Although I pride myself on having a passable knowledge of the history of art I certainly wouldn't consider myself a member of the cognoscenti of the contemporary art world. In truth, between theorists and critics like Clement Greenberg and Robert Evans and artists like Tracey Emin and Julie Opie I am, I must confess, a little intimidated by the apparent facility with which these exalted figures throw critical judgements and laudatory epithets around. To be honest I feel much more at home in my opinions with, say, Baudelaire and El Greco than I would with any contemporary artist.
Regardless, I persevere. Inspired by my indefatigable spirit I visited the Kerlin Gallery, a handsome privately owned exhibition space, yesterday for an exhibition of paintings by Brian Maguire, the former head of the faculty of fine art at the National College of Art and Design. Having heard that it was linked in some way to the artist's interest in what constitutes public endeavour and the issue of persistant social inequality but not having seen how this tallied with the thumbnail images of his paintings that I'd seen I examined the promotional material provided by the gallery. Alas,when set by side with what I would later experience this was hardly grealty infomative, telling me as it did that these works represented "a shift from the overtly human to a humanist sensibility", that they "exhibited a confronting honesty" and that there was an "underlying reality" to his work.
Fortunatley, one of the few things that did seem to make sense in light of the paintings was the promotional booklets belief that these works represented a high level of painterly skill and quality. Although it may sound like a difficult position to maintain if one bears in mind that I don't consider myself an expert, Maguire's works all struck me as being successful realisations of what he hoped to achieve. The collection begins obliquely with Memory and Presence (€18,000), a picture of an arm chair where the subject is rendered in garish, psychedelic colours against a washed out, pink background. On the cushioned back of the chair a poorly realised sketch of a man and woman can be seen amidst the oher indiscriminate slashes of paint. As an introduction to an art show with the putative subject matter of social inequality being examined it is, it has to be said, slightly wrong footing.
What follows is hardly more enlightening either with paintings labelled Apartment House (€12,000) and O'Neill Family Racing (€8,000) respectively depicting a large, stand alone apartment block with a glass front against a blue sky and a racing car with several names stencilled on its boot and an American flag proudly on display against a washed out green background. With the next painting (Contemporary Ruin, €24,000), however, Maguire's modus operandi was coming into starker focus. Here, another painting of a large construction confronted us, this one seemingly a docklands scene of an unfinished car park, with its concrete greys dripping down into the turpoise and white at the foot of the edifice. Maguire, it seemed, was asking us to look at what we mean by public endeavour and the worth that we attribute to the examples of this concept that we might offer.
Indeed, this theme became more pronounced with the sixth painting on display: House for Singing (€18,000). In contrast with the metal, prison-bar-like grid forms that dominate Apartment House, Contemporary Ruin, and People's Palace and from the way in which the glittering house lights and the arches of this concert hall are depicted I would conclude that he has something of a weak spot for the grand, old structures that are nowadays particularly remarkable for the fact that they're still here. Having a similarly tender weak spot, this was probably my favourite painting of the whole show. The next painting on display was a provocative piece entitled Morecambe Bay (€5,000), on first sight a failry undistinguised landscape scene with blue and green tidal beds set in contrast to a grey and black sky. The sting with this piece though is the fact that the painting only alludes to the tragedy that took place there (with at least 21 Chinese immigrants drowning there in 2004) in its title. Thus, the painting reminds us to enquire about what other stories lie behind works of art when the painter isn't so obliging as to remind us that there is more to art than just fine feelings and critical judgements. In this way Maguire manages to place art within the remit of his questioning about what constitutes public endeavour.
In Heart of a Hearless World (€30,000) we are presented with a scene of a devotional shrine with three porticoes: one for the Virgin Mary, one for Jesus, and the other obscured by shade. As is the case with House for Singing, the presence of arches dominate and Maguire, again, seems to be very attentive to light in this painting with the top section above the shrine radiant until the light dissipates into shade as one's eyes scan down the composition. With its concern for old time craft, grace (the arches! the arches!) and permanence it would, like House for Singing, seem to be one of the answers to the question of what constitiutes public endeavour towards which Maguire would be most inclined to have warm feelings.
The two pieces that follow seem to diverge a bit from the nuanced way in which Maguire has hitherto handled his chosen subject. The first, entitled Economy (Jakarta) 0.10c/hour (2000) (€8,000), is a portrait of a child while the second, Economy (Paris) €140 a pair (€6,000), is a picture of a pair of shorts on display. Although the two pictures are visually of a piece with the other works exhibitied in their washed out colouration the titles jar with the prices quoted for each in the sense that Maguire's painting costs so much more than the pair of shorts. Surely the same criticism of obscene pricing to be levelled at the shorts sellers can be levelled at Maguire if one sets the two goods (the shorts and the paintings) in contrast against the wages paid to the Jakartan worker? Granted, it's always possible that Maguire sells equally accomplished works at artificially lower prices or it may even be his point that our idea of art should also fall within the terms of reference of his examination of what constitutes art. Either way however, the juxtaposition of the price of these art works with the implicit criticism of the vast gulf seperating Western and developing world conceptions of value seems to raise important and specific questions that the exhibition doesn't actually address.
Following on from these smaller works we encounter an arresting piece depicting a silhouette set against a grey background; a portrait of alienation entitled Prison Yard (€14,000). This is then followed by a mountainscape, Social Democracy (Jotunheimen) (€5,500), before the exhibition concludes with Railway Junction (€14, 000), a representation of a train yard with tracks and cable masts done in various shades of grey and brown dominating in the forground. To the sides old buildings loom while the pale yellow sky, the colour of aged paper, hangs over it all.
This painting seems nicely appropriate for closing out the exhibition. In the way that the notion of an old train yard may not strike many as being a fitting subject for a painting Maguire's choice of subject matter and ability to draw a compelling image from such seemingly unpromising material hammers home his point that the question of what constitutes social endeavour is one that confronts us all the time. Indeed in these well realised works, which are, in spite of the odd perspectives and washed out colours, fairly straightforward representational pieces, there is an understated challlenge to the much of the self serving guff and cant about strategic goals and long term planning that shrouds debates about social endeavour. In reimagining and representing such quotidian objects to us in his own singular style Maguire askes us to do the same; to personally examine what we regard within our day to day environment as being worthy of our collective support and approbation. For this reason, Maguire's work is a valuably nuanced and subtle addition to the debate about what constitutes social endeavour.
No comments:
Post a Comment