We went into town to doing a
mini tour of the galleries. First we went to the RHA Gallery were we saw an
exhibition of paintings and drawings by Seán Keating an artist for whom I had
long harboured a dislike because of his obnoxious mix of Irish
nationalism/provincialism, reactionary aesthetics and dictatorial approach in
the National College of Art. Keating was industrious and possessed above
average skills, yet his work utterly lacked humanity or imagination and
addressed the viewer with the kind of pompousness typical of nationalist
propaganda. Yet, even I had to grudgingly admire some of his watercolours and
oils of ESB engineering constructions at Ardnacrusha and Poulaphouca, even if
they reminded me of far more daring, original and heartfelt work by the likes
of Kokoschka.
An
instillation of Michael Warren consisting of eight wooden folding chairs hung
flat and vertically on the wall, each with minor alterations to the angle of
the back slats, was cleaver but pointless and the comparison with the work of
Piero della Francesca an utter cheek. A series of pretentious technical
drawings, by Julie Merriman was worse still for its cleaver conceit of a sheet
of paper with one drawing and tracing paper with another drawing laid on top.
So what, as an idea it was not brought very far and as technical drawings they
were crude and adolescent looking to me.
Upstairs we saw the Futures 12 exhibition, which had two
painters of quality, one painterly imposter and three ‘sculptors’ without a
shred of talent between them. Peter Burn’s crumby paintings left me baffled as
yet another manifestation of pseudo-naïve painting in Ireland. When I wondered
had it become the ambition of so many young painters in Ireland to paint the
most archly dumb paintings possible? Perhaps if Burns had proved himself as a
craftsman and artist of significance and then like Philip Guston turned to
black humour his rank efforts might have had some meaning.
Jim
Ricks’ inflatable Dolman sculpture (a mocking comment on the commercialism of
Irish heritage) I found irritating for other reasons. It lacked any subtlety
and while a great deal of industry had gone into this gag – I loathed joke art
even if it put me out of step with virtually everything presented as iconic art
since 1955. Peter Burns and Jim Ricks continued the tradition of joke art that
had begun with the Dada artist of the 1920s and since the 1960s had achieved
success in an art world sadly aware of its own insignificance in the modern
world. Personally I loathed joke art; I thought it was an easy knee-jerk
response to the impossible demands of creativity. The artists I truly admired
where those who had avoided such defeatist strategies to find new expressive
possibilities. Humour becomes dated notoriously fast, and there perhaps is
humour to be found in the way naïve art students now revere the feckless urinal
of Duchamp or the supposed can of shit of Manzoni. Joke art just doesn’t have
the sustained meaning of tragic art. The only humorous art I had ever actually
laughed out along with was Martin Kippenberger.
Lucy Andrews ‘sculptures’ that looked like the most shoddy and
incompetent science experiments in a high school left me equally baffled by
their lack of technical quality and their cryptic meaning which I could not
care less to decipher. Caoimhe Kilfeather’s sculptural installation was even
worse than Lucy Andrews’ collection of woe begotten science experiments and I
could barely waste a second look on her sculptural shambles. Later I read that Kilfeather’s lump of lead
was supposed to represent a waterfall, though at the time I recognized none of
the fury and beauty of such a thing - in that shroud of clumsy lead.
On
the other hand Stephanie Rowe’s miniature oil paintings on wooden boards of
actresses caught in a freeze frame millisecond were technical and luminous
masterpieces on a small scale. Though their subjects were modern silver screen
actresses and their colours bright and lush – their miniature scale, smooth
surfaces and minute sable brushed details were reminiscent of Dutch Golden Age painters
like Metsu and Vermeer. Rowe’s use of screen-grabs from movies, illustrated
again, how reproductions of reality had come to dominate more and more of our
lives and take on part of our dreamscape. They were beautiful, patiently
rendered, evocative memorials to screen goddess - many of us had daydreamt
about. Rowe’s work proved what modesty, craft and real intensity could achieve.
Ed Miliano’s vast collection of
smaller than A4 paintings on paper laid out on long shelves, initially did not
impress me. However the closer and longer I looked the more I became sucked
into their visual delight. The paintings of gardens, varied from a kind of
early Expressionism to abstraction to a kind of contemporary realism. It was
fascinating to observe the daily changes in Ed Miliano’s mood and vision and
the different intensities. Seen close up each painting hummed beside its
companions, yet looked at en mass a whole new rhythm revealed itself. Although
Ed Miliano’s technique was not as stunning as Stephanie Rowe I found his
paintings had more gravitas.
On
our way out we briefly stepped in to Gavin Murphy’s twenty minute video On Seeing Only Totally New Things. We
caught the video as the camera was fixed on a trendy chair and a male voice
over waffled on about design. I had already given this piece a minute of my
life and I wasn’t about to waste another nineteen so I walked out. Apparently
it was about a modernist building called the IMCO which was built in 1939 and
demolished in 1979.
Next
we went to the Taylor galleries to view a new exhibition by Pauline Bewick one
of the most commercially successful Irish artists due to the popularity of her
Celtic brand of illustration which pillaged the images of far greater artists
like Picasso and feminized them into mush. Personally I had never given a dam
about her work, though I thought it might be fun to see her work in the flesh.
They were not worth the trip, Bewick’s works was in fact worse in reality than
in reproduction, her drawing flaccid and awkward and her colours utterly
uninteresting and forgettable. Even Carol could only praise the ultra expensive
handmade paper she used. Yet, Bewick’s show was thronged with school kids,
minor celebrities and the prices of her works was truly eye watering. Bewick
was yet more proof that nothing succeeds in the short term like charming
mediocrity.
Next
we went to the Rubicon gallery to see an exhibition of new oil paintings my
Nick Miller, whose retrospective in the RHA in 2004 had been one of my
favourites. I found these new paintings, which were again landscapes painted
from his van a dreadful disappointment. They were under drawn and over painted,
with none of the energy of his previous work. He seemed to be going over old
ground for no particular reason.
Finally
we went to the Kerlin gallery to see a new exhibition of oil paintings by Callum
Innes. I was no particular fan of geometric abstraction, though when done well
by the likes of Innes I found it strangely compelling, even if it went against
my own instincts. Started as stained black canvases, Innes then worked them up
to colour. Seen from the front their vertical bands were reminiscent of Barnett
Newman, yet looking at the exposed sides of the canvases revealed something of
the subtle build up of colour. They were a strong reaffirmation of pure
intellectual abstraction and the power of minimalist paint to still carry ideas
and emotion. With my faith in art restored we went onto Grafton Street and
Carol and I went into the Disney store where she happily looked around in a
childlike trance. Finally we had a meal in McDonald’s and looked around at the
art books in Hodges Figgis before getting the DART home.