All curators have an audience in mind as they assemble a show. Ideally, a good exhibition appeals to multiple audiences and museums invest a great deal of time and effort in tracking attendance to understand and best serve their visitors.
There is an obvious audience for an exhibition like this one – bibliophiles, people with a love of books and often a sophisticated understanding of the artistry involved in the creation of fine books. The Book Beautiful: William Morris, Hilary Pepler and the Private Press Story appeals to exactly this demographic.
A second audience includes people fascinated by the story of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, which figures so prominently in the collection of the Ditchling Museum.
As I worked with the material that had been selected for exhibition, I found myself thinking about yet a third audience, one that is perhaps less “prepared” for the exhibition: digital natives.
This audience is home-based in a world of virtual realities and digital formats in which texts scroll, images expand or contract at a click, and nothing endures. There are similarly complex relationships between text and image in this show.
The Book Beautiful is a celebration of the tactile quality of paper and the artful balance of word and image fixed on the page.
It is also a reminder that the act of reading can be a sensual as well as cerebral experience.
No doubt bibliophiles will compare fonts and bindings and historians will track chronology and personal relationships but, hopefully, digital natives will develop a new appreciation for the enduring pleasures of the thoughtful, well-made book.
Dennis Doordan is a visiting fellow from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, to the University of Brighton and curator of The Book Beautiful: William Morris, Hilary Pepler and the Private Press Story, on show at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex, until 11 April
There is an obvious audience for an exhibition like this one – bibliophiles, people with a love of books and often a sophisticated understanding of the artistry involved in the creation of fine books. The Book Beautiful: William Morris, Hilary Pepler and the Private Press Story appeals to exactly this demographic.
A second audience includes people fascinated by the story of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, which figures so prominently in the collection of the Ditchling Museum.
As I worked with the material that had been selected for exhibition, I found myself thinking about yet a third audience, one that is perhaps less “prepared” for the exhibition: digital natives.
This audience is home-based in a world of virtual realities and digital formats in which texts scroll, images expand or contract at a click, and nothing endures. There are similarly complex relationships between text and image in this show.
The Book Beautiful is a celebration of the tactile quality of paper and the artful balance of word and image fixed on the page.
It is also a reminder that the act of reading can be a sensual as well as cerebral experience.
No doubt bibliophiles will compare fonts and bindings and historians will track chronology and personal relationships but, hopefully, digital natives will develop a new appreciation for the enduring pleasures of the thoughtful, well-made book.
Dennis Doordan is a visiting fellow from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, to the University of Brighton and curator of The Book Beautiful: William Morris, Hilary Pepler and the Private Press Story, on show at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex, until 11 April
