JAMES CASTLE @ DOUGLAS HYDE

Could this guy write? I thought he couldn't, well there's a lot of writing in this show, but its still difficult to know because what is there is either copied from logotypes or weird letter-ish symbols, its kinda great because it shows how biographical detail becomes helpful in decoding how this guy's work uh worked and how it becomes weirdly more expansive than private through the pile up of these weird codings. For that to work tho u do need to kno a little abt how this guy. He was deaf and he had v. little schooling and almost never left Idaho I think. He never learned to read or write or speak and the weird scraps of drawings in this show are a selection of the one method he had of communicating with the world.

Okay so I wasn't buying that line first, becoz the first thing u c r all these family portrait things only with weird box ppl and its a bit, well, this kinda "ppl r strange 2 me" narrative is exactly what puts most ppl off abt "outsider art" isn't it? turning mental patients, hillbillies and chimpanzees into weird cyphers and mouthpieces of our id r whatever, u kno, the standard this-is-offensive line. But they're just one thing and the rest of the exhibition is great in a way that kinda dismantles that early criticism which is really just caffeine+opinions lets be honest here.

I'm not gonna launch into some lengthy exposition of why i fucking love writing-in-painting lately, but that reciprocation and disconnection between two different functions of markmaking is really interesting to me at the moment so it was definitely the strategy that led me into this and not just jumping on some reactionary stance just for the sake of it. But at the same time its not really something I can talk abt right now in shortform because I'm digesting my thots on this in a big way in larger form atm so I'm just gonna leave it for now and you're gonna have to take it from me that there is something going on here that is clever and knowing, and its abt an interest in language that is complex and fragmentary and ambivalent and that the two drawings of letters are stuttering and nicely played but work in a stratum just beneath words so you should really just see them tbh.

Highlight of the show though are these really great little landscapes, done i suppose in the artist's spit 'n' ashes ink. Nearly all of the same small-town backyard setting they walk a thin line between claustrophobic n intimite but moreso are really fascinating just for their dense compositions, the way eaves of rooftops sing with telephone wires from and lines that lock and groove out from each other in a way that is both incredibly fluent and anxiously groping. Also the dense tangles of patchy brushland, the nervous neatness of well kept lawns, everything seems expressive in its own silence. I nearly forgot to mention the interiors that seem incredibly descriptive of watery light filling a room from a few feet away, but up close are nearly crude and childish, this is pretty much the weird condition of this whole show tho.

Also shit like drawing on crappy old scraps of paper will get u very far in my books and this had really cool frames that hooked on at the sides in this weird way and were all cool and super minimalist in this great way when contrasted with the delicacy of the falling-apart, yellowing notepaper and scraps of things that Castle used for supports including these genuinely fucking weird doll things that I wanna see again b4 i die! I hope I get to go back in time for the Mike Nelson thing anyway, I'm perennially semi curious abt him u kno.

ALICE MAHER @ GREEN ON RED

Ok I figure ur supposed to have an opinion on this exhibition. First time I've ever seen another person in this gallery while I was there, and there was like six. And its been on a while. tbh I never really got what was supposed to make this chick any better than the girls I used to see copping her moves at art-school and I don't know if this show is gonna be the one to change my mind.

First off this seemed okay. There were framed prints made from the animations which comprise the main bulk of the exhibition. I wondered about how they left in the rubbed out bits somehow. I wish I knew more abt printmaking processes sometimes.

So Alice Maher's schtick is like this queasy dissection of the body and she's obsessed with hair, but beyond that, I really didn't know what I was meant to extrapolate from this exhibition. When William Kentridge does the one page animation thing, its abt histories that can't be erased maybe, when Maher does it she just seems to be exploiting its inherent visual seductiveness. Bodies morph, mutate, merge and disolve, turning into bees and balls of hair and the sound is close mic-ed and uncomfortable in its detail. There's a level of skill in the drawing (even if her faces are a bit awkward and junior-cert-ey at times) but there's not a whole lot of um variation in how she makes the mutations happen. Like, you won't be mad at yourself for trekking out to see this, but I doubt you'll be that into it either, but then what do I know.

ross mc donnell

I don't really know what Cros Gallery's deal is. They've had a couple of kickass shows lately mixed with a few mediocre ones. This one looks fucking great, wish it was on for more than 18 days because I might not get to actually see it. (I had plans to make it up next thursday, but it looks like that might not happen now, hmmm). Yeah, work and etc. Anyway, I feel like I should give this a mention anyway because at least from the jpegs this looks great. Messy and funny and with weird colours, dude streaks thick lines over anemic smears of paint, parts are collaged, pieces of imagery are reconfigured and put back together in ways that seem askew and lackadaisical. I like the slacker aesthetic, but it also seems like it masks something more methodical that I can't really put my finger on (duh, was hoping seeing them in the flesh would give me a clue!)

Anyway, its nice to see that this kind of abstraction is being done by younger painters, it feels like it has definite roots in 70's abstract painting, but thankfully doesn't feel like it needs to update the politics of that era, instead the introductions of imagery on the periphery of the optical register feels like a shrug in the direction of having something to look at, I like that, these are obviously abstract paintings, but they kinda flirt around with imagery and pictorial space in an easy-going and charming way. What I mean to say is its not exactly "the message" or whatever that is so appealing, but the tone of voice. You get the feeling you could hang out with this guy.



Over washed Nirvana T-Shirt translates faded worn cotton and that lame t-shirt everyone had in school (I fucking love nirvana but that t-shirt is stupid imo) you know, the one with the crooked smile, and hastily reassembles it as scribbled-in patches of greenish black oil paint, the outlines are the pinkish underpainting smeared up onto the top surface of the paint. A big theme is maybe a tension between different pictorial surfaces and redepictions of them, in which case a t-shirt is really, i dunno clever? Would like to see as well how these play out with the relationships between different layers of paint, large parts seem like they operate more in terms of obscuring what's beneath them than projecting outwards which is a great idea maybe, because the markmaking itself seems pretty bold but the emphasis is inward. Anyway its hard to know just from some jpegs so you should check it out urself and let me know if i'm onto something haha.

NOUGHTIES BUT NICE @ LCGA

This was obviously never gonna really work as a broad survey of contemporary Irish art, but seriously get one clue Limerick City Gallery. Even the Seán Lynch was pretty rubbish. Amanda Coogan should be banned from inflicting her rubbish overly literal performance videos on the world in my opinion and also since when is over the hill nearly ran John Shinnors an emerging voice? Limerick City Gallery reeks of the kind of cronyism that all the american painter blogs are crucifying NY's New Museum for at the moment. Good thing this thing is almost over so you can miss it.

Update.

This has been extended until 20th December, so you have another month to be excited by irish art NOW.

A few other things from Dublin

What is the deal with the Cross Gallery, they always have semi-cool stuff downstairs and boring mom-art upstairs, well the two times I've been there. I think downstairs might be called "nag" and be their emerging art things maybe. Anyway, downstairs is worth a look, but I'm too lazy to go into it right now, long day, etc.

Are Monster truck ever open?

I liked the thing I saw in green on red, there was one drawing done by scratching out a mirror and another done by printing on the back of reflective Glass, space used really nicely to show big silvery video, drawings were pretty great. This was it btw.

Went to the Munch exhibition in the National Gallery. Didn't think I was a huge fan, but holy shit could he draw!

Kathy Predergast in the Kerlin was a bit disappointing, was a bit like a third year crit, esp. with douchebaggy NCAD seminar taking place there. Reminded me why I was so glad to finish art school haha. Lots of stuff with inked out maps, not as compelling as here map drawings and seemed a bit tossed off to be honest.

I liked the thing that was about sports maybe in the RHA with the big sculpture, some of the paintings were really stunning and the whole thing had a snottiness about it that in a weird way reminded me of Infinite Jest (which I will one day finish I swear). Hadn't a clue what it was about though.

I knew Mother's Tankstation was gonna be closed but I still checked cos I am a loser like that. Love that place, hope I catch the next thing that opens.

That's pretty much all I can remember, but I have a feeling I'm forgetting some stuff.

Tulca 2009

The Tulca festival is held every year around Galway city. I suppose it's very similar in ambition to ev+a, organised annually around Limerick by the City Gallery there. Like ev+a, it pushes a programme based around video, installation and performance and using spaces outside the traditional art spaces. I've been feeling a really good vibe about Galway's art scene lately but these multimedia festivals tend to leave me a little cold for some reason so I just decided to go in to this with no preconceptions.

They didn't advertise opening night on the website, a shame because the free wine was pretty good for free wine, but a friend of mine was volunteering and we had decided met up to go drinking after. But yeah, it was in what used to be Habitat and it did a good job for the night of pretending to be a hip space in berlin r something. There was some neon on the wall and a video where some chick dumps her baby in a drawer by the side of the road (?) and for some reason all the kids seemed to be watching the slideshow of violent scenes which was pretty funny. Yeah okay I wasn't really paying attention.

Today on my lunch break I headed over to St. Nicholas where they were showing some small pieces that were really hard to find and the invigilator kindof had a fulltime job pointing them out to people. Must have been hard for her as I'd say she pointed out a video of an ear hidden under a grate to more than one tourist/person there to pray. Also some drawings that I didn't like, didn't really get this at all and it seemed a bit half formed/assed to be honest.

Also G126, this was pretty funny. I spent the bus home thinking I was gonna say something like "when did google maps become a universal signifier of planning your holiday?" and try and be all clever and knowing about it, but really I just thought this show was quite sweet. Like the raw materials were just the things that you google the night you book your flights, but it was pieced together with fun references from Steve Reich to Felix Gonzalez Torres. A big crinkled google printout of the atlantic, a stack of postcards, a video of a currach, upside down and probably fed through youtube at some point. Highlight for me was the one where they layered a line from "Galway Bay" from about as many versions as he could find on iTunes I'm guessing. Really woozy and beautiful and cute in its copping of 60's tape music. A good show, it made its concerns sculptural, assembling ideas about travel in actual spatial constructions, more than just a neat trick in my opinion.

I also legged it around the Arts Centre but they were closing and it looked boring.

LYNDA BENGLIS @ IMMA

Feel like there's an essay in the works on this one, so I'll keep it brief here. This was a great show and one of the reasons that IMMA have been restoring a lot of my previous faith in them after a dodgy couple of years. Lynda Benglis, best known for her ARTFORUM ad featuring her wearing nothing but sunglasses and an, um, dildo, emerged as a figure from the New York Painting Scene of the late 60's early 70's. Thankfully this period has overgone a huge reappraisal in recent years with figures as diverse as Mary Heilmann and Joan Mitchell re-emerging as important and influential. Benglis' work from this period is aggressively feminist in rhetoric, but in its lush materialism and sly disruption of formalism, seems to anticipate queer 90's artists Felix Gonzalez Torres (pro tip for blog readers, if I align anybody with FGT it means I am about to say I like them) and Roni Horn.

I suppose it would be suitable to cite Robert Morris or Judy Chicago, both artists whose awareness of the gendered rhetoric of Minimalism in particular informed their work (Chicago, before she embraced large installations on feminist themes, made quietly prettified Minimalist sculpture) Neither of these artists approached the formal subversion of Benglis though, her flamboyant and gaudy sculptures deconstruct the maleness of the previous decades of american art, the ejaculations of Jackson Pollock and the cool supermensch boy-toys of minimalism, and remake them as bawdy, excessive and bodacious visions of camp femaleness.

Working with latex, wax, plaster, glitter and vibrant acrylics, much of the show has the appearance of Mardi-Gras float casualties (especially due to the repeated use of chicken wire to give many sculptures structure) But it is in this free-floating garishness that the artist stumbles across her radicalness, her affront to bourgeois tastefulness. While her work is lacking in the nuance and subtlety of Mary Heilmann, it makes up for it with sheer willpower. Considering how long it has taken this period of recent history to become canonised, her aggressiveness seems justified yet how odd to think that in a world where Warhol was the most famous living artist, that it took so long for this post-pop abstraction to gain respectability. Still, it is in its persistant un respectability that this show is so much fun, in all its kinky, rubbery trashiness.

FRANCIS BACON @ HUGH LANE

The problem with the Francis Bacon exhibition in Hugh Lane is that it kindof confirms everything I suspected I didn't like about the painter. Ambitiously staged with many works on loan from private collections and museums, especially the Tate, the exhibition also makes use of the vast store of research materials, photographs and drawings held by the gallery.

Okay, so I started at the wrong side, and was harried around by impatient stewards and guards from my point of entry on (despite entering more than 20 mins before the advertised closing time, wtf?) but I'm sure I'll have at least one more chance to see this show again before it closes. Major Props to the curators who seem to have dissected entire working practice down into its constituent parts, making up the pieces of the puzzle from torn and modified photographs, drawings and reproductions torn from art books.

The first thing that started to bother me was the type of transference we were supposed to feel by looking at certain images in this context. Was looking at the Muybridge repros different here than it was when I leafed through the copy of The Human Figure in Motion held in the Library in college. In both instances the impetus was Bacon, but whereas originally I was drawn to the images on their own terms, here I felt I was being called to infer from these images something latent which would find its real expression in the paintings which are held tantalisingly at bay in the inner rooms of the exhibition. Maybe if the exhibition had only included those Muybridge photographs (whose intended orig purpose was more scientific than artistic) and those photographs which Bacon commissioned as working material. It gets onto much shakier ground when it starts displaying Old Master reproductions.

Having spent four years in art college as a painter I know full well the need and value of surrounding yourself with work that interests and influences you, hell its this impulse that has led to this blog. But it troubled me when I spent a few minutes once again admiring a Michaelangelo drawing, but once again I felt like it was being proposed that I dwell on these as though they were the raw materials of Bacon's art as opposed to the endlessly compelling works of art they themselves are. I don't want to digress too much into Ways of Seeing territory here, but the torn reproductions and smudges of paint that adorned these drawings, in this instance seemed an insinuation of ownership of some kind. It reminded me of the reservations expressed by my art history lecturer and, I'm sure, many more people over the display of the artist's studio on permanent display in the same gallery. Contained in a chilling central chamber, the studio is preserved in detailed accuracy as a holy relic, just as the artist left it, like the bedroom of a deceased child. The preservation makes the studio mystical, displaced from its context, it appears as an apparition of 80's london in its ghostly Hirst-Like vitrine.

In fact we reach the point, when we see the paintings finally, that they seem so easy. This limb from Michaelangelo, this one from Muybridge and this blurred face from a personal snapshot. The look of paintings has never felt more, well, assembled. All of a sudden, the recurring compositions feel more like laziness, as if the painter has found an easy armature onto which he can easily assemble his collage of influence. Even the bravura painting, which had been what I admired most about Bacon, seems easier due to predetermination, not to mention, paling next to the example set by Titian in the previous room.

Bacon's professed appreciation of a young, up-and-coming Hirst before his passing seems more obvious now. Like Hirst, Bacon is more about Punchlines maybe. His paintings seem more illustrative and conceptual than painterly and exploratory. Maybe it is in this light that we should see them. In truth, his appropriation of all this stuff seems a lot less icky in the context of appropriation art such as Sherrie Levine or Glenn Ligon, its just that I find it hard to come to Bacon as a queer artist. For although he operated outside of artworld orthodoxy for most of his career, Bacon never feels like an outsider now. Anyway, if anyone actually reads this blog at least yet, this is one where I'd love some comment box action.

FERGUS FEEHILY @ DOUGLAS HYDE

If there was a driving force behind my recent gallery trip this was it. I first came across Fergus Feehily when he gave a workshop at my art school. It was only with retrospect that I realised how lucky I was to have been there for it as he has since become one of my most admired artists and definitely a major touchstone for the work I have since done. Also Douglas Hyde Gallery has been unbelievable over the last year or so, and while I'm gutted I missed their recent Raoul De Keyser (a major painter in my estimation) show of watercolours, recent enough exhibitions by Karin Mamma Andersson and Miroslav Tichy have been impressively curated and just, really nice to look at.

So its really difficult to get outside of my own perspective on this guy who since I've obsessed over his work, ripped it off and pretty much forced everyone who'll sit still for long enough to look at jpegs of his stuff on my laptop and, as if the fates had organised it, sat at the bottom of the stairs were a bunch of art students with their tutor, seemingly to remind me of why other ppl might not like them. The major theme among the naysayers that I gathered from my not-so-subtle eavesdropping was that the work on show "just didn't really seem like much."

I mean, Douglas Hyde is a big space, with hugely high ceilings an just masses of walls. And Feehily's work is, well, small. Assembled from scraps of wood, assorted paper, fabric, photographs and delicate, tentative passages of painting, it bears a lot of the hallmarks of what Raphael Rubinstein terms "Provisional Painting" in the much talked about recent Art in America feature. And yet the paradox of Feehily's work is that these works, while handmade, sparse and assembled with all their seams showing, are also sumptuous, multi-faceted and jewel-like.

Its pretty hard to articulate on a verbal level the way the tiny jokes, idiosyncratic details and sly formal playfulness all add up to something more and how beautifully the large white walls of Douglas Hyde are utilised so that these events are allowed to register despite their modesty. There's one painting just inside the door, where the frame is cut, presumably assembling two cheap secondhand frames, so that one edge is twice as thick as the other two. It takes a second to register but when it does, it registers as a kind of inward smile. Another painting exploits an extraordinary resonance of colour between of casually daubed pink paint on baby pink card.

Like I said, its pretty hard to verbalise precisely, but these paintings set off a reaction in me like Dougal opening the advent calender in Father Ted, it might not even matter what new detail is unveiled, but it sets off a kind of giddy impulse when a flash of pink from the side of a canvas re-energises the whole painting. They definitely feel like the work of someone who takes a kind of excessive joy in the nuts and bolts of painting. Each painting feels like a series of parcels to be opened, each detail unveils itself in such a way that that comparison just feels really right to me.

And on top of that there's the catalogue. Douglas Hyde always produce high end fetish object catalogues for their exhibitions and Feehily is the author of a number of artists's books. Sure I couldn't afford to eat lunch after buying this, but it kept me smiling all the way home on the bus, and hopefully it will be enough to stave off making a return visit before this exhibition ends in a weeks time. Yeah, that's how much time you have left to see this.

Lamb Teddy

Drawings of a teddy, that is a lamb