Utilising Magnetism
As I and the rest of the London gallery team prepared to open 2025 at Bluerider ART in Mayfair, we found ourselves facing a challenge. We were presenting American artist Carol Prusa’s debut solo exhibition in the United Kingdom, Strange Attractors, and with that came a series of new artworks that demanded an unconventional approach to presentation.
The pieces in question were exquisite silverpoint drawings combined with acrylic paintings on primed paper. Prusa's mastery of the silverpoint technique transforms cosmic and astronomical themes into intricate, almost ethereal compositions. Therein lay our problem: Carol, and our director, were adamant that these delicate works should not be framed in the traditional sense, nor could they be pierced with any mounting hardware. The artist's vision demanded a presentation method that would honour both the technical precision of her silverpoint work and the conceptual integrity of the pieces. Traditional framing would create a barrier between viewer and artwork, while mounting holes would irreversibly alter pieces that had taken countless hours of meticulous mark-making to complete.
The solution, when it came, felt almost elegantly simple: magnetism. We decided to adhere removable magnetic strips to the backside of each work, creating an invisible mounting system that left the artworks completely unaltered. Small circular magnets would then be gently applied to the borders of the works, allowing them to hover against the wall with an almost supernatural quality.
The aesthetic result exceeded our expectations. The metal elements of the magnetic system created an unexpected harmony with the silverpoint medium itself, both sharing that cool, reflective quality that speaks to precision and craftsmanship.
What struck me most about this installation process was how the solution itself seemed to embody the exhibition's central theme. Strange Attractors explored the dynamic forces shaping human energy and the cosmos, and here we were, using actual magnetic attraction to suspend artworks that themselves investigate attraction, repulsion, and the invisible forces that govern our universe.
