Does an artist have a say in how his artwork is displayed?

Question

what happens if for instance the artist works with fresh flowers or food in their work?

this is for my sdudeo arts course essay

Answer 1

Uh! Wrong! I am a artist. A artist does have a privilege to say how something is supposed to be displayed, because if it is displayed the wrong way your work could lose its meaning. You should have a graph made up for the curator that displays the space layout and what you want in the display.Try to keep close contact with the gallery or museum curators and be their when they install you work. If you both work together on it, you can reach a common compromise.

You should check out David Hockney, he did this all the time, there is a video on him, that shows him fixing a exhibit of his that was put up in a museum. I haven't watched it in a long time, but I'm sure you can find it on the web.

Answer 2

An artist almost never has that privilege. It is the museums and galleries that have a hangup on this kind of actions. It depends on what the artist wants to happen that will happen, the where will be up to the curator. A friend artist had a exposition in a museum (world renowned I may say) and he was free to do with the space what ever he wanted. He was his own curator. He made a work of art on the wall right there. It has been painted over when the exhibit was over.

Flowers are refreshed every few days I would suggest unless the work is about decay and they would just sit there and rot.

Using fresh stuff in your work would be considered mainly a conceptual piece of art. It is the idea and the way it is presented that is the art, not so much the stuff itself. There would be no objection to somebody else than the artist 'maintaining' the work of art. Any curator would want the work to be as 'original' as possible and stick to the 'recipe' of the artist as good as they could.

Answer 3

The artist should make sure that he/she has a meeting, however short, with the curator. This is the moment to give his/her personal views on the display of the work, especially if its placement is relevant to the meaning of the piece.
In the end, it is the curator who decides. (it is a bad idea for the artist to be his own curator). An objective opinion is best. Artists are not the best persons to decided where and how to hang their work - and most importantly, which works to put in, and which to leave out.
At the meeting with the curator you should ask who is responsible for refreshing the flowers and food. In almost all cases - except perhaps an amateurish gallery - this will be the responsibility of whoever is putting on/curating the exhibition.
However, some installations use perishable works on purpose - and if this is the case, the artist must make sure that this is understood. These points should all be checked with the curator well before the exhibition opens.