In October 2007, I saw - two important exhibitions of art by women in
Dublin. Usually I would not even bother going to these - but Carol as an art
student naturally loved female artists. Apart from a few decent artists like
Kahlo, O'Keeffe, Bourgeois, Rego, Emin and Gallagher - I had no real interest
in women's art. Their concerns were not my concerns, their styles are not my
favourites and their over-hyped political promotion made me sick. However, I
didn't hate their work anymore than that of 99% of all the male artists I knew.
I am had by now
become reluctant to write about these shows because I either felt fatigued at
the prospect - or I was worried about the knee-jerk emails from women in
response to my personal opinions and jokes. In my experience my readers would
listen to me berating male artists work for pages - but if I said boo to a
female artist – in their eyes I was a meat eating, war mongering, racist and
misogynist. It was all so juvenile, humourless and the product of self-interest
- for me ever to respond to these attacks.
If there was a
theme running through my whole writing on art it at this time – it was a belief
that there was such a thing as great art - usually because of history that
meant male artists - but every year - more and more genuinely great female
artists were emerging. On Internet sites like deviantart and mypace - I
had found far more talented up and coming female artists than men - in fact, it
was a eight to two ratio. Moreover I adored that fact that my girlfriend was such
a talented and passionate graphic designer and by then a fine art student - and
I loved being able to give her advice and support her art. There was no sex war
in our house we both thought it all a joke.
So anyway on the
first weekend of October - I went with my girlfriend to The National Gallery of
Ireland - were we saw a wonderful exhibition of portrait drawings. Gems by
Antonio Pollaiuolo, Francesco Bonsignori, Jean-Dominique Ingres, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, Adolf Menzel, Augustus John and William Orpen and Paul Klee delighted
us both. This was real drawing, real art and real skill and imagination at
work. However, I could not say the same for the Alice Maher's exhibition of
charcoal and pencil drawings at the RHA.
The Night Garden by Maher - was an exhibition
inspired by Bosch's painting The Garden
of Earthly Delights. Maher had been exhibiting in Ireland and abroad since
the 1990s - to some minor success.
Putting aside the
smug hubris of this woman to think herself an interpreter of Bosch - the show
was poster and wallpaper art of the most boring and contrived kind. I was sure
she was a lovely woman, I was sure she was sincere, I was sure she was very
clever - but a true artist born to create? I thought not. I thought art was
merely an easy social option for her. She had talent - but no real originality
or passion. It was all too similar to the art made by countless female
professors of fine art in art schools across the Western World - dry,
derivative, smug, and myopic.
As usual, her
work was well made, well meaning, diligent but utterly lacking even a flicker
of the-sacred-fire. There was no
mystery or originality in Maher’s work - just cliché. Her black and white
drawings in charcoal and the various works inspired by them seemed far too
similar to the greater and more original drawings of Francesco Clemente who had
practically reinvented the symbolic figure in Western art in the late 1970s
(after a prolonged silencing of the language of the body by abstract art and
conceptualism.) However, Maher's work had none of the beauty or enigma of the
Italian. Once again Maher's work struck me as academic, contrived and riddled
with a rag-bag of Feminist art clichés (long female hair, animals, breasts,
breast feeding, menstruation, the moon, the sun, plant forms and so on) derived
from more original and heartfelt artists like Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe,
Eva Hesse, Nancy Spero Kiki Smith and Louise Bourgeois. It was looking at works
like these that made me quite happy not to write for a newspaper - and be forced
to write about artists like Maher.
You know I saw
the original Bosch painting in the Prado in 2004 - it is big (it’s about eight
feet high and seven and a half feet wide when it is side panels are closed
over) and it had burned into my very soul and set my pulse racing. It is quite
simply one of the greatest paintings I have ever seen. Bosch’s depiction of
male and female nudes is skilful and delightful, his painting of animals
entrancing, his musical instruments and grotesque but stylish monsters enigmatic,
his colours are so strong and evocative, and the whole panel teems with minute
details and beasts conjured from his imagination. A man or woman could sit and
look at this painting for an hour a day till they died - and still find new
mysteries, details and insights. It took me a brisk walk around of ten minutes
to drain Maher's work of all its aesthetic interest. The Bosch painting was an
Atom-Bomb of a painting still radiating after nearly five centuries - in
contrast Maher's brand-new vast charcoal work (taking up practically the whole
of the RHA) was an unexploded dud!
Then on the bank
holiday weekend at the tail end of October - we went to Dublin
City Gallery The Hugh Lane to see Coral Cities -
an exhibition of paintings, collages and craved paper by Ellen Gallagher. Carol
was a huge fan of Gallagher's work since it had so many elements of collage in
it - for it was my girlfriend’s first love.
However, I went
with my critical dagger drawn ready to cut her down to size. I suspected that
Ellen Gallagher - a beautiful mixed race American (her mother Irish American
her absent father an African American) was nothing more than a mascot for a
politically correct art world - more concerned with identity than artistic
quality. Add to that the growing tendency of Irish museums to rope in any major
artist abroad with the vaguest link to Ireland - and you might understand my scepticism.
When I had seen
her work in reproduction it had looked like timid, boring, art-school stuff.
But I had never had a chance to see her work in reality - and that I was soon
to learn - was crucial to judging Gallagher's art.
As we entered the
first room, my heart sank as I looked around and saw large apparently blank
white sheets of watercolour paper. However, as I got up close to them my heart
jumped for joy. She had cut and carved into the paper - creating highly
detailed and well-drawn (or well-carved) images of fish, octopuses and African
women's heads with wild flowing hair. In my experience, there are few artists
whose work reproduces so badly in print. That is no reflection on the skills of
her photographers - merely an indication of how subtle her effects are.
These works were
quite simply some of the most beautiful, gentle, inventive and skilled
contemporary work on paper I have seen in years. I had such a compelling desire
to gently run my fingers over her carved, cut, water-coloured and collaged
works on high quality watercolour paper. I wanted to share a drink with her -
and just listen to her talk. Like a great flirt - Gallagher knew how to say
just enough to gain your interest - and had the control to leave you waiting in
baited breath - for more.
If you wanted me
to get heavy handed - I could have said that work dealt with themes of African
American women's desire to look white or the subtle forms of self-racism the
oppressed sometimes inflict upon themselves. However, that would make her work
sound too rhetorical and aggressive. Looking at her work, I was reminded of the
wise and softly spoken poetry of Mya Angelo - not the aggressive heroics of
Jean-Michel Basquiat or the Feminist screaming of The Guerrilla Girls.
Some art works
shout at you - Gallagher's whisper to you: "Come here I want to tell you a
secret.” Her work reminded me of Georgian flower and plant watercolours,
Outsider art, Marlene Dumas watercolour nudes, Chris Ofili's intricately
patterned and collaged paintings and many other female artists interested in
natural forms and female identity like Nancy Spero. However, at no time did I
feel she was pastishing or plagiarizing others - her own vision was consistent
throughout. Yes, her art was identity art - but she had so much more to say
about life than just what colour her skin was. I quickly sheathed my weapon and
bowed in homage.
Gallagher's work
had a wonderfully obsessive and secretive quality. There was none of the
tedious narcissism of Tracey Emin, none of the boring repetition of Rachel
Whiteread, none of the bogus Feminist rant of Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer
and none of the attention seeking of well - take your pick of exhibitionist
female artists of my day. Although Gallagher had private schooling and a fairly
easy road to the top of the New York art world (in 1995 she was shown in the
Whitney Biennial - aged only thirty - and two years later she was a Gagosian
artist) I felt her art was truly self-driven and not reliant on the world
around her - I knew that success or failure would not stop her need to create.
After we had gone
around the show once - Carol pleaded: "Do you want to go around again?"
"Yes sure!" I replied. So we looked over the work afresh - still
enthralled by this wonderful woman's discrete and highly skilled works. Was she
a great artist up there with the best of the past twenty years - I thought so -
but then that didn’t really say much. These days were truly awful times for
contemporary art. However, I looked
forward to watching her understated and very intelligent and compassionate art
develop.