JOSEPH KYLE
Art I Design
Sculpture Exhibition
For this assignment I created 5 meter x 5 meter exhibition space for August Rodin’s sculpture, the Burghers of Calais. This larger–than–life work commemorates a moment during the 100 years’ war when five prominent men sacrificed themselves to spare their city of Calais from destruction. The famous work captures their courage and despair as they walk– with nooses around their heads – out of the city gates to their presumable execution.
My exhibition design seeks to reinforce the sense of brutality and anguish that Rodin originally intended to convey with his sculpture.
Visitors must enter the exhibition space through an unlit passageway that narrows to the point of discomfort. Once inside the primary room, they are immediately confronted with the anguishing burghers with little room to distance themselves. This is how Rodin wanted viewers to experience his work– intimately and at human scale.
The interior’s floor holds a concave shape, which not only increases the space’s general discomfort, but pressures visitors to maintain an intimate distance with the sculpture. As pictured below, the harsh seating options for visitors further enhance the space’s discomfort. Unlike conventional exhibition spaces, the structure I designed to house August Rodin’s Burghers of Calais seeks to create the maximum amount empathy between the viewer and the sculpture. Comfort and serenity, while useful in some settings, take a lower priority.
