Visual Art
‘A MOMENT IS UNDERLINED, AN OBJECT IS TWEAKED AND
REALITY IS QUESTIONED'
Eternal Rotation by Maurice Doherty
The art of memory
Alexander Kennedy remembers some of MAURI E DOI-IERTY’s work, where pain and pleasure become blurred recollections.
lmost a century ago. the documentation of
actions. situations. performances replaced the
sacrosanct art object. Modernist idealism died. With every Surrealist or Dadaist melee. art and its objects were torn. shattered. turned upside down and left to fend for themselves in a world going to hell in a handcart. Irish-born and Glasgow-based Maurice Doherty works in this Dadaist tradition. tying it to the no nonsense clarity of conceptual art. His lens-based. sculptural and two-dimensional work is always funny. but the humour is black. These are dark times.
His new show at Glasgow‘s Tramway. Eternal Rotation. hopes to examine the ‘transience of experience. the interplay of morality and culture. and the conflict between the beauty and banality of being alive‘. The artist is cagey abottt what exactly will be on show. but the title of the exhibition and the goldfish image (from a film which will be projected in the gallery space) give us a few clues. Repetition and the joys and pains of forgetting come to mind. the fact that we circle around our desires and symptoms with equal pleasure. We rub it until it bleeds. In this
respect the art object becomes a locus of
contradictory urges. and the viewer circles the object like a patient trying to figure out why life hurts so much. This was made explicit in his lilm installation ‘Loop‘. 2004. in which a female figure spins a hoola- hoop around her midriff. We are presented with front and back shots of the scenario. and the viewer is invited to walk around both screens. mirroring the on- screen action. The lilm too is looped and could. in
78 THE LIST 19 Jan—2 Feb 2006
theory. continue to spin until something breaks. Doherty's aesthetic is one of suggestion and subtle manipulation. A moment is underlined. an object is tweaked and reality is questioned. And usually that reality is dangerous. In pieces such as ‘Mass Destruction‘. 2002. he placed a gas cooker attached to a gas canister in the (‘ollective Gallery. lidinburgh. The gas was switched on and a lit candle was placed at the other end of the gallery. In another piece entitled ‘(‘ontTict’. l‘)‘)7. a piano was suspended from the ceiling of a gallery by a rope. An axe lay close by and the viewer was invited it hack at the rope if she or he so desired. These suggestive. simple but dangerous installations continue some of the later minimalists‘
concern with action and the physical involvement of
the viewer. The theatrical element supposedly invoked by minimal sculptures (which act as blank sets and empty stages) is emphasised. but this time the everyday object is attacked.
lilsewhere in Doherty's oeuvre early modernist concerns are deconstructed. In ‘Belfast Boogie Woogie‘. I997. he painted Mondrian‘s checkerboard Neo-Plasticism in red. blue and yellow onto the streets of Belfast. applying uncompromising purist ideas to the grey slabs of concrete on a depressing concourse. Public art interventions. graffiti and a witty critique of the blindness of early formalist approaches meet on a few broken slabs. Reality is temporarily altered. and silver clouds are given pretty black linings.
Eternal Rotation, Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 5 Feb.
llit
THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
# Elizabeth Ogllule - Bodies of Water
The ambivalent nature of water, is examined in the work of Elizabeth Ogilvie, which
transforms the galleries at DCA
into a calming and thought provoking aqueous domain. Films. projections and large installation elements dominate the space. Dundee Contemporary Art, Dundee, until Fri 12 Feb. See review, page 79. * Turner in January - The Vaughn Bequest
The yearly exposition of the Turner watercolour corpus bequeathed by Henry Vaughn takes place at the National Gallery of Scotland on the Mound. The work shown includes topographical studies and some of the more avant- garde abstract and sublime works that the artist is best known» for. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, until Tue 31 Jan. See review, page 79. * Maurice Doherty - Eternal Rotation
The aesthetically pleasing debris of performances and actions fill the main gallery space at the Tramway. Doherty's work explores new perspectives on realism and repetition. Expect large video projections and installations that simultaneously seduce and repel the viewer. Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 5 Feb. See preview, page 78.
* Selective Memory - Scotland and Venice
Newly commissioned work is placed alongside work previously shown by Alex Pollard, Cathy Wilkes and Tatham and O’Sullivan at last year’s Venice Biennale. Each of the artists has installed radically different pieces, but the themes of self-referentiality and memory is shared. National Gallery of Modem Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 5 March.