About Exhibit Labels
Why Write Exhibit Labels? Exhibit labels describe essential information about items on display in exhibits. They help to contextualize exhibit pieces by inscribing the historical, social or cutural conditions surrounding the artwork. Labels can even help to convey the story that the exhibit tells. Labels can be used creatively and in many ways, so it's important to think about what role you want labels to play in your particular exhibit.
Get to Know Your Exhibit: Questions to Consider Before Writing
- What is the topic or focus of the exhibit?
- What mediums does it include? Which ones will you work with?
- What story does this exhibit want to tell?
- What should visitors to the exhibit know when they leave?
Types of Exhibit Labels to Consider
Introductory Lables: Some labels may be used to introduce the exhibit overall and help to convey the larger impetus for the installation or the themes of the project. Introductory labels often contain the exhibit title, along with narrative writing that contextualizes the social or historical conditions surrounding the creation of the project, and/or orients visitors to how they should approach and navigate the space of the exhibition. These are often 50-200 words in length.
Item Labels. Most labels will likely describe discrete items and artworks within the exhibit. These can provide basic descriptive information (title, date, creator, media used, collection information,) sometimes followed by a short caption in the form of a narrative or a creative provocation (maybe a question or viewer prompt). Items labels do not have to include narratives, but you may consider them for labels that describe major exhibit items or labels that describe thematic groups of items. These are often 50-100 words in length for individual items and up to 150 words for grouped item labels.
Creating Exhibit Labels
RESEARCH
Get to Know Your Object(s):
In order to clearly and accurately describe the art object you are tasked to label, you need to know the item. Once you know the goals of the exhibit, resarch the item(s) you will describe. This kind of research will likely involve visiting the archive or artist who stewards and/or created the materials. Some things you may want to find out are:
- when and where the material was created?
- size of the material
- how it was created
- who is the creator & what is their creative and/or cultural background
- what major cultural meanings or patterns are present in the material
WRITING:
Questions to Consider:
- What do you want visitors to take away from reading this label?
- How does this label contribute to the overall story of the exhibit?
- Only include information that relates to this idea.
Label Writing Templates and Guides:
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George A. Smathers Libraries Exhibit Style Guide: this guide includes detailed formatting guidelines and templates for different types of exhibit items (books v. artworks)
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Greive, Kristine. Writing Exhibit Labels Handout (University of Michigan): walks readers through key considerations that shouuld be made before drafting labels-- this includes thinking about audience, item history, label revision etc.
Exhibiting Blackness by ISBN: 9781558498754Publication Date: 2011-09-23In 1927, the Chicago Art Institute presented the first major museum exhibition of art by African Americans. Designed to demonstrate the artists' abilities and to promote racial equality, the exhibition also revealed the art world's anxieties about the participation of African Americans in the exclusive venue of art museums?places where blacks had historically been barred from visiting let alone exhibiting. Since then, America's major art museums have served as crucial locations for African Americans to protest against their exclusion and attest to their contributions in the visual arts. In Exhibiting Blackness, art historian Bridget R. Cooks analyzes the curatorial strategies, challenges, and critical receptions of the most significant museum exhibitions of African American art. Tracing two dominant methodologies used to exhibit art by African Americans?an ethnographic approach that focuses more on artists than their art, and a recovery narrative aimed at correcting past omissions?Cooks exposes the issues involved in exhibiting cultural difference that continue to challenge art history, historiography, and American museum exhibition practices. By further examining the unequal and often contested relationship between African American artists, curators, and visitors, she provides insight into the complex role of art museums and their accountability to the cultures they represent.
Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by ISBN: 9781442249042Publication Date: 2015-06-04Beverly Serrell presents the reader with excellent guidelines on the process of exhibit label planning, writing, design, and production. One of the museum field's leading consultants and label writers, Serrell's 1996 edition of Exhibit Labels has been a standard in the field since its initial publication. This new edition not only provides expert guidance on the art of label writing for diverse audiences and explores the theoretical and interpretive considerations of placing labels within an exhibition, it also features all new case studies and photographs and thoughts about interpretation in digital media. Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach is a vital reference tool for all museum professionals.
THINGS TO AVOID WHEN LABELING EXHIBITS:
In Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, Beverly Serrell offers a list of “10 deadly sins" that should be avoided in exhibits:
1. Labels that are not related to a big idea, that ramble without focus or objectives.
2. Labels that have too much emphasis on instruction (presenting information) instead of interpretation (offering provocation).
3. Labels that do not know the audience or address visitors' prior knowledge, interests, and/or misconceptions
4. Labels with no apparent system of design and content to organize the messages, codes, or context.
5. Labels written with a vocabulary that is out of reach for the majority of visitors.
6. Labels that are too long and wordy.
7. Labels that ask questions that are not the visitors' questions.
8. Labels for interactives that do not have instructions or interpretations located in integrated, logical ways.
9. Labels that do not begin with concrete, visual references.
10. Labels that are hard to read because of poor typography (bad choice of typeface, design, colors, lighting, materials, or placement).
Exhibit Label Accessibility
Exhibit Labels that live in the space of the physical exhibition (musuem or gallery installation) should be easily legible, in terms of the format and font, and accessible in terms of the writing style and content. Write labels clearly and with a general audience in mind. Think about an audience of everyday people who are not critics or scholars of the specific body of work being described. Everyday people should be able to understand and follow the story the exhibit is telling. As you are writing, think of your audience and try to account for a wide range of different abilities, knowledge levels, languages and literacies. This makes it possible for more people to explore and understand the works! This also acknoweldges the range of knoweldge systems and values across Black cultures.
Best Practices for Legibility:
- use sans serif font (Arial or Helvetica)
- consider 16-18 point font for item labels and about 30pt. font for intoroductory labels
- recognizable characters
- avoid overuse of decorative details
- provide strong contrast between the typeface and background of the label
- consider alternatives for people who read in other languages (Arabic etc.) or who cannot easily read traditional printed type
Learn More About Accessible Design for Print:
"Accessible Typography." APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/accessibility/typography
Exhibit Catalogues
What is an Exhibit Catalogue?
Exhibit catalogues provide documentation of all the items displayed in a show at a museum or gallery. Exhibit Catalogues often contain exhibit labels within them. They also can contain vibrant color images of exibit items, introductions, thematic essays and/or scholarly interpretations from curators and academics--especially in the case of more substantial catalogs. Simple catalogs may just contain a checklist of exhibit materials. These printed works are often bound and sold sold or offered alongside the exhibit.
Basic Exhibit Catalogue Entry Sample
“catalogue entries” for an object or artwork are about one page and consist of the following elements:
- A clear photo of the object (with proper photo credit or citation listed elsewhere)
- Artist
- Title
- Physical data: Dimensions, Medium, Date
- Name of Institution that owns it
- Several paragraphs about the object / work focusing on its relation to other items in the exhibition as well as the theme of the show or the collection.
Sample Online Exhibit Catalogs
Exhibit catalogues are usually found on site at exhibitions or are available on gallery websites for purhcase. The more substantive catalogs are often glossy, contain color images and are expensive to create and print. Some catalogues can be found online in museum/gallery archives particularly in the case of larger more resourced museums and galleries.
Preview the digitized samples below. Many of them are very generally focused on Black art but hopefully give a feel for what's possible!
I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, For Families | 1995 | Metropolitan Museum of Art
cover
sample page
Art and Oracle: African Art of Rituals and Divination by Alissa LaGamma | 2000 | MET
cover
Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art (1994)
Additional Black Art Catalogs:
Browse Free ONLINE Exhibition Catalogs:
Sample Print Exhibit Catalogues
A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal by ISBN: 0930741935Publication Date: 2003-06-01A Saint in the Cityexamines the elaborate visual culture of the Mourides, a Senegalese Sufi movement based upon the mystical teachings of Sheikh Amadou Bamba (1953-1927). In the boldly visual city of Dakar, images abound despite the fact that Senegal is largely a Muslim country. Vibrant street murals, calligraphy and calligrams, didactic posters, drawings that protect and heal, advertising images, colourful clothing, Web sites, intricate glass paintings, and innovative architecture all attest to the transformative potency that expressive culture has for Mourides. One image is ubiquitous throughout urban Senegal: the portrait of Sheikh Amadou Bamba, based upon a colonial photograph from 1913. Sacred images "work" for Mourides, and as Bamba is a saint (Wali Allah, or "Friend of God" in Arabic), his portrait actively conveys powerful blessings called baraka that help people to address everyday difficulties, challenges, and goals.The Mouride Way is observed by over four million Senegalese and thousands more around the globe including increasing numbers of African Americans and others converting to this most African of Islamic paths. Amadou Bamba's pacifism, dignity, and self-reliance, as well as his emphasis on the sanctity of work, offer a view of Islam quite different from those currently suggested by Western media. Indeed,A Saint in the Cityreminds us that there are many faces of Islam in Africa and throughout the world. It also assists readers to reconsider misconceptions concerning the prohibition of images in Islam in light of the explosion of visual culture derived from a single photograph of Sheikh Amadou Bamba.
Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power by ISBN: 9781942884170Publication Date: 2017-09-26African American art in the era of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers In the period of radical change that was 1963-83, young black artists at the beginning of their careers confronted difficult questions about art, politics and racial identity. How to make art that would stand as innovative, original, formally and materially complex, while also making work that reflected their concerns and experience as black Americans? Soul of a Nation surveys this crucial period in American art history, bringing to light previously neglected histories of 20th-century black artists, including Sam Gilliam, Melvin Edwards, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams, Howardina Pindell, Romare Bearden, David Hammons, Barkley L. Hendricks, Senga Nengudi, Noah Purifoy, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Charles White and Frank Bowling. The book features substantial essays from Mark Godfrey and Zoe Whitley, writing on abstraction and figuration, respectively. It also explores the art-historical and social contexts with subjects ranging from black feminism, AfriCOBRA and other artist-run groups to the role of museums in the debates of the period and visual art's relation to the Black Arts Movement. Over 170 artworks by these and many other artists of the era are illustrated in full color. 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the first use of the term "black power" by student activist Stokely Carmichael; it will also be 50 years since the US Supreme Court overturned the prohibition of interracial marriage. At this turning point in the reassessment of African American art history, Soul of a Nation is a vital contribution to this timely subject.
Books on Black & Islamic Visual Cultures
BLACK & MUSLIM VISUAL & MATERIAL CULTURE:
The books below are sources on visual culture as it relatues to Black visuality and Black Muslim visual culture specifically. These may help you think about about the politics, ethics and aesthetics that might inform depictions of African American Muslims.
ARTICLES
- Turner RB. "Ayuba Sulieman Diallo and Muslim Visual Culture in the Black Atlantic World." The Muslim world (Hartford). 2020;110(3):308-321. doi:10.1111/muwo.12346
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Wilms, Stephanie A. “Shadow and Substance: Photography, Freemasonry, and the Moorish Science Temple of America.” The Journal of African American History 101, no. 1–2 (2016): 49–68. https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.101.1-2.0049.
BOOKS
Migrating the Black Body by ISBN: 9780295999562Publication Date: 2017-03-20Migrating the Black Body explores how visual media--from painting to photography, from global independent cinema to Hollywood movies, from posters and broadsides to digital media, from public art to graphic novels--has shaped diasporic imaginings of the individual and collective self. How is the travel of black bodies reflected in reciprocal black images? How is blackness forged and remade through diasporic visual encounters and reimagined through revisitations with the past? And how do visual technologies structure the way we see African subjects and subjectivity? This volume brings together an international group of scholars and artists who explore these questions in visual culture for the historical and contemporary African diaspora. Examining subjects as wide-ranging as the appearance of blackamoors in Russian and Swedish imperialist paintings, the appropriation of African and African American liberation images for Chinese Communist Party propaganda, and the role of YouTube videos in establishing connections between Ghana and its international diaspora, these essays investigate routes of migration, both voluntary and forced, stretching across space, place, and time.
Listening to Images by ISBN: 9780822373582Publication Date: 2017-03-09In Listening to Images Tina M. Campt explores a way of listening closely to photography, engaging with lost archives of historically dismissed photographs of black subjects taken throughout the black diaspora. Engaging with photographs through sound, Campt looks beyond what one usually sees and attunes her senses to the other affective frequencies through which these photographs register. She hears in these photos--which range from late nineteenth-century ethnographic photographs of rural African women and photographs taken in an early twentieth-century Cape Town prison to postwar passport photographs in Birmingham, England and 1960s mug shots of the Freedom Riders--a quiet intensity and quotidian practices of refusal. Originally intended to dehumanize, police, and restrict their subjects, these photographs convey the softly buzzing tension of colonialism, the low hum of resistance and subversion, and the anticipation and performance of a future that has yet to happen. Engaging with discourses of fugitivity, black futurity, and black feminist theory, Campt takes these tools of colonialism and repurposes them, hearing and sharing their moments of refusal, rupture, and imagination.
Islam Through Objects by ISBN: 1350132810Publication Date: 2021-07-01Islam through Objects represents the state of the field of Islamic material cultural studies. With contributions from scholars of religion, anthropologists, art historians, folklorists, historians, and other disciplines, Anna Bigelow brings together a wide range of perspectives on Islamic materiality to debunk myths of Islamic aversion to material aspects of religion. Each chapter focuses on a single object in daily use by Muslims--prayer beads, coins, amulets, a cistern well, clothing, jewellery, bodily and domestic adornments--to consider both generic and particular aspects of the object in question. These narratives will engage the reader by describing and analyzing each object in terms of its provenance, materials, uses, and history, as well as the broader history, variety and uses of the object in Islamic history and cultures. Temporal, regional, and sectarian variations in the styles, uses, and theological perspectives are also considered. Framed by an introduction that assesses the various approaches to Islamic material culture in recent scholarship, Islam through Objects provides a template for the study of religion and material culture, which engages current theory, subtle and nuanced narratives, and the creative and imaginal capacities of Muslims through history.
Curating Islamic Art Worldwide by ISBN: 9783030288792Publication Date: 2019-10-29This volume gives voice to cultural institutions working with collections of Islamic art and material culture globally, including many from outside Western Europe and North America. The contributions inform a vibrant, ongoing global conversation around curatorship in this field, one that embraces the responsibilities, challenges and opportunities for those engaged in it. Contributors--including art historians, curators and education specialists--discuss curatorial methodologies in theoretical and practical terms, present new exhibitions of Islamic art and culture, and explore the role of educational and engagement practices related to Islamic collections and Muslim audiences.
Black Refractions: highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem by ISBN: 9780847866380Publication Date: 2019-01-15The artists featured in Black Refractions, including Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Nari Ward, Norman Lewis, Wangechi Mutu, and Lorna Simpson, are drawn from the renowned collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Through exhibitions, public programs, artist-in-resdiencies, and bold acquisitions, this pioneering institution has served as a nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and internationally since its founding in 1968. Rather than aim to construct a single history of "black art," Black Refractions emphasises a plurality of narratives and approaches, traced through 125 works in all media from the 1930s to the present. An essay by Connie Choi and entries by Eliza A. Butler, Akili Tommasino, Taylor Aldridge, Larry Ossei Mensah, Daniela Fifi , and other luminaries contextualize the works and provide detailed commentary. A dialogue between Thelma Golden, Connie Choi, and Kellie Jones draws out themes and challenges in collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary art by artists of African descent. More than a document of a particular institution's trailblazing path, or catalytic role in the development of American appreciation for art of the African diaspora, this volume is a compendium of a vital art tradition.
Sources
This section of the guide was adapted from:
- Kristine Greive, Exhibits Librarian, University of Michigan Library handout titled "Writing Exhibit Labels."Accessed September 2024
- LIbrary Guide published by Lisa Hooper, Head of Media Services, Tulane University LIbraries "Physical Exhibits, The Essentials" Accessed September 2024
- UC Santa Barbara Libraries Resarch Guide "Exhibitions"