The Bird & the Cup (2014) in The Art Gallery Problem,
Blackwood Gallery, Toronto, 08.01 2025 – 05.03 2025
The Art Gallery Problem, Blackwood Gallery, curated by Fraser McCallum
The “art gallery problem” is a well-known math problem with a simple premise: what is the minimum number of guards or surveillance cameras necessary to observe an entire gallery? Across different layouts and floorplans, the art gallery problem challenges math students to achieve full surveillance of a space using the minimum labour or technology. In mathematics, the problem is fundamental enough to have spurred scores of textbooks, articles, and derivative problems.1The problem is not put to use by major museums and galleries, however, despite replicating their standard operations. While mathematicians might see the art gallery problem as an everyday problem to solve, for the arts sector, it remains a dominant understanding of art’s presentation.
This exhibition appropriates the art gallery problem as a framework to consider how objects and bodies are put to work in galleries and museums. The “problem” is in fact not singular as posited by mathematicians. Rather, there is far more to the presentation of art than the securitization of objects: there are problems of narrative, representation, hegemony, and access to knowledge.
Fraser McCallum