Overview of Reading Group Session 2 (2nd October) - Notes on the Gallery Space by Brian O'Doherty

"No wonder art gets bollixed up in this process; it's history, perceived through time, is confounded by the picture in front of your eyes, a witness ready to change testimony at the slightest perceptual provocation." - Art is part of history. It's how we can tell things. Especially before photography and television. Art tells a story. Is art too modernised now? Have we lost the meaning of true art, or has it moved into a new phase in its life, just like humans?

The writer describes the gallery space as being an 'evenly lighted cell' and he also goes on to say "we have now reached a point where we see not the art but the space first". A gallery space is considered to be white, light and airy. Free to move about, spacious. Like our universe. However, space has two meanings; space as feeling light, airy and roomy or, space meaning outer-space (talking about both of these in this text).

O'Doherty suggests that the sanctity of the church or a courtroom's space cannot be changed. It has a formality and they are all the same. Would it be wrong to change it?

In a gallery space, a piece of artwork becomes a 'sacred object' a 'holy object'. Put in the light airy space it has a 'formal' appearance, as if it were dressed up ready to go to a ball or something.

He later on begins to talk about 18th and 19th century artworks... they have a particular feeling about them. They have a stern feel about them. A formality. Everything is uniform. I'm not sure if I actually read this somewhere in the text, or if I made it up, but I was wondering if the higher your portrait/art was hung in these centuries, the more status one had? And, if it was lower it meant the opposite? I was thinking that this could relate to ceiling art?

After reading three quarters of the text, I started to begin to feel a bit confused. There were too many unnecessary long words incorporated, which became extremely distracting and made it really difficult for my mind to process. However, during the reading session I attended at university, I was able to answer a few questions, which was useful. Below are some of my notes: