Alternative display technique ideas wanted

[Dan Henderson]

I belong to a cooperative art gallery here in Roanoke, Virginia. Every 2 months we hang work in a different section of the gallery. Once a year 2 artists are "featured" for a month, meaning that they get extra publicity, the best display spaces, and the opportunity to discuss their work at a Friday night reception.

My rotation comes up next March, and I want to feature some of the photographs I made in Cuba earlier this year. I would really like to do something different (or more) than show and talk about a few framed and matted prints like I have in the past, and as is the norm for our gallery. I am looking for a way to show up to 12 prints, but in an alternative way. Perhaps smaller than my usual 11x14 prints, to invite closer inspection; maybe even 4x5 contact prints. What I am really looking for is a way to display these (likely) smaller prints without traditional matting and frames.

As I pondered this challenge, I realized that a number of excellent solutions probably reside in the heads of fellow APUGers. So, friends, what say you?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Dan

 

[ROL]

It goes against my (film) grain to show small, but a nice looking hand made book, probably by necessity, would seem a likely direction to go in, printed alternatively, ala platinum, makes even more sense. I'm making iBooks for show and sale these days as well. Make sure you bring your camera to the reception, unless LF work is common there.

 

[cliveh]

Good images don't need elaborate framing. Why not exhibit with prints hung from bull dog clips or clothes pegs on string? One of the best exhibitions I ever saw was one of Weegee prints in Oxford, England and I think the prints were put up with drawing pins.

 

[adelorenzo]

If you can get a handful of dead tablets, replace the screens with a dry mounted contact print and pass those around

 

[Gerald C Koch]

One technique I have used before is to dry mount the each print on heavy illustration board cut to the same dimensions as each print. Then cement 3 corks to the back of each board to hold them away from the wall. The shadow that each casts become the print's frame. The corks are arranged as one at each bottom corner and one in the center of the opposite side. The corks should be far enough away from the edges so that they are not easily seen. This gives a three dimensional quality to each print.

 

[Dr Croubie]

One (very) long term project I'd like to do is to display 4x5 transparencies (B+W and/or chromes, 8x10 if I can get my hands on some cheap film), no projectors, just hanging a foot or two away from a white wall, with lights on the wall to sort of act like a lightbox.

I do like the broken-tablet idea, to cap it off you could even put facespace/instacrap/snapchat/whatever-the-kiddies-use-these-days logos around the borders, as a comment on 'disposable photos' or something.

 

[momus]

I use a simple and inexpensive faux dry mount method that works well, very similar to Gerald's idea. Take foam board, and w/ a razor knife, cut it to the exact dimensions of my photo, but w/a 45 degree bevel on the cuts. You don't have to be too fussy, as ragged or mis-cut edges will be covered up by your mounted photo. I then spray the board and the back of my photo w/ Elmer's Craft Bond spray adhesive, and carefully lay my photo on the board. Next, I lay another photo face down on the glued photo (I have LOTS of them that didn't make the cut), and use a rolling pin to gently, but firmly, press the photo onto the foam board. You could just lay a big book on it, but I like the rolling pin (keep it away from the wife, as women are deadly w/ these things in arguments). After it's all dry, glue a little hanger or a piece of mat board w/ a hole in it to the back. Hang it on a nail, making sure that the foam board is flush w/ the wall. It makes for a floating-type of look once you have it displayed.

I like this much more than framed photos that are mounted under glass because glass reflections don't ruin the viewing, and it shows off the fiber paper of your print (glossy rc photos work fine too, but fiber really is best). Once you get the hang of it you can knock out a dozen photos in one sitting. Unlike framed and matted prints under glass, the cost of this is peanuts, and to me it also looks better.