Two years ago I was awarded an exhibition at the City of Kent for Jan/Feb 2020. With 45’ of wall space, I needed to figure out what works to show, and how many to prepare (specifically how many frames I needed to order). Before I go any further, think how you would plan if you were in this situation. Not only picking the works, paying for the presentation (and framing is expensive!), but how many to stuff into your car to transport on the day of install. Planning is a way to ensure you’re fully prepared, and helps with a smooth delivery and installation, especially if the gallery director is not doing the work for you.
Using Excel to determine the layout and spacing of work on a 45’ wall.
It’s easy once you’re onsite and the blank wall is there and you are able to lay work out and arrange it to figure it all out. But how do you plan efficiently, in advance? In my case, I used Excel to plan the layout, using it as a visual tool rather than for it’s mathematical functions. I basically turned it into online graph paper by resizing the columns so that they created square-shaped cells rather than the typical rectangles. I assigned a dimension to a square (2 squares = 1’ or 12”), and used it as a rough visual guide. I put the center line of the artwork at roughly 5’ (or 60”, which is standard) and assumed a 10’ high wall (20 squares high), for ease of layout, with the works basically centered vertically. For the length, 45’ ended up being 90 squares (45 feet x 2 squares/foot = 90 squares). Yes, I’m pretty analytical and left brained as well as being a visual artist, but this program is a great tool that I highly recommend.
I used the border tool to create frames, then inserted thumbnails of my images to simulate framed piece. This allowed me to plan spacing between works and how best to group different series. It let me play around with placement of pieces to find the most cohesive and best flow to what I planned to bring. Ultimately, it let me determine how many pieces to bring and how many frames I needed to order.
For those unfamiliar with Excel, I used the fill (or paint bucket) tool to create the solid grey walls. I didn’t bother with filling the “frames” with white, which I could have - you can still see the cell outlines where the frame matting would normally be. I found online clip art of figure silhouettes to use for scale and drama (though it was totally unnecessary) as a final (geeky) touch, though that is completely unnecessary.
Paper cutouts would also work if you you’re not comfortable on the computer. My final layout was a pretty close match to this, so it did what I needed it to accomplish. I hope this gives you an idea for planning your own layout. Good luck, and drop me a note if you found this useful.
The orange circled area is the space I had for my portion of the exhibit. Two other walls were for another exhibitor, Phil Eidenberg-Noppe, to show his artwork, which was roughly equivalent in length, though on two walls instead of a single one. We did a collaborative piece on the 11’ wall on the upper left (images can be found on the next blog post).