There's nothing obvious about The Pleasure Of Compulsive Self-Destruction, which had its first public performance at St Patrick's College in Carlow on Friday evening.
Reviewed
The Pleasure Of Compulsive Self-Destruction, St Patrick's College, Carlow (0503-70301)
Walker & Walker, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, until May 17th (01-6710073)
Stephen Loughman: Acvariu, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, until April 19th (01-8740064)
John Cronin: The Nightingale, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, until April 13th (01-6713414)
Organised under the auspices of Visualise Carlow, a series of projects anticipating the opening in 2005 of the National Centre for Contemporary Art in the town, it was devised by the artist Finola Jones. But it involved substantially more participants than the average work of art, including the 44 members of the remarkable Carlow Young Artists Choir, their director, Mary Almond O'Brien, and musician Ollie Hennessy.
Jones's plan involved lifting the soundtrack from a 1940s Tom and Jerry cartoon, transcribing it for voice, mounting public performances and recording a CD. The soundtrack, abstracted from the narrative images it once augmented, becomes something else. In her introduction to the performance, Jones provided an outline of the typical cartoon action and suggested we should listen to the work as a kind of mini opera. It was difficult to match the ensuing sounds to the events she had outlined, but the piece was certainly the better for that.
What emerged was a strange, unexpected and oddly compelling sound world. It lasts over seven minutes, but by then you're quite into it and would like it to go on longer. There were snatches of familiar melodies and conventional tunes, but more besides, including a gamut of singular effects. Everyone involved has created a striking musical piece: a sound sculpture, certainly, but also music.
Jones refers to the peculiar qualities of cartoons, in which humour is inextricably blended with violence, but cruelty is mitigated by the fact that characters have an infinite number of loves. Her work could perhaps be seen - or heard - as an evocation of that idealised space of infinite play. The goodwill in the hall was palpable. The widespread community involvement was exemplary, the performance, under the vigorous direction of Almond O'Brien, was terrific and imaginations were certainly stretched. What more could you ask for from a piece of public art?
The work of Walker & Walker, a fraternal artistic partnership made up of Joe and Pat Walker, has a slight air of Brit Art, enhanced by inevitable associations with the Chapman and Wilson sibling partnerships in England. And by the fact that their work is referential, knowing and formally diverse. Their new show continues what is coming to seem an obsessive interest in the German romantic painter Casper David Friedrich. They are particularly fascinated by Friedrich's iconic work The Wanderer Above The Clouds and have previously recreated its dandyish protagonist in mannequin form. He's here again, looking not over the German peaks but, more prosaically, through an inner window in the gallery.
Their show, the accompanying note says, aims to create an environment "in which lightness is prioritised over the force of gravity". But this statement makes no sense, as lightness or heaviness are relative properties of things on which gravity acts, and do not exist independently of it. However, you can see what they're getting at: ideas of lightness, transcendence, immateriality and, conversely, materiality are what come across in the work. An illuminated horizontal line worked into the fabric of the gallery wall has a floating, mysterious presence. It's a subtle effect, but a good one. This and their Twilight, in reverse neon script, which reflects the right way round as the light fades, are interesting, atmospheric pieces.
Painter Stephen Loughman has a sly, distinctive intelligence in his choice and treatment of themes, augmented by his plain, deadpan style of delivery. In this show, we find ourselves in an aquarium.
That's what the title translates as, from Romanian, which is where this aquarium is. The seven paintings make up a coherent, interrupted set, so the gallery is in a sense transformed into an aquarium, something underlined in the final work, which features just a pipe pumping oxygen into the water or, by implication, the gallery itself.
All the works use a uniform greyish palette, with a strong blue for glazed ceramic tiles. There is an atmosphere of submarine calm, with fish gliding around in subdued light - except, that is, for three unfortunate casualties, which look as if they've had it. Is painting a window onto a world? Loughman doesn't spell out the allegorical implications, but he sets up a series of interesting speculative possibilities in which we can think about reality and representation.
John Cronin characteristically scrapes thin layers of paint horizontally and sometimes vertically across picture surfaces to produce striated patterns, often in heightened, slightly acidic colours and combinations that jar. He works on aluminium, which provides a faster, slicker surface than canvas. The results both engage and unnerve the eye. In The Nightingale he broadly maintains this technique, though he pushes it into more complicated picture-building manoeuvres, making muddier and more difficult images.
It is difficult to look at his work without reference to German painter Gerhard Richter, who pretty much devised this way of painting and did it superlatively well. There is nothing wrong with influence, but Richter's willingness to push things as far as they'll go, and his boldness in terms of colour and many other aspects of his activity, make him a hard act to follow - which doesn't stop many, many artists trying.
To his credit, Cronin is challenging himself with this work, working into different regions of the palette, notably in a big piece like number 13 in the list of exhibits.
