Work Experience Day 2

This morning everyone was clearing up for a client visit. Someone was coming to look at work they had in store. I had to hoover the carpets in the photography space and in the small viewing room. I swept the floor and helped someone sort out tapes and types of foam into diffrent boxes. The foams are used in packing, to protect the art from vibration or shocks if they're in a crate, but also to stand the paintings on so they're off the floor. The other guys were putting works away in racks. They said the number of works on the floor builds up and every so often they take the time to put everything away. I also helped with the maintenance of one of the railings by using allen keys to tighten all the bolts. It's part of safety checks.

In the afternoon I learned how to wrap paintings. I worked again with Lester, on works by the artists John Latham. We used polythene and acid free tissue paper. The works wer'nt simple canvases. They consisyed of a wooden stretcher (the support for a painting) with canvas stapled to it. But the canvas didn't fully cover the stretcher and had been pulled and knotted in the middle. (I've taken photos of the pack and will load them up tomorrow).

I've learned that John Latham was a conceptual artist who died in 2006. He was interested in conflicts and violence and religion. He cancelled a work he made in 2005 for the Tate Gallery where he put the Bible and Quran in sheets of glass because he thought that after the 7/7 bombings in London it might result in violence.