity shelf:
A GENERATION THAT HAD GONE TO SCHOOL ON A HORSE-DRAWN STREETCAR NOW STOOD UNDER THE OPEN SKY IN A COUNTRYSIDE IN WHICH NOTHING REMAINED UNCHANGED BUT THE CLOUDS, AND BENEATH THESE CLOUDS, IN A FIELD OF FORCE OF DESTRUCTIVE TORRENTS AND EXPLOSIONS, WAS THE TINY, FRAGILE, HUMAN BODY - Walter Benjamin 1936
The Grosvenor Building, now part of Manchester Metropolitan University, was built in 1880. Extensions which now form the Holden Gallery were added in the 1890s as a Textile Court (main gallery shown below) and Italian Court (side gallery) for the display of various School collections, arranged around the central feature of a Burne Jones tapestry. Another side gallery, now a lecture theatre, housed a collection of Gothic casts. This School Museum was opened in 1928.
Early 20th century photograph of the Holden Gallery
The high ceiling of the main gallery is formed of glass panels in a slightly vaulted timber frame. The pointed roof above this is also glass, so that on entering the gallery during daylight one is aware of a large volume of light overhead; a sky obscured only by frosted glass. The effect is reminiscent of 19th century conservatory architecture. Before cinema began to extend the realm of spectatorship with lifelike representations, such an architecture might have provided the 19th century collector with an aviary or arboretum; a stage on which to arrange private tableaux of a Nature exoticised by the colonial eye. This kind of collection was an outward expression of wealth, empowered mobility, and position in the hierarchy of Empire. Today the main gallery is a thoroughfare accessed via gloomy corridors, and many of its users are habituated to the momentary excess of brightness and air which characterises it.
The installation responds to both architectural and historical factors. A low, dark ceiling is fixed on cross-wires, cutting off the upper half of the gallery and radically altering the viewer's perception of the space. Glass panels in the real ceiling are blacked-out, and false one installed beneath it is stretched to within a metre of the walls. Using a sound/light system the now-concealed volume overhead is used to stage a simulated thunderstorm. Intermittent 'lightning' can be seen in the gap between the false ceiling and the walls, and a sequence of thunder is repeated on a looped soundtrack: Nature, or its simulation, enters the building.
Installation view (animation)
Sound emanates from speakers hidden in the plumbing space behind ornate grilles around the room: constantly streaming rain, or crowds, or the sea... (exactly where to locate this sound between the natural and the cultural is unclear). Benjamin's text (see above) is included as an inscription in the work, but can only be read by physically walking around the boundaries of the space. This action has the incidental effect for the visitor of performing a live sound mix between the widely separated speaker points.
Installation view, Holden Gallery Manchester
Imitating the strategies of heritage promotion, sections of the architecture of the main 'court' are lit in the manner of outdoor monuments. Directly facing the main entrance doors across the temporarily compressed space, a large, illuminated tablet in place of the Burne Jones tapestry declares that THOSE DAYS ARE GONE.
Installation view (showing first version of The Nature of Their
Joy in side gallery)
Holden Gallery Manchester
Funding and exhibition details
Commissioned for the Holden Gallery Manchester, funded by Metropolitan Galleries Manchester
Holden gallery curator: Alison Radovanovic
Shown as the main piece in the solo show Those Days (of Summer) Are Gone,
installations for the Holden Gallery Manchester 24 October - 18 November 1994
Also included in the exhibition:
The Nature of Their Joy (first version)
Installation crew: Mark Purcell, Kiaran Saunders, Frances Hegarty, John Colreavy, Martin Dexter
See reviews & press - Thosed Days Are Gone / Crowd Control 1 (use sidebar titles)