Goodbye Don McCullin, goodbye Animalism

You would not believe how fast the exhibitions get dismantled. First thing Monday morning and barely awake, I stumbled bleary-eyed into Gallery Two -- and found an army of Museum staff already frantically swarming the Don McCullin: In England exhibition, carting off the framed photographs and removing captions.



One of the less thrilling jobs is peeling text off the walls. For Don McCullin: In England, we used vinyl stencils, which work much the same way as an old Letraset sheet. To remove them, you take Content Developer Anna Ward (pictured below), hand her a simple paint scraper, and watch the magic happen.



Meanwhile, Martyn Lenton and Colin Harding -- who I'm more used to seeing quietly going about their studious curatorial business -- rolled up their sleeves and revved up the electric drill for unscrewing the photographs from the walls. It's a hypnotically quick business -- and no sooner are the pictures free, they're grabbed by the Collections team and wheeled off for de-framing and condition checking.





Before long -- and it really was no more than an hour or so from start to finish -- all that's left is a hauntingly empty Gallery Two. And our poor friends still dutifully scraping letters of the alphabet off the walls.





I haven't forgotten Animalism, which Exhibition Organizers Sharon Scarmazzo and Ruth Haycock were dismantling at the same time -- that's coming tomorrow. In the meantime, take a look at the brand new banners for the two exhibitions that'll be filling the galleries by October.