Ortonesque: Joe Orton 1933-1967 and other exhibitions
This lunchtime I went for a quick spin round New Walk Museum with a colleague, principally to have a look at the Regeneration exhibition by the MA students. However this morphed into a visit to the current exhibition about Joe Orton, Leicester's "Playwright, novelist and Diarist" whose life scandalised contemporary society whilst delighting them with black comedies. The MA exhibition is tucked away behind the museum cafe in the corridor leading to the toilets (which created an interesting juxtaposition of smells) and is worth a visit to see what students can do on a modest budget and with determination.
Several things interested me about the Joe Orton exhibition. Firstly, what would Joe Orton, with his contempt for society and institutions, make of it all? After reading about how he used to go into libraries with his lover, Halliwell, to steal books, ripping out pages and altering the dust jackets, it struck me that he was the antithesis of a tidy, well displayed museum exhibition. I liked the way they used his own words in the interpretation and there was plenty of material to digest, which I have to be honest I did not read in its entirety so perhaps that is why I felt so curiously detached from the subject. The colours were very understated, lots of blues and greys which made it feel quite clinical in atmosphere, not helped by the silence in the gallery (such a contrast to the noise and life provided by the school groups downstairs!) That got me to thinking about how well we can experience someone's life through the medium of the museum. Can an array of exhibits, neatly labelled and presented in chronological order, really give us an insight into the mind of an individual? This was the theme that linked the exhibition, that Orton's life is directly linked to his literature and each explains the other. I am not sure that without reading any of his works I came close to understanding what drove him but it has made me think that I should go away and do just that.
Additionally, we had a very quick look at Face to Face, 30 amazing portraits of orphaned gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos. Proof that every animal has a unique set of features and the expressions were ... well the obvious thing is to say 'human-like' but that kind of suggests that we have to imbue animals with human qualities in order to understand them. Tne labels tell the story of each individual which makes for disturbing reading considering how we continue to treat such beautiful creatures and it made me feel sad, especially when confronted by the melancholic faces in many of the portraits.
Several things interested me about the Joe Orton exhibition. Firstly, what would Joe Orton, with his contempt for society and institutions, make of it all? After reading about how he used to go into libraries with his lover, Halliwell, to steal books, ripping out pages and altering the dust jackets, it struck me that he was the antithesis of a tidy, well displayed museum exhibition. I liked the way they used his own words in the interpretation and there was plenty of material to digest, which I have to be honest I did not read in its entirety so perhaps that is why I felt so curiously detached from the subject. The colours were very understated, lots of blues and greys which made it feel quite clinical in atmosphere, not helped by the silence in the gallery (such a contrast to the noise and life provided by the school groups downstairs!) That got me to thinking about how well we can experience someone's life through the medium of the museum. Can an array of exhibits, neatly labelled and presented in chronological order, really give us an insight into the mind of an individual? This was the theme that linked the exhibition, that Orton's life is directly linked to his literature and each explains the other. I am not sure that without reading any of his works I came close to understanding what drove him but it has made me think that I should go away and do just that.
Additionally, we had a very quick look at Face to Face, 30 amazing portraits of orphaned gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos. Proof that every animal has a unique set of features and the expressions were ... well the obvious thing is to say 'human-like' but that kind of suggests that we have to imbue animals with human qualities in order to understand them. Tne labels tell the story of each individual which makes for disturbing reading considering how we continue to treat such beautiful creatures and it made me feel sad, especially when confronted by the melancholic faces in many of the portraits.
Comments
As I said before, I only had a quick turn around the Orton exhibition the other day, but what it did do is make me realise that I orientate towards objects - always - in exhibitions. There's me going on about the importance of interpretation, while in actual fact I mostly steer clear of text panels in my own museum visiting. Weird...