Andy Warhol through Freud and Marx

 [T]he more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel. [Warhol, ca. 1975]

The advent of theoretical approaches to art that occurred in the twentieth century has produced wide-ranging and significant impacts in the art world. The destruction of logo centric metanarratives in the years leading up to and following the Great War produced a variety of perspectives through which society, the individual, and the worlds of art and politics could be understood. Two of the most potent and influential worldviews to emerge from the rubble of Europe were the schools of Marxism and Psychoanalysis. Both addressed and presented newfound anxieties and threats to the established world - godless realities in which dominance, alienation, repression and insurrection were integral to our reality. In the world of art, this led to a reappraisal of pre-existing artworks through the prisms of socioeconomics and psychoanalytic analysis, and all future artworks were to be subjected to a myriad of conflicting and complimentary perspectives in an attempt to decipher the new reality of a new world. In simple terms, we use theories to explain and organize the world we live in. When theories are explained briefly, a necessary reduction of their complexity and richness occurs. Acknowledging this limitation, I have chosen Marxism and Psychoanalysis as two approaches to engage with a particular work of art.

In the art world, no artist embodied the fractured, elusive, and enigmatic nature of the twentieth century better than Andy Warhol. I have chosen to interpret Warhol through the aforementioned approaches, specifically looking at one painting, Green Burning Car,  from his ‘Death and Disaster’ series of 1962-1964. This offers a social-political commentary upon the dark side of American life in the nineteen-sixties, documenting suicides, car crashes, race riots, electric chairs and atomic bombs. From a Marxist standpoint, Warhol’s preoccupation with the process of production in an artwork, and the way in which he changed the way mass audiences consumed art, was his greatest contribution to modern art, and ensures his legacy. He claimed that he only painted what he loved: money, celebrity, and consumerism - all of which were emblematic of the hyper-industrialised reality of post-war mass democracy. I argue that the serious subject matter of the Green Burning Car silkscreen, and all the pieces within that series, covertly critique the situation that Capitalism has left society in, and address the feelings of alienation fostered by the consumerist American dream to which the the Western world had, by then, largely been programmed to aspire.

Marxism as a movement offers a critique of Capitalist society and presents a materialist understanding of history. It prioritises the struggle of the social classes who, it holds, need to overcome their disenfranchisement through revolution in order to gain political power. It is a movement which found its inception in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Theories have since been built upon these texts which have lead to diversification within Marxist thought and practice. And so, with respect to Warhol’s work, and knowledge of the oppositional and dynamic positions within Marxist theory across many disciplines, I want to narrow the focus of this discussion to Marx’s theory of alienation. I hold that while on the surface Warhol represented Capitalism in its purest, most unadulterated and idolised forms, at a deeper level he was critiquing the technology and mass consumption which served (and, indeed, serves) to numb and reduce the populace into a state of ordinariness and alienation. Marx believed an experience of alienation was caused directly by Capitalism. In the capitalist labour process one does not identify with the product of one’s own labour - this product becomes a distinct, independent entity. Through the process of labour, a person sells themselves as a commodity, and, when reduced to a commodity, the identity of the self is lost. Thus man, now feeling useless, engages in a futile attempt to end his sense of loss and alienation through escalated material consumption. A person begins to identify themselves through their commodities; they find their character in their car, ipod, kitchen and DIY equipment. Thus, ‘all objects for him become the objectification of himself... and objects [for him will] confirm and realise his individuality once they become his objects’ (Marx, 1844, p.25) This process develops through the mechanisation of industrial production and the division of labour. Marx states ‘We have before us the objectified essential powers of man in the form of sensuous, alien, useful objects, in the form of estrangement, displayed in ordinary material industry.’ (Marx, 1844, p.27) As a consequence of this conditioning, we have been morally alienated by the practice of modernity. We have become predictable, mindless robots, manipulated to the extent that commodities have taken on cultural associations, slave to the simultaneous generation and consumption of unending commodities.

The prevailing themes of Warhol’s work always originated in mass produced ideas and products. He took existing representations of reality and repackaged them for consumption over and over again, redefining the meaning of the artefact already existing and imbuing it with new significance when transported into a new context. When we look at the silkscreen painting Green Burning Car we see the same image produced multiple times on the one canvas. This repetition echoes the repetition of images on television and newspapers. It becomes a commentary on mass communications as well as mass productions. It is worth noting here the writings of mid-twentieth century retail analyst Victor Lebow. In an article entitled   Price Competition in 1955 he acknowledged the consciously applied pressure that is essential in order to maintain high levels of mass consumption. According to Lebow, the most powerful way to control desires was through the use of media. He paid particularly close attention to television, which he said ‘achieves […] results to an extent no other advertising medium has ever approached. It creates a captive audience [and] submits that audience to the most intensive indoctrination.’ (Lebow, 1955, p.5)

Warhol’s decision to replicate the same image again and again is a fitting reflection of this relentless baraging of the mind by repetitive imagery. While his most famous works present multiple representations of celebrity icons and household goods, here his choice of image leads us to a more sobering, morbid place. In an interview with Gene Swenson Warhol recounted, ‘When you see a gruesome picture over and over again it really doesn’t have an effect.’ (Art News, 1963) What we see in Green Burning Car is the ultimate gesture towards Capitalist alienation, one which addresses commoditisation on two levels: first, we see the commodification of death purported by the media in its need to sell papers and generate publicity - the majority of the images in this series were taken from newspaper stories. Secondly, we encounter the apparently cynical and pessimistic appropriation of death by the artist himself in the production and sale of his work. It is significant here that the scenes of carnage and human obliteration  are the direct result of man’s recklessness with a car, the ultimate status symbol of the postwar, capitalist, suburban utopia. With the traditional symbolic role of cars transgressed and subverted, Warhol’s images “represent a breach of faith in the products of the Industrial Revolution by featuring consumer products that bring death’. (Warhol, 1988, p. 16)

Capitalist alienation is perhaps most chillingly embodied here by the figure in the background that does not even turn to view the smoking car wreck, creating the impression that the carnage is as mundane and ever-present as to not warrant a cursory glance. Through the consistent sensory bombardment of mass media, and the image-saturated reality propagated by Capitalism, all the qualities considered as being essentially human (compassion, empathy, altruism) are submerged by the reduction of all phenomena to the status of disposable entertainment. Warhol acts here as an oracle of the current era in which the videotaped execution of dictators is robbed of all historical significance and reduced to the level of mere fodder for the consumer’s insatiable appetite for momentary distraction. The car crash victims themselves are nameless, dehumanised objects of a horror spectacle. They epitomise the common American man, the faceless, unknown everyman; they are ‘social unknowns, suffering what has been called plebeian catastrophes.’(Warhol, 1988, p16,) They embody the common man, broken and spent in the turning gears of a system that promises an American Dream and delivers a monolithic nightmare.

Marxist theory, as we have seen, interprets social reality through the modes of production and distribution, and the corresponding authoritarian constructs that characterise the capitalist social order. Psychoanalytic theory, on the other hand, focuses on the psychic life of individuals, not masses as a whole. By investigating the particular neuroses, sexual preferences, repressions and desires of the individual artist, the psychoanalytic theorist aims to explain the creative processes that led to the finished work. At this juncture I will be referencing the work of Freud, particularly focusing on the development of the drives. A drive, for Freud, is the biological demand on the cerebral life. The mind arises from the drive (Ego from Id).  A drive has a foundation (bodily needs), an internal endeavour (temporary removal of the bodily needs), an external endeavour (steps taken to reach the final goal of the internal aim), and an object. We never experience the drive itself, just its demonstration or idea in the mind. In general the drives are linked to sexual instincts. From a psychoanalytic perspective, Green Burning Car displays some of the elements involved in Freud’s theory regarding drives, especially the death drives that are imbedded in our consciousness. For a number of years in the sixties Warhol was preoccupied with death and representations of death. It is generally acknowledged that he was fearful of his own bodily demise as well as the concept of death; he is quoted as saying ‘I don’t believe in it, because you’re not around to know that it has happened. I can’t say anything about it because I am not prepared for it.’ (Warhol, 1988, p.123)  One can assert that this wilful evasion of the prospect of his own death manifested itself in the obsessive repetition and revisiting of macabre imagery in his work.

             Freud attempted to ascertain why people are drawn to repeating traumatic events. He was particulary interested in why such a compulsion to repeat these events exists, as it appears to run contrary to what he asserts as our base instinct - the seeking of pleasure. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud, 1920), the egoistic and libidinal drives that characterise much of Freud’s work are supplanted by life and death drives. Freud analysed the post-traumatic dreams of soldiers, in which they seemed irrevocably drawn to reliving the most horrifying experiences of their lives in a way that suggested a masochistic refusal to abandon the painful past to simple memory. Freud came upon the idea of ‘compulsive repetition’ while watching his grandson play a game called fort/da in which he would compulsively throw his toys away and then retrieve them,  in a game of disappearance and reappearance. The child seemed satisfied by causing the toys to be ‘gone’, relishing their subsequent return. This action was ‘repeated untiringly’ (Freud, 1920, p.599). This enactment of a distressing experience as a game was counterintuitive to the pleasure principle and pre-existing ideas of play. Freud seemed to think that this disappearance of the toy was in fact the child’s way of controlling the feeling of loss when the mother departed for periods of time. ‘Her departure had to be enacted as a necessary preliminary to her return, and that it was in [this] lay the true purpose of the game’ (Freud,1920, p.600). By actively reproducing the action of disappearance, the child locates a pleasure that makes it possible to tolerate the absence of the mother.

            Freud concluded that, running counter to our desire for pleasure was a symbiotic and seemingly counterintuitive impulse towards loss and pain. He posited that, ultimately, we are driven by a fundamental urge towards that which ends all suffering – death. It is “an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things”, and as the inorganic precedes the organic, “the aim of all life is death.” (Freud, 1920, pp.612-613) Freud outlines that the death instinct is so deeply intertwined with the will to live that they cannot be separated:

the repressed instinct never ceases to strive for complete satisfaction, which would consist in the repetition of a primary experience of satisfaction...the backward path that leads to complete satisfaction is as a rule obstructed by the resistances which maintain the repressions (Freud, 1920, p.616)

These resistances are those of societal norms and values, the concept that you should love thy neighbour if you want to be part of a family and social life. Freud believes that the concept of loving thy neighbour is counterintuitive to our instinctual processes.  This is how civilised society is controlled and as a result of this, a latent anger resides buried in the consciousness either projected inward or outwards towards the world. Impulses that lay in the ‘Id’ (that part of a personality which contains our primitive impulses such as sex, anger, and hunger) are not appropriate in civilized society, so society works to modify the pleasure principle. In Freud’s view, self-destructive behaviour is an expression of the energy created by the death instincts. When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and violence. He concluded that people hold an unconscious desire to die, but that this wish is largely tempered by the life instincts.
            In an overt display of compulsive repetition, Warhol consistently returned to endlessly repeating images of death and destruction.Warhol’s preoccupation with death, especially violent deaths where people had taken risks (and deviated from the socially imposed norms Freud saw as the suppression of our natural desires and instincts) by jumping from high rise buildings, committing crimes that lead to capital punishment and, in the case of Green Car Burning, a man suspected of a hit and run accident,  being pursued at high speed by police contain a menacing undertone. This man, impaled on a pole serves as a warning to all those who attempt to subvert societal norms through deviant behaviour.  The images appearance in a newspaper is intentional on behalf of those who mean to maintain order. In Warhol’s case however, it is not the message of the photograph that intrigues him. For Warhol this preoccupation or obsession involved detachment and distance, as the subject escalated in intensity so the style of the piece became increasingly transparent. If we are to believe in the drive for death then it is Warhol’s unconsciously repressed drive that is propelling him forward into repetitively pursuing traumatic imagery and thoughts of death, despite his obvious fear and wish to stay alive. As a way of coping with his fears, much like the child, he tries to gain control of this trauma by taking the horror of death and desensitizing its presence. He mediates the image by his choice of dull green, avoiding primary colours, which strengthen the distance between himself, the viewer, and the image presented. This distance is also maintained in relation to the medium with which the image was captured, remaining twice removed by the neutrality of the camera shot and through its reproduction in the newspaper. Warhol can then respond to the image of death and not death in itself. In reproducing the image he mimics and diminishes the horror and impact of death, until ‘[...] the meaning goes away, [and you feel] better and emptier.’ [Warhol, ca 1963]

            The repetition that characterises so much of Warhol’s work can be interpreted in different ways according to Marxism and psychoanalysis. My Marxist reading presents this as being symbolic of the bourgeoisie’s mass sedation via image saturation, something which robs the individual of agency, empathy, and, ultimately, social mobility. My psychoanalytic view presents this as the individual artist’s attempt to sublimate his anxieties about death in a child-like game of repetition, leading to a comforting numbness. Both theoretical approaches draw conclusions that, while superficially quite similar, are drawn from widely differing interpretive approaches. Marxism, with its materialist approach to reality, views the car as an agent of social mobility, a symbol of consumerist vanity, and a vehicle of man’s ultimate destruction. Psychoanalysis views the charred wreck of the car as the ultimate manifestation of the Id’s powerful death drive, an emblem of the destructive impulse latent in all humanity. One of the most important points to note is that while such readings offer fruitful insights into an artist’s work, limiting interpretations to one specific theoretical approach creates a danger of ignoring other active components imbued in the artist’s production. Psychoanalysis as a discipline has come under fire for its origins in the social mores of patriarchal nineteenth century Vienna, to the exclusion of Marxist, feminist, and other perspectives. I would further point out that a distinct reading in one approach is not always possible, as differing theoretical approaches often overlap, as one is often drawn from or influenced by another. In this case there are elements of Marxist theory which overlap with ideas based in Psychoanalytic theory. The psychological state (Psychoanalysis) of an individual is inherent in how the minority - according to Marx, the bourgeoisie - maintain and exert control over the masses (Marxism), and equally informs the instinctual drives (Psychoanalysis) which inhabit both our conscious and unconscious selves, which in turn determines the way in which we govern society (Marx). This merging of the principals of Marxism and Psychoanalysis in an attempt to interpret the world can be exemplified in a quote from Warhol himself;

‘I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.’ [No date]


Bibliography

·         Bersani, L., (1986). The Freudian Body: Art and Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia University Press.

·         Freud, S., (1991).  Civilisation, Society and Religion. London: Penguin Books

·         Freud, S., (1920). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, in Gray, P, (ed.) the Freud reader. New York: Vintage, pp594-626.

·         Freud, S., (1923). ‘The Ego and the Id’, in Gray, P., (ed.) the Freud reader. New York: Vintage, pp 628-658.

·         Laing, D., (1978). The Marxist theory of Art: An Introductory Survey. Colorado: Westview Press

·         Lebow, V., (1955). ‘Price Competition in 1955’ Journal of Retailing Spring Vol. 31 no. 1, pp 3-9

·         Marx, K., (1844) ‘Production and Consumption’, in Lang, B. AND Williams, F. (eds.) Marxism and Art. New York: David McKay Company Inc, pp31-39.

·         Marx, K., (1844) ‘Property and Alienation’, in Lang, B. AND Williams, F. (eds.) Marxism and Art, New York: David McKay Company Inc, pp21-31.

·         Swenson, G., (1963). Andy Warhol, Art News. Available at http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/WarholIntrvu.pdf (accessed 6 January 2012)

·         Walker, J., (1994) Art in the Age of Mass Media. (2ed) London: Pluto Press.

·        Warhol, A., (1975). The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and back again). New York: Harcourt Brace.

Warhol, A., (1988) Death and Disasters. Houston: Houston Fine Art Press.

Paper Weight

I appear to be going through a bit of a phase with the sculpture that I am indulging in at the moment. The aesthetic that is capturing my imagination at the moment are those works which seem ephemeral, not solid, neutral, not garish and provoke the onlooker into believing that they have involuntarily formed themselves.  In the same vein of  Sema Bekirovic’s dice sculpture which I previously wrote about, the sculptural works of New York born artist Mia Pearlman are as delicate as they are overpowering. Like the swirling weather systems that they invoke, these structures, when installed within the gallery space last only the duration of the exhibition. This is partly due to the materials comprising of paper but it is also an informed decision on the part of the artist. Here is what the artist says about the work,

‘I make site-specific cut paper installations, ephemeral drawings in both two and three dimensions that blur the line between actual, illusionistic and imagined space. Sculptural and often glowing with natural or artificial light, these imaginary weather systems appear frozen in an ambiguous moment, bursting through walls and windows, or hovering within a room.

My process is very intuitive, based on spontaneous decisions in the moment. I begin by making loose line drawings in India ink on large rolls of paper. Then I cut out selected areas between the lines to make a new drawing in positive and negative space on the reverse. 30-80 of these cut paper pieces form the final installation, which I create on site by trial and error, a 2-3 day dance with chance and control. Existing only for the length of an exhibition, this weightless world totters on the brink of being and not being, continually in flux. It is my mediation on creation, destruction, and the transient nature of reality’

Dublin Contemporary

Ive been pretty late in getting around to posting about this so apologies.

 I was pretty excited about Dublin Contemporary because I had just moved to the city, just enrolled in my Masters course  at NCAD and this was my first major biennial/exhibition that I was going to be attending (embarrassing I know). These are some of the better photographs from that day out Ive included the blurbs that went along with the catalogue as further information on some of the artists exhibited. I'll give my response to the exhibition at the end...

 This first piece is by the Irish artist Liam O Callaghan. Its entitled tales from the Inside out on Repeat 2007.
There is an accompanying audio piece that accompanies it which came from inside the piece. I loved how this work completely absorbed its surroundings.
The blurb says
Liam O’Callaghan’s work intentionally exposes the methods and mechanics of its construction while simultaneously imbuing it with a sense of meaning and magic beyond its constituent parts. O’Callaghan’s sculptures and photographs delight the viewer with irreverence and humour and a vibrant use of colour, while also inducing meditations on the fragility and transience of life and the roll of improvisation in human endeavours. O’Callaghan has exhibited at, among other venues, Temple Bar Gallery 2011; the Irish Museum of Modern Art 2011; the Douglas Hyde Gallery 2010; Rasche Ripken, Berlin 2009; Rubicon Gallery, Dublin 2008; the Royal Hibernian Academy, 2006

Alejandro Almanza Pereda

Alejandro Almanza Pereda builds enigmatic and unpredictable arrangements that overturn the typical production, consumption and use of objects while exploring ideas of architecture and precariousness. Almanza’s recent exhibitions include I Did It My Way and Took the Highway, Fundación Magnolia presentation at 33-34 Hoxton Square; The heaviest baggage for the traveller is the empty one, Magnan Metz Gallery, New York 2010; Those who live by the sword, die by the sword or by third hand smoke, Chert, Berlin Germany 2009. His work has also been exhibited at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City 2009; Museo del Barrio New York City 2007, Art in General New York City 2007.

 Grafitti artist Masers portrait of Daniel O Connell
Maser first started painting graffiti in 1995. He quickly gained a reputation as one of the most innovative artists working in the field, owing to his combination of unique typographic styles, photorealistic elements with uplifting and socially conscious messages.  Alongside his paintings in the public realm, Maser also produces works on canvas and in print. Examples of Maser’s work can be seen in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Czech Republic and the UK.  In his early years he was awarded membership of the International Society of Typographic Designers.  In 2010 he conceived and implemented the “They are us” project with musician Damien Dempsey which raised over €29,ooo for the Dublin Simon community.

 This is another Liam O Callaghan piece entitled Force Fit

Alberto Borea

Alberto Borea is a conceptual artist whose work is chiefly concerned with non-places, transit, movement mapping and identity. His work is characterized by the continuous displacement and use of diverse media and materials. Alberto Borea has participated in diverse exhibitions in Europe, Latin America and the U.S. These include El Museo del Barrio Biennial 2011, Museo de Arte de Lima 2009, and Museo de Huelva, Spain 2009.

Claudio Parmiggiani

Claudio Parmiggiani is a conceptual artist working with diverse media such as installation, sculpture and collage. Parmiggiani is interested in the idea of presence, traces, shadows and the spiritual. His first major exhibition was held at Liberia Feltrinelli, Bologna in 1965. Since then, Parmiggiani’s work has been widely exhibited at, among other venues, the Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes, France 2007; Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna 2003; and Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv 2003. Recently, a major retrospective of his work was shown simultaneously at the Palazzo del Governatore and at the Church of San Marcellino in Parma 2010-2011. He has participated at the Venice Biennial five times

 Performance artist Amanda Coogan preforming Spit Spit Scrub Scrub. I think they were  preforming for four hours at a time in complete silence, very hard core. She came and gave a talk on our course a while back and she is a really interesting and passionate woman.

"The core of Amanda Coogan’s practice is durational live performance. These live events in turn feed into a body of video and photographic works. Coogan’s pieces have been seen at festivals including the 2003 Venice Biennial and the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. In 2009 she presented her seminal durational performance, “The Fall”, over 17 days at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. In the same year, Coogan curated Accumulator, the first live performance-based exhibition in Ireland at VISUAL, Center for Contemporary Art, Carlow. She was awarded the Allied Irish Bank’s Art prize in 2004."

Mark Clare

Revolving around the themes of globalisation, politics and economics, Mark Clare’s work analyses the formation of identity and self- empowerment. Clare has had several national and international solo exhibitions including shows at The Illges Gallery in Georgia 2011, the Torrance Art Museum in California 2011, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Newtown in Sydney 2008. He was awarded the 2008 Open Award ev+a by the international critic and curator Hou Hanru.

 Jim Lambie

" [He]takes the ephemera of modern life and transforms it into vibrant sculptural installations. Working with items immediately to hand, as well as those sourced in second-hand and hardware stores, he resurrects record decks, speakers, clothing, accessories, doors, chairs and mirrors to form sculptural elements in larger compositions. He selects materials that are familiar and have a strong personal resonance, so that they offer a way into the work as well as a springboard to a psychological space beyond. Lambie has had exhibitions at MOMA, New York, 2009; The Hara Museum,Tokyo 2008; Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, 2008 and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2008. In 2003 Lambie represented Scotland at the 50th Venice Biennial and in 2005 was nominated for the Turner Prize."

Jannis Kounellis

Jannis Kounellis is widely regarded as one of the most significant artists of the last half century. Kounellis was one of the key exponents of Arte Povera, a movement that flourished in Italy in the late 1960’s and has had a radical influence on subsequent art making. His work breaks down the distinction between ‘high’ art and everyday objects and experiences, utilising mundane materials such as coal, meat, ground coffee, burlap, lead and smoke. In recent years, his work has taken on a more architectural scale and vocabulary, creating vast, labyrinthine installations that continue to employ the modest materials for which he is known. In ‘Senza Titolo’, Kounellis signature materials are treated with gold leaf, invoking a transcendent, almost spiritual experience. Among Jannis Kounellis’ major exhibitions are shows at the Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (1985); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1986); the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1997); Modern Art Oxford, UK (2004); and the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2008).

A beautiful set of photographs by Richard Mosse. Check out the youtube video of the artist talking about this series of photographs, 

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Richard Mosse is driven by an ambivalence toward photography and a desire to revisit and even rewrite traumatic cultural histories. His work seeks to explore and subvert photographic genres in order to unpack history and try to understand how the world is written. Mosse has exhibited work at, Akademie der Kunst most recently in 2009, the Barbican Art Gallery in 2008, the Fotofest 2010 Biennial and the Tate Modern in 2008. Mosse was selected for the 2005 Perspective Award.

Wilfredo Prieto

Wilfredo Prieto’s work manages to combine a finely honed conceptual sensibility with an unusual immediacy and humour.  He subtly manipulates objects and situations from daily life in ways that are both amusing and encourage the viewer to reassess the familiar. With a notable economy of means, and an almost surgical precision he alters our experience of the everyday. Prieto’s work has been seen at Biennials in Venice 2007; Singapore 2006 and Havana 2003. Recent solo exhibitions include Tied up to the Table Leg, CA2M, Madrid, Spain 2011, Mountain,  S.M.A.K. Ghent, Belgium 2008;  Dead Angle (lost bills), Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, France, 2006; MUSAC, Leon, Spain, 2005. In 2008 he was awarded the prestigious Cartier award.

David Zink Yi

Working in sculpture, film, and photography, David Zink-Yi is concerned with the concept of identity and its process of development, drawing a large part of its inspiration from his own life spanning several cultures. In his objects and installations, minimalist, reduced elements are fused with deliberately opulent ones to create an aesthetic language of form. In his filmic work the artist shows music and body language as isolated fragments, resulting in emotion and expression being made abstract. Sound and choice of picture motif reflect here the fragments of a personal, social and political situation. He has had solo exhibitions at the Midway Contemporary Art, Minnesota 2011, MAK in Vienna 2010, Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen 2009 and the Ludwig museum in Köln 2006. His work was also part of Manifesta 5 2004.

 I could not believe that this piece was made out of porcelain. Beautiful painstaking work and detail. I thought it was a real squid!

Monica Bonvicini, the background wall piece Add Elegance to your poverty"
since the nineties, Monica Bonvicini has produced work in different media that explores the construction of sexual identity through architecture. Her large-scale sculptural work includes feisty sexual references and challenges modernism and the gendered nature of the built. Monica Bonvicini’s solo exhibitions include the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga (2011); Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2010);  the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano (2009); the Lenbachhaus, Munich & Kunstmuseum Basel; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2009); Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2007); and the Sculpture Center, New York (2007). "

Brian Duggan 

"juxtaposes both historical and recent events with newly built elements, to examine and unpick both systems of influence, and embedded expectations. Abandoned sites of activity, fairground archives, cinema, slapstick scenarios, original arcade gaming and re-created installations, are utilised as a strategy for finding and asking key questions. From 1996 to 2009, Duggan was the co-founder/director of Pallas Studios, Heights and Projects. He has received several awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, and South Dublin County Council. Currently selected for the ARP artists residency program in the Irish Museum of Modern Art 2011. Upcoming exhibitions include Hugh Lane, RuaRed, Unit H Bangkok, Crawford Gallery Cork and CCA Glasgow."

Nedo Solakov
" Since the beginning of the 1990s, Nedko Solakov has exhibited extensively in Europe and the United States. His work was featured in Aperto’93 (Venice Biennial); the 48th, 49th, 50th and 52nd Venice Biennial; the 3rd, 4th and 9th Istanbul Biennial; São Paulo’94; Manifesta 1, Rotterdam; the 2nd and 4th Gwangju Biennial; the 5th Lyon Biennial, Sonsbeek 9, Arnhem, the 4th and 5th Cetinje Biennial, the 1st Lodz Biennial; the 7th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates; the 3rd Tirana Biennial; the 2nd Seville Biennial; the 2nd Moscow Biennial; documenta 12; 16th Sydney Biennial; Prospect 1, New Orleans Biennial and Singapore Biennial 2011."


My Conclusion
Having entered Earlsfort Terrace not knowing what to expect, I left the building not knowing how to digest what I had just seen. I was initially surprised at the aesthetics of the building and the curators choice to maintain the unkempt, dilapidated, and  cold interiors. While I felt both a surge of relief and curiosity at the turn away from the white cube model, I felt at times the decayed state of some of the rooms overshadowed some works, while others such as O Callaghan's sculptures were enhanced,  feeding upon their surroundings. Another triumph for these settings was Irish artist Niamh O Malley's video piece in which  eerie alienation and coldness penetrated childhood fears of being alone in darkness.
                     Given the awkward layout of the venue, there was a few curatorial decisions that should have been avoided. Positioning a monstrous sculpture Us by one of the curators (Jota Castro) in the biggest and most prominent space in the venue was ill-advised in my opinion. Add to this that the piece itself was badly constructed and devoid of any charm.
 
Mark Cullens Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space was crammed into a tiny box room and badly lit.

But some pieces as I mentioned before embodied their surroundings such as O Callaghans. I was also happy to see that one of the first pieces that you encounter upon arrival is that of graffiti artist Maser. Its inclusion( I hope ) reignites the discourse surrounding the value of street art and his piece held its own alongside the more established artists.
                      Thinking in retrospect about the venue, perhaps the aesthetic of the building was some sort of metaphor for the crumbling, decaying economic position that this little island finds itself in. Instead of concealing the rot which our bankers failed so miserably to do, we are asked to instead see beyond  the decay towards the possibility of regeneration, and revolution. I would not call the overall exhibition a complete success but neither would I condemn it to failure or measure its success by attendance figures, such as the norm. Considering that it came together within six months is remarkable and the large representation of Irish artists was welcomed. I hope this is not the last we see of larger art exhibitions in Ireland.

‘Art that helps keep the shame in our minds’: Civil Rights ect, Richard Hamilton and Rita Donagh at The Hugh Lane

A retrospective of the work of Richard Hamilton and Rita Donagh finds a temporary home in the Hugh Lane Gallery until January 15^th of 2012; curated by Barbara Dawson the exhibition has a particularity poignant feel to it considering that Hamilton died a week after the opening. The show addresses ideas concerning conflict, politics, citizenship, popular culture, control and social injustice. Underpinning the work presented is a concern in how mass media seeks to manipulate the truth as a means to mislead and divert attention away from the anxiety and alarm of political and social injustices which remain a constant. This point is further highlighted by the variety of historical moments accounted for over numerous decades. The work also raises the question of an artist’s responsibility in society today to engage in the discourse surrounding conflict and to not allow (as the establishment might like us) to forget

Kent State 1970

While mostly associated as anticipating Pop Art, the political informed a great deal of the work of Hamilton.  With Kent State we are presented with the image of a student who was shot by the National Guard during anti-war protests on the Kent State University campus Ohio. This image along with many others in the exhibition was taken directly from news coverage stills. Upon viewing I immediately thought of Warhol’s Death and Disaster series, with car crash victims strewn across the roadside, taken entirely from newspaper pictures, and, similarly I thought of  the slang language of  A Clockwork Orange, which allows the reader (if they choose to)  to be distracted from the ultra violence of the protagonist. In a similar technique and style to Warhol, Hamilton draws attention to the almost trivial way the mass media depicts brutality and injustice through using the images spawned by news reels. The screen prints are presented in such a manner that we remain at a distance from the horror of the scene as the result of an over familiarity with consumer driven posters advertising useless objects, coupled with the blurring of the image and the gentle blue hues that work their way through each print . This leaves the viewer with an unnerving sense that perhaps one has become completely desensitized to images of strewn bodies, which sit side by side in newspaper stands with glossy images persuading you to embrace the Capitalist dream, and maybe this in part has led to a complacency within society that such images of the student lying on the ground are just part of the order of things

The Citizen 1981

Both artists, like many others watched the news coverage of the dirty protests of IRA inmates in the Maze prison at the beginning of the 1980s. Remarking upon what he saw he said “It was a strange image of human dignity in the midst of self created squalor and it was endowed with a mythic power...” In The Citizen the hunger striker does indeed appear on the canvas with dignity and an almost Christ like stance staring unrelentingly at the viewer.  It may seem like a romantic version of the truth of the situation but it does reflect what many people will have felt was in a war rooted in religious repression against an invading empire. Hamilton is clearly reacting against the prevailing attitudes that the British establishment had at the time regarding IRA prisoners, and challenging the biased media coverage of the event. In contrast, hanging on the opposite side of the room we find the series Swinging London based around the arrest of Mick Jagger and other members of The Rolling Stones for possession of cannabis I felt the positioning of these prints opposite the heavy subject matter of the Northern troubles helped to highlight the absurdity of the situation and the wasteful media circus which occurred after it. I must say I laughed when I read one of the newspaper clippings which told of the prisoners receiving a three course meal into their prison cells. It seems the status of celebrity allows for some lenience when behind bars, whereas others are driven to smearing excrement on the walls of their prison cell to try to find a medium through which to get their message across, which, was unsuccessful in the British press

Shock and Awe 2007/8

Where Hamilton’s critiques might be somewhat in your face, comical and apparent (I am thinking ‘Shock and Awe’ and ‘War Games’ here) one can find contrast in the work of Hamilton’s wife Rita Donagh. Donagh has become well known for her work on the Northern Troubles. While tilling the same moral and political territory, her exploration and technique is quieter, abstract and geometric, this allows for meditation upon the information presented in a less sensational way than that of the previous works discussed. For example in her process of the mapping of the six counties over the H Block towers stays away from the sensational, the emotive. Yet it embodies a dark, uncanny, claustrophobic feel, possibly it is the knowledge of knowing people are locked up down there in those blocks. We seem to form an intentional presence as we hover above the aerial view of the prison we begin to view the (political) landscape in a more analytical or clinical way. Her process of using mapping techniques leads us to the conclusion that boarders seem meaningless and illogical. We begin to ask the question who imposes such boarders and why? Her work sits in opposition to the sensationalism mass media engages in. Her drawings regarding the Talbot Street bombings are stark, with little colour or detail, the focus is on the reality of violence and its aftermath. But where Donagh’s greatness lies is that she manages to evoke a strong sense empathy and dissatisfaction in her work despite the scientific, geometric style to her work.

Long Meadow 1982

Shadow of six counties c1980

  The retrospective serves as a reminder of our part as viewers and consumers of images and information. We must consider how we perceive and digest images of events and how this separates us from thinking about the events themselves. Even as we are inundated with images of war, social unrest, and protest it should provoke no lesser shock.  And while it might be inevitable that we receive and experience events and history through a mediated form, we can still look deeper and beyond the superficial, and in some ways that responsibility lies with the artist too.