“Garage Sale” seems like a weird title for an art show, does it not?
When I was in art school at the University of North Dakota, there was varying advice about how to curate one’s art show, specifically one’s B.F.A. Show, which was a student’s “final” in Visual Arts. One professor had a rather inimitable way of describing what not to do: “Don’t make it look like you’re having a garage sale.”
And by that he meant, do not have a hodge-podge of different styles, themes, or mediums. It should be somewhat homogenized; it should be cohesive since it’s the final summation of your work for the past four (or so) years, the pinnacle of your area of study. It should not look like ten people and their ten different styles came together to sell their possessions.
“Don’t make it look like you’re having a garage sale.”
That’s been rattling around in my mind for the last 20+ years. I understood what they meant, and I still think it is good advice. It informed my own B.F.A. show, meaning, I did the opposite of that advice.
My argument for this is: I was a kid at that time, and I spent my years there figuring out what I liked, what worked, what clicked, and what I was not good at. Meanwhile, I was making my way in the world; I was aging, learning, working, and figuring things out. So I never really had one theme. I had many.
Now that I am older, I have realized that I kind of am ten different people with ten different styles. I have many interests and I do not want to choose just one.
I want to have a garage sale.
