Insight 15: The Label Changed the Object

It is an interesting observation: at exhibitions, people often point to or tap the small brass nameplates attached to the bases of my Irony Specimens, the sculptural jellyfish presented beneath glass domes.

“This is clever,” they tell me. The plate starts working before anyone reads the words. The brass label, attached to a glass dome, borrows the styling of a museum display and tells the viewer that the object has been named, classified and presented purposefully. It tells them they are looking at a specimen display.

That same jellyfish without a dome, can be lost in a room or display totally unnoticed; the sculpture alone does not have enough presence. The glass dome interrupts the room and creates the curiosity to explore, asking “What is in here?”, drawing people close enough for the colour, delicacy and beauty to begin their work.

Pic above: Irony Specimens jellyfish

The visual contribution of the brass nameplate completes the shift from an attractive object beneath glass into a museum specimen. Brass, aged paper, the common name and the italicised taxonomic name draw on the natural-history displays that have fascinated me since childhood. It looks as though the object has been formally identified and preserved.

Then recognition kicks in ... jellyfish!

For some viewers, the jellyfish recall creatures washed onto a beach; others know them through swimming, surfing, fishing or diving, while aquarium owners and marine biologists bring professional familiarity. I take considerable pride that people who know these creatures so well respond strongly to my representations of them.

Viewers are amazed by the detail and often assume the jellyfish are made from glass. They use the nameplate to confirm the species they are looking at before reading the separate gallery card or asking what the work is made from.

The explanation of resin 3D-printed bells, hand colouring, iridising and individually made tentacles shifts their attention toward technique, but the plate has already given the specimens credibility and respect before their synthetic construction becomes known.

The label does not have to be read to do the work.

That became even clearer when I added brass nameplates to the Microplastics sculptures. I had mounted these unfamiliar, organic forms on timber bases, but they still felt unfinished. Experimenting, I added a brass plate and it was perfect. Again, people now point to or tap those plates and say, “This is a good idea” or “This is clever,” and again the sense of a museum specimen consolidates the piece.

Yet I have not observed anyone crouching down to read the words. Even if they did, the fabricated binomial-style names, Lophelia Placentia and Macrocystis Renascens, would not provide a familiar identification.

Here the plate performed a different job.

I thought I was completing the presentation of Microplastics, but I was also changing the first question brought to it. Before a word is read, the nameplate shifts “What is this?” into “What kind of specimen is this?”

It does not confirm what the viewer already knows; instead, it insists that this strange object belongs to the category of specimen and leaves the viewer trying to determine what sort of specimen it could possibly be. It has effectively corralled the brain into the path I wanted as the artist: one of ecological classification.

I had used a similar effect in my earlier Gothic practice, where I made a framed series of Dead Fairies (yes, you read that correctly: dead fairies) that I absolutely loved, yet almost none sold, to my dismay. The following year, for the Oddities Expo, I changed nothing about the fairies, frames, presentation or price. Instead, I gave each fairy a Celtic-style girl’s name and added a brass nameplate to the frame. Guess what? They started selling! Oddly enough, no purchaser ever mentioned the written name to me; it seemed almost inconsequential. Yet here, an anonymous curiosity had become an identified, collectable individual.

The same brass nameplate did three different jobs.

On Irony Specimens, it confirms a species the viewer may already recognise and strengthens the object’s credibility. On Microplastics, it gives an unrecognisable form a category while withholding resolution. With the Dead Fairies, it supplies identity and collectability.

All three borrowed the authority of museum presentation.

If something has been formally named and catalogued, it seems to warrant closer attention.

Related reading Insight 13: When Waste Stops Looking Like Waste.