I am creating an exhibit that will include items that are not public. I am just experimenting at this point, but after testing the exhibit page, it seems that if an item is not public it will not display in an exhibit, even though the exhibit is public.
The exhibit will basically be an 'about the photographer' section for our site that features an entire photographic collection. I would really like to use the exhibit builder for this section, since it will be much more dynamic than a simple page, but the section will include photos of and documents about the photographer. Since these are not actually a part of his photographic collection, I do not want them to be included in the item/browse page. The only way I know of to do that is to make them non-public.