Editor promotes exhibition-as-experience idea

Jennifer Findley used a May 11 essay in Observer to argue that exhibitions are being built less as neutral containers and more as environments that shape how people move, feel and read the work. In “Exhibition as Experience: The Turn Toward Building Worlds, Not Walls,” Findley said the traditional “white cube” gallery now looks “out of step” with art rooted in memory, identity and social reality. She wrote that curators and artists are increasingly using domestic, commercial and other “liminal” sites as part of the exhibition itself rather than as a backdrop. ### What was Findley arguing had changed in exhibition-making? Findley wrote that exhibitions are moving “out of controlled interiors” and into spaces that feel “lived-in, unstable, even charged.” In her account, the shift is not only aesthetic but structural: context, circulation and atmosphere now do part of the interpretive work that labels and wall texts once carried more heavily. (observer.com) The Observer piece said these are shows a visitor does not simply look at but “enter, inhabit and ideally get folded into.” That formulation put audience movement and embodied experience at the center of the argument. ### Why did she say galleries were moving beyond the “white cube”? Findley wrote that material pressures were part of the change, citing gallery closures, shrinking budgets and spatial limits. (observer.com) She also described what she called an “authenticity urge,” arguing that abandoned storefronts, private homes, architectural landmarks, motels and repurposed theaters bring their own texture and narrative to an exhibition. Jennifer Findley, whose Observer author page identifies her as an art advisor, curator and founder of the JFiN Collective, framed that approach as a response to spaces that “resist neutrality.” Her essay said context in these projects stops functioning as scenery and becomes part of the material of the show. ### Which exhibitions did she use to show the approach in practice? Los Angeles figured prominently in Findley’s examples. (observer.com) She wrote that The Hole and Barry McGee used a shuttered 99 Cents Only store to turn “retail excess into exhibition logic,” with works stacked across dusty shelves so that “browsing became choreography.” Hollyhock House was another case. Findley said Ryan Preciado, working with Karma Gallery, activated Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark as a “lived experience,” with visitors guided through the architecture and sculptural forms in a deliberate rhythm. (observer.com) The Julia Stoschek Foundation also appeared in the essay. Findley wrote that a gutted theater became a “cinematic labyrinth,” combining moving image, installation and “even popcorn” into what she called embodied spectatorship. (observer.com) Observer separately reported in February that Julia Stoschek’s “What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem” occupied the six-story Variety Arts Theater in Los Angeles through March 20, 2026. ### Where did Del Vaz Projects fit into the piece? Del Vaz Projects served as Findley’s most extended example. She wrote that the collaborative team led by Jay Ezra Nayssan pushes exhibition-making toward a “total environment,” moving across exhibition-making, performance and publication. For the exhibition “Cocktails in Heaven,” Observer said artist Orrin Whalen was commissioned to create an “experimental social container” grounded in research but open to instability. (observer.com) Findley wrote that Del Vaz’s dedication to queer artists worked not as a slogan but as a method shaping how space is organized, how people gather and how meaning accumulates. ### Who published the piece and when did it appear? (observer.com) Observer published the essay on May 11, 2026, under its Arts “Expert Insights” banner. Christa Terry’s Observer author page identifies her as the publication’s senior arts and culture editor, matching the X account cited in the original social-media reference. Observer’s May 2026 archive and exhibition pages continue to carry the article alongside other arts coverage and related commentary on exhibition formats. (observer.com 1) (observer.com 2)