Before re : public

re : public, Can something happen in public again? Launch night: 4th

February 2010, 6-8pm, Temple Bar Gallery & Studios. Image: courtesy of the author.

Note to reader: The impetus to write this text came from 'not seeing' the
Gradcam affiliated project - re : public, at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios,
February - March, 2010. The following is a critical overview of the last decade
regarding curatorship and the notions that underpin the divide between practice
and theory.

Writing, saying and hearing the number 2010 feels right, it has a nice ring to it -
balanced. I wasn't convinced, so after a quick google I found a math blog - in love with
the beautiful game of numbers. One blogger posted an equation of prime numbers in
order, resulting in the number 2010. [1] It is the notion of odd resulting in even that
sums up the nature of balance and sets the scene for this text.
The weather has been uneasy and natural disasters have been a plenty of late. The
previous sentence is almost biblical; the fear and anxiety of not upsetting the order of
things is currently in the blood. But we are creatures that have the facility to separate
ourselves from bad omens or events, that are too close for comfort, or far enough
away to ignore. This brings me to an event that I felt excluded from, which seems to
be the point of the project - re : public at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios.

As I said in the introductory note, I haven't experienced re : public as yet, but not
without trying. When I travelled to Dublin for that specific purpose, I was met by a
notice typed on an A4 page on the inside of the glass door of the shuttered Temple
bar Gallery which read - 'The exhibition re : public will be open between 1 - 8pm.' Not
seeing the event creates the potential to imagine the counter - themes that the
proposed series of events hope to tackle - such as the architectonic and globalist
notions that pervade the public consciousness. Between 11 - 1pm ( the usual opening
hours for the gallery), intervention and performative actions will take place
unbeknownst to the public - this would be the case anyway even without the notice or
shutter. ( I have been notified since writing this article that between 11 - 1pm - 'no
events occur' behind the scenes. However, as this overview is based on the premise
of 'not seeing' the event - 'Before' in the title suggests that this is not criticism per se,
but quick assumption, which is particularly pertinent when dealing with a disenchanted
Irish public - I will not amend comments). What this fabricated site of discussion
presumably remarks on is a fabricated public identity, that pretends to dream of
togetherness, collaboration and a leftist model of equality. Without seeing - I presume
that the initiators of re : public have presented this fragmented site with texts on the
floor and Gillickesque communal areas. Let's not forget, Nicolas Bourriaud's forced
relational tentacles tried to reach out beyond the private sphere of the art gallery to be
ignored outright. What public is the event reflecting on? Are we talking about the
general public? Does this event highlight that the people who have a vested interest in
art are only interested in creating more motifs, and by default - whether true or not -
are illustrating the political impotence that the only free space - art - practices?
Aleana Egan: One vane can, 2009, cardboard, tape, acrylic paint, deco-fill, stell tube, polyester stuffing, wood,
16 x 207 x 220 cm; photo Davey Moor. Image: http://www.recirca.com/cgi-bin/mysql/show_item.cgi?
post_id=5124&type=reviews&ps=publish

Gradcam are innovative; but maybe they running before they can walk; or before the
rest of us can jog along. re: public is perhaps the culmination of work developed over
the last few years, or is it just a spontaneous response to the current politics regarding
the public? The recent programme at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (the most
centrally located public arts centre in Dublin), has been underpinned by a overly
curatorial foundation. Take the previous exhibition - Aleana Egan's 'difficult' solo show
- Sunday Night, which was either an honest tinkering with modernist formal tidings on
the part of the artist, or a slap in the face for the viewer; where anything goes - really
means anything goes. Both avenues are perfectly valid, but the intent was not
defined. The title, Sunday Night, has a profound effect when you place it in the well
worn narrative of the school kid, hoping to cheat his/ her way out of school the
following dreaded Monday. Was Egan's work a cheat, an allusive illusion with an
escape clause - if people don't connect the dots? I am waiting for someone to pull the
curtains and shout - up and at em.

I am all for creating a meeting place for theory and art, especially when it comes to
ground roots art education in Ireland - where it continues to have no place. But have
Gradcam and Temple Bar Gallery jumped the gun in their assimilation of new theories
through PhD musings? PhD's in art are in their infancy and the practitioners of these
would-be theses are threading virgin ground. All the key terms are being ticked off,
'New Knowledge - Innovation,' but is this just stuff for the sake of more stuff. We don’t
want the cynical phrase "piled high and deeper" to gain anymore ground when it
comes to furthering our art education. Do we really know what we are doing as
educators and influential stakeholders for the future reception and production of art in
this country. Mick Wilson and Daniel Jewesbury are at the top of their respective
fields; whether placed nationally or internationally. Jewesbury, as guest speaker, said
at the Gradcam State of Play Conference in 2008, that he may have been invited as a
'provocateur.' That said, his curation of re: public, places him in a space that is not
independent, so being provocative can be no more without that distance that is so
important for ruptures to occur. The critic John Kelsey says that:

Criticism never interrupts anything. Like art, it depends too much on the relations that
support it. In a culture that rewards artists and critics for being so usefully useless,
rupture is imagined to be no longer effective, and never becomes political. [2]

Aurélien Froment, Calling the elephant, Project Arts Centre, 14 DEC 2007 - 26 JAN 2008 http://
www.projectartscentre.ie/archive/archive-va-detail/281-calling-the-elephant
The Project Arts Centre and Temple Bar Gallery & Studios have sometimes been the
victims of over-curation. Too many cooks with one overpowering ingredient - curation
itself - gives the events the effect of a shuffling encyclopedia on repeat. Aurélien
Froment solo effort Calling the elephant 2008 at The Project is one recent success in
the Projects curatorial archives ( including Clodagh Emoe's Cult of engagement,
2010). Froment's work articulated the awkward space both physically and mindfully as
a set of absences. The success can be measured in how the narratives were found in
the gaps, in and around the objects.

The practice of curation has evolved with 3rd Level art education in Ireland. Out of the
fear of boredom and stagnation, hybrid versions of the curator (artist/ curator - curator/
critic), have grown in complexity; their purpose becoming haphazard and indecisive.
Paradoxically, over the last ten years the art world has been simplified by the
saturation of the overabundant biennale, the elevation to PhD art practice and our
ever expanding notion of the global. One aspect that is overlooked is the exposure to
art practices from abroad in spaces like Dublin's Douglas Hyde Gallery.

The Director, John Hutchinson has exposed the Irish art audience to international
cutting edge - trendy - strong practices; solo and group painting shows being the best
examples. Influential names such as: Peter Doig, 2000; Michael Graig-Martin, Neo
Rauch, 2001; Verne Dawson 2004, Tomma Abts 2005 (Before she won the Turner
Prize - 2006), Royal Art Lodge, 2005 ( An influence for students and practitioners alike
–whether they liked it or not), Wilhelm Sasnal 2006, and before my time, Luc
Tuymans, 1999 ( Felix Gonzales-Torres being my introduction to the gallery and
conceptual art in late 1999). Only two examples of painting shows come to mind that
have measured up to the Douglas Hyde Gallery Program: Mark Joyce's curatorial
debut at the Green on Red Gallery, The Idea of North, 2003 and Robert Armstrong's
first solo show after a seven year gap, After Images at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery in
2007.
The Idea of North, John Schabel, Olav Christopher Jenssen, David Deutsch & Mariele Neudecker (curated by
Mark Joyce) 07 Jan - 08 Feb 2003.

The Douglas Hyde Gallery curation has been confusing of late. I am talking about the
two successive painting shows - fergus Feehily's Pavilion and most recently Ciaran
Murphy's self-titled solo show. It is not the painting that is the problem, which is the
strongest we have seen (alongside Damien Flood's confident debut solo at the Green
on Red) in recent years. It is the utilisation of Gallery 2 as an add-on; thematically
connected with Gallery 1. This maybe just an interim curatorial experiment to prevent
a face-off between two practices - mediums. In other words, avoiding the painting
versus all the rest argument. Recently, practices such as Mama Anderson's cool
narrative paintings against Nina Canell's intellectually enigmatic interventions in space
- worked. Gallery 2 always has an osmotic pull when you enter the Douglas Hyde; the
concentrated high pressure space beckons to viewer to look. Having Japanese
Country Textiles in plane view of Feehily's evocations of place, jarred the reception of
the paintings, and not in a good way. The same can be said of Nepalese Shamanism:
Ritual Objects from Nepal curated alongside Murphy's paintings, which I was prepared
for after the previous textile intrusion. I chose to ignore Gallery 2 this time around,
although it was especially difficult due to a series of Murphy's paintings suggesting
shamanistic rituals, that begged the viewer to recall Joseph Beuys and especially his
student Anselm Kiefer, who's fascination with shamanism spawned a series of
paintings of similar small log fires, albeit in large wooden rooms.

Ciaran Murphy, Fire, 2007, Oil on linen, 40 x 40 cm, Private collection

http://www.douglashydegallery.com/exhibition.php?intProjectID=50&intOrder=4

This brings me to the importance of reflecting on the dichotomies and divides that
separates art from its motivation - the world at large. As with natural disasters,
opinions are a plenty; the blog has already seeped into the irish art psyche. Art
motivated by social networking sites can be successful, as Alan Phelan ruminates on
in his CIRCA online review of Padraig Robinson's solo - Fun friendship and maybe
more, Monster Truck Gallery and Studios, November 2009. [3] However, when opinion
(blogging) is dressed as art criticism then we have a problem. Gradcam's re : public
exposes a chasm between the esoteric critical thought that underlines Gradcam's
programme versus the lazy opinion that undermines art as a sound-bite through the
ever popular blog. Lacking the depth in critical opinion that international art centres
have developed since the 50's through the likes of Clement Greenberg, Art Forum in
the 60's, followed by the Rosalind Krauss initiated Journal, October in 1976, art blogs
can only compound our youthful reception and articulation of art practice and theory.
VAI's Printed Project fails to fill the chasm because its circulation is so inconspicuous.
CIRCA's internet distribution of its wares is a brave, but right move; it cements the fact
that the web is the way forward for the distribution of ideas, especially ideas
surrounding art practice. Among artists, the blog has become a way of disseminating
opinion with flippant efficiency. However, the blog exposes the generally juvenile
handling of art when compared to more adult centres. It seems we are picking and
running with opinion a few steps from where we started.

It could be said that the blog fills the void of not being reviewed, which has always
been a problem locally. The hope that commercial galleries and artists put into getting
a review from CIRCA or the lone newspaper critic Aidan Dunne - is obsurd. More
telling is the blame that is projected onto CIRCA and Dunne after the fact. Lacking in
infrastructure usually sparks arguments over roads and transport but it can also be
argued, that because art programmes that prioritize theory over practice are relatively
new, we have fast-tracked our approach to art criticism; a superficial layer of critique is
ok at a distance but when interrogated it begins to crumble. Melanie Gilligan and J J
Charlesworth say the art world in general has developed a "belletristic" form of art
writing to appease the global art market. [4] Opinion is important, especially if the
author is granted a platform that speaks to the masses, beyond the
compartmentalised art scape. It is interesting to take Dunne's recent review in The
Irish Times of Nevan Lahart's solo show at the Royal Hibernian Academy:

NEVAN LAHART introduces his exhibition, A Lively Start to a Dead End , at the RHA
with a cautionary note. Most press releases for art events, he suggests, make
“references to the references that can be found in the work.” Rather than, that is to
say, to the work. So you go to the exhibition and find yourself dealing not with the
promised bundle of references but with the fact of the work itself, “and the rest is up to
you”. So Lahart doesn’t give us any references, nor any name-checks of fashionable
theorists, just an indication of what we needn’t expect to find: “Understanding,
meaning or a new lifestyle choice.” [5]

It maybe unkind or an act of flattery (depending on your view of the show at the RHA)
to say that Lahart’s installation is the equivalent of the blog in how it was fabricated
and subsequently received by Dunne and the public alike. A 'dichotomy in the Dublin
art world' which Hilary Murray remarks upon in her CIRCA Blog 'A lively start to the
year (Thursday 28 January 2010),' simplifies the divide. If Nevan Lahart's solo show at
the RHA is to be highlighted as one of the divergent bodies in the art divide - the other
is not Mark Garry’s solo - another place (15 January - 13 February 2010) at the Kerlin
Gallery as Murray proclaims. What her blog rushes over is context. The Kerlin is a
commercial space for established artists, who are not there to prove themselves as
"brave" fabricators of art practice. There is no campaign here. Garry's other
happenings beyond the Kerlin are beside the point. And can art be 'brave'? Maybe in
a particular context? If 'brave' is to be allocated to lahart's show at the RHA, the word
should be placed at the source - the RHA's initial facilitation of the event.

Liam Gillick, The Venice Biennale 2009, The German Pavilion. Image: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/
Arts_/Pictures/2009/6/8/1244476685945/Liam-Gillicks-installatio-002.jpg

Back at the shuttered Temple Bar Gallery where the source for this overview began, I
cannot tell whether re : public could potentially be a beginning in an effort to open up a
discussion about the catastrophism of the publics position in the dislocated present, or
an end in order to start anew. Something similar to a great purge has been described
recently by Bourriaud in his postmodern hiatus - Altermodern. Liam Gillick, one of
Bourriaud's ex-disciples who's work Adrian Searle generally described as 'always a
heavy-handed mix of the decorative, the intellectually arch and the overdetermined;'
and who's last outing at Venice at the German Pavillion he referred to as a strained
performance, may give more back than Searle outlines. [7] The desire to see more,
say more and experience more, visits us all at one time or another. Art, by its very
definition works off the gaps, the intrusions and the ruptures; it is deliberately cryptic
to avoid the pigeon hole. Gillick, in a revealing short-film interview by Ralph Goertz on
his Venice work says:

I was always interested in just this idea of the problem of being an artist more than
any specific medium. This always seemed to me…in a way, everything I do is part of
my artwork, even if it involves writing or doing something that seems pragmatic or
practical…it is all part of that work…the idea is to try and become an artist: this would
be the more accurate way to say it. The work is how to become an artist.[6]

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Feb 2010, Image: Courtesy of the author.
Going back to quote Rancière may defeat the trajectory of this overview, but if you
take him at arms - lengh he can be helpful. He describes democracy as an
unwinnable ideal due to the fact the ideal of democracy was borne out of a fight; the
result being - the fight will always be attached to the ideal. [7] From this perspective,
art is inherently avoidant of the political and the social in order to tackle such concerns
in a roundabout way. In other words, or more to the point, to paraphrase Rancière: art
can only be art when it exists on the parameters of the social and the political. Gillick's
venetian 'failure' could be an example of art's desire to be something other than itself.
As Gillick describes his work as a way to become an artist, maybe art is always trying
to become art. From a psychosocial perspective, Lacan says that: "Desire is neither
the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results
from the subtraction of the first from the second."[8] Art seems to work at the edges of
desire (the desire for more from the different modes of fragmented communication).
re : public’s literal “shuttering off,” leaves it open to criticism from the public at large. If
this is a device to cause a rupture - then it works on the level that art is defined by its
apolitical stance in order to become political. Otherwise, the events, the publications,
talks, interventions and outcomes become an inventory of esoteric - archival micro-
politics.

James Merrigan is an artist

[1] The equation: 2010 = 2*3*5*(7+11+13+17+19) http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=2139

[2] John Kelsey, ‘The Hack,’ from Birnbaum and Graw, eds. 2008. Canvases and Careers Today. New
York and Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp 65-73.

[3] Alan Phelan, CIRCA online review of Padraig Robinson's solo - Fun friendship and maybe more,
Monster Truck Gallery and Studios, November 2009. http://www.recirca.com/cgi-bin/mysql/
show_item.cgi?post_id=5151&type=reviews&ps=publish
[4] Melanie Gilligan, 'The contemporary social market', Daniel Birnbaum, Isabelle Graw (eds),
Canvases and careers today, criticism and its markets, Sternberg Press, August 2008, first presented
at a conference organised by the Institut für Kunstkritik in Frankfurt am Main in 2007

[5] Aidan Dunne, Where skeletons rattle the saints and scholars, The Irish Times, Friday, February 5,
2010 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0205/1224263802076.html

[6] Liam Gillick, German Pavillion, Venice Biennale, 2009. http://artobserved.com/ao-on-site-venice-

biennale-liam-gillick-at-the-german-pavillion/

[7] Jacques Rancière - On my Method, Parallax Journal, http://www.scribd.com/doc/21241314/On-

my-Method-by-Jacques-Ranciere

[8] Adrian Searle, Bodies, babble and blood http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jun/09/

venice-biennale-elmgreen-dragset

[9] Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p
287