Exhibition Designers Persian Paintings Exhibition @ Café Royal Hotel

The CAMA (Contemporary And Modern Art) Gallery exclusively represents Iranian artists. CAMA decided to announce their entrance on the London art scene with an opening exhibition at the Café Royal Hotel's Pompadour ballroom in London, Piccadilly.

SMA designs were asked initially to provide lighting design for the opening. This task quickly grew to also incorporate exhibition layout & installation management.

Logistical arrangements were complicated and included explaining to the Café Royal Hotel staff what was required of them. This prestigious hotel had never previously hosted an art exhibition.

Following our meeting with Café Royal team it was clear that it wasn't going to be possible to attach any fixings, paintings or lighting to the ceiling or walls due to the ballrooms ornate interior.

It was therefore decided to display the 29 Iranian / Persian contemporary paintings on high quality art easels. Normal art easels only have a maximum size & weight loading. Therefore on the larger Iranian / Persian paintings two easels were utilised.

One bronze sculpture & 6 artist books were displayed in glass showcases which utilised battery powered LED lighting. This was the only way to add life to the Iranian / Persian objects on display as it wasn't possible to supply mains power across the ballroom floor for Health & Safety reasons.

Lighting of the paintings consisted of 40 graphic light arm fixtures attached to the wooden easels by clamping methodology. The light ng arms were fitted with special LED (CRI 95%) lamps providing a 60 degree spread of 2700K (warm white) light. This temperature of light would complement the Iranian / Persian painting and art works and take into consideration the warm chandelier lighting of the Café Royal’s ballroom.

After being provided with dimensions & images of the Iranian / Persian paintings, our exhibition designers created 1:10 scale prints with dimensions so we could quickly mock-up the display in the ballroom a few days prior to the exhibition installation. This would save enormous amount of time on the day but also allow us to make changes to the layout and order so the paintings on display would provide a harmonious and aesthetic exhibition solution. Due to the earlier preparations the installation of the Iranian / Persian painting exhibition went like clockwork. With everything being booked into the busy Café Royal's loading bay with appropriate intervals and then moved by fine art handlers up to the ballroom. The exhibition was completely finished one hour before the official photographer even arrived.

The exhibition was attended by art dealers, collectors and scholars with a number of paintings being sold on the night.

CAMA also received numerous glowing reviews marking CAMA galleries arrival on the London art scene.

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