Hanging Provisional Landscapes

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Have you ever hung wallpaper? If so, you’ll appreciate the installation “Provisional Landscapes,” now lining the walls of gallery 201. Look! Every vinyl panel is straight and smooth!

Visitors will appreciate it, too. In fact, these scenes of bulldozed neighbourhoods will be their first experience of According to What?, since the entrance for this Ai Weiwei exhibition will be at the start of that corridor gallery.

Mark Rogers

“The trick is to hang the panel straight in the first place, without any bubbles,” says Mark Rogers (above), installation contractor with Thompson Print Management. He speaks with the confidence of many years of experience, including with jobs for the AGO – his first was the “Angels of the Vatican” show back in 1999.

Mark tweaking a panel

Perfect alignment of panels is the last step in a much longer process, explains Malene Hjorngaard, production coordinator for the AGO design department. It starts with a floor plan for the exhibition, and goes from there:

  • The artist’s studio customizes the installation to the dimensions of the space;
  • A vendor is selected by the AGO to work on the project, following an extensive tendering process;
  • Careful testing is carried out on materials and reproduction quality;
  • Approvals are reached between the artist’s studio and the AGO;
  • The vendor (Thompson Print Management) prints and installs the self-adhesive panels.

All this, with lots of tweaking and problem-solving along the way.

south wall, gallery 201, Provisional Landscapes

“I spend a good deal of time building working relationships with trusted suppliers,” adds Malene. “I need to be able to count on them. Our standards are very high, especially when producing an artist’s work.”  She looks up at those rich images, hanging in smooth, straight panels, and smiles.

A few finishing touches remain, both of them an AGO responsibility: place informative wall labels at the entrance to the installation, and remove that black barrier protecting the bench along the south wall. Yes, it’s part of the art, but it’s also a bench. Visitors will be allowed to sit there, and take in the visuals at their own pace.