I'm Victoria Baker and this is my site, The Typhon. It's a professional blog and gallery showcasing my work within graphic arts.
Based in the North East of England I work across mediums from web design to print and illustration. I aim to build aesthetically beautiful and functional objects. On this site you can find out more about me, what I do and maybe even work with me on a project.
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Rank - picturing the social order
I recently went to see the latest exhibition at the Northern gallery for contemporary art which is Rank - picturing the social order, 1516-2009.
I also saw this exhibition in Leeds however I wanted to revisit it, make some notes and also compare the differences between the two. Most of the key pieces were still there however others were notable by their absence including ‘Polyopoly’ by AOC Architecture and ‘Posession’ by Victor Burgin. There were some interesting additions to replace these missing pieces but the main difference was the progression through the gallery space.
I’ve always found exhibition design to be a curious thing - why some paintings are placed next to others and what we’re supposed to be thinking about their relationship between one another. At the NGCA the journey around the gallery space was a more fluid one, deliberately progressing through time starting with the Victorian era and progressing towards the twentieth century.
Gustav Dore was just one of the Victorian artists on show with a collection of etchings collectively entitled ‘London A Pilgrimage’. Every piece seems to be full to the brim of people - young, old, ill, infirm, wealthy, men and women. Looking at these images its difficult to think that there was a quiet place to be had in London during that time with people packed so close together. Something interesting to note - although many pictures feature a particular cross section of a community the poor are crowded together and so are the wealthy, they suffer the same overcrowding but with the wealthy there is order and a kind of smart attire that goes along with it. Rarely do the classes intermingle in the Dore images, on the opposing wall William Powel Frith’s ‘Derby Day’ totally contrasts that with all sections of society intermingling.
I’ve always thought when traveling abroad as a tourist it gives you a different perspective on how class structure operates, even in countries where class or rank isn’t supposed to exist. Its also interesting to consider how we interpret Victorian images - our understanding of what is going on, we are very much a tourist in the era as Dore was.
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