Many gallery interns and workers alike spend many hours every week invigilating various shows and works throughout the various galleries in our fair town. Many of these interns also find themselves doing this without previous knowledge of the entailment of a gallery interns duties. While invigilating is an essential role within a gallery as one serves to protect the artwork as some kind of art bouncer (although in reality there isn't much one could do as the chances are that the intern is scrawny and arty), and also there to provide a Q and A type service for customer who assume that because you spend all day sitting there in the same room the work, that you know every last thing about it. While I might have had some of the easier invigilating jobs, working in smaller galleries hence being allowed to sit and use a computer, I feel that there is a certain sense of duty as an art student and art lover to start at the bottom and to quote a great man, Mr. Bean, "And my job is to sit and look at paintings". In this fast paced social media world, a few hours of contemplation breathing in the aura of the art (haha) can't be all that bad. I still maintain that it isn't the most enthralling job; however, the corniness of the aura of the artwork, being around the physical object itself rather than viewing it on a screen, can really help in the understanding of works, and can possibly really help draw out some useful criticality for young artists and critics.
