Writing About Exhibitions

From years of trying to find the right person to write adequately about our exhibition designs, I know how difficult it is to describe the design of a room with words. In my opinion, the writer needs to accomplish three things:

  1. clearly state what is there to be seen
  2. explain in easy words how it is done
  3. and then you might suggest the overall impression or athmosphere it creates – but be careful with! I personally hate to be told what I am supposed to experience

I drove a bunch of clearly talented writers nuts, because I felt they were always starting with point number three, didn´t understand what the clearly brilliant strokes were in number two and as for number one, that seemed to be the most difficult task of all. I hate to upset people, so I started writing them myself. Not because I was a better writer, but, at least, I knew what I wanted to be told.

While writing a lenghty text about two Pasolini exhibitions of ours, I realized that indeed, words were quite a difficult and awkward tool compared to images to accomplish point one. This is why, when the next occasion arose and we were asked to contribute a text about the scenography of Jews 45/90, an exhibition in the Jewish Museum Munich for the catalogue, I set out to find a new form to “write” about our rooms.

And now I won´t attempt in words to describe this new form, but show you, simple as that:

The visual essay was first published in the catalogue accompanying an exhibition in the Jewish Museum Munich.

EXHIBITION
Jews 45/90. from here and there – survivors from eastern europe
Jewish Museum Munich, 30.11.11-17.6.12
Curators: Jutta Fleckenstein, Tamar Lewinsky
Visual identity, exhibition architecture and graphics, signage, printed matter, book design: chezweitz & roseapple
CATALOGUE
Jews 45/90. from here and there – survivors from Eastern Europe
Jewish Museum Munich
Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin, 2011
136 pages, 25 ills. (German and English editions)
Editors: Jutta Fleckenstein, Tamar Lewinsky
Book design,  illustrations and typesetting: chezweitz & roseapple