My reflection on Mary Redmond’s installation CROSS BLOCK SPLIT (27 June – 31 August 2014) at Platform, Easterhouse, as part of GENERATION: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, featured by Map Magazine.
Category Archives: Writing
The Economy of the Embrace
“Forsoth it is an vnmete maryage
And disagreynge and moche agaynst the lawe
Bytwene fresshe youth, and lame vnlusty age
The loue bytwene them is scantly worth a strawe
So doth the one styll on the other gnawe” [1]
‘The Ship of Fools‘, published firstly in 1494, with illustrations by Albrecht Dürer, covers all human follies and vices, including lust, pride, greed, vice, negligence, impatience, addiction, lewdness, impudence, gossiping and selfishness. Humanity is folly-prone to a grand scale. Over the course of one hundred and twelve chapters, each failing is presented as an allegory, spoken through the voice of the fool, as in this guise, the author could freely express his own opinions. A devout Christian, Brant wished to chart the fallen behaviour of mankind, thus morally highlighting the redemptive path.
One of the allegories presented is that of the ill-matched couple, unequal in age, which became a popular theme in painting, particularly in the sixteen century, with artists including Dürer (1471-1528), Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) and Quentin Matsys (1466-1529) making such portraits. This essay will focus on six such paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder [2] (the sixth by Cranach Workshop), charting the shift of the embrace depicted in each painting, by viewing them in sequence.
‘The Unequal Couple’, Lucas Cranach the Elder, (c. 1530). 86.7 x 58.5 cm. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
The first painting, ‘The Unequal Couple’ (painted circa 1530), currently hangs in the National Museum in Nuremberg, where I encountered it as an anomaly in a salon full of religious scenes. Nuremberg is an apt geographical location and moral loci for the work, in a city once described by Martin Luther as ‘Germany’s eye and ear‘ [3] due to its printing presses and distribution of information.
The ‘happy’ couple stand in a dark room. The black wall behind them is divided in plane. It is complete darkness behind the old man, perhaps suggestive of the grave and longest sleep that awaits him. However, to the right of the young woman’s head, a window opens onto a sun-lit vista. Thanks to her youth, and the positioning of the window in her balance, this escape from the room hints at her possible, freer future.
The woman glows out from the canvas. Her skin is luminescent. Her hair, cap and dress are an iridescent copper. In contrast, the old, toothless man wears darker colours. His skull is all too visible through his thin hair whilst his grey beard curls downwards in a mournful fashion. The furs that the man wears and the intricately decorated dress and jewellery of the woman symbolise what has brought this ‘ill-matched’ couple together. In marriage, the value of the man lies in his wealth, whilst for the woman, her currency is in her looks and reproductive ability. See how her corset is nipped in at the waist, yet there is a swell to her belly.
Whilst this young woman, who returns his embrace and mirrors his smile, may be seen to overlook the obvious cosmetic detriments of her elderly companion, the painter most definitely has not. In his visceral detailing of the thinness of pate and yawning chasm of mouth, there is a grotesque aspect alluded to, with the painter inviting us to imagine this formal embrace progressing. By detailing these only too human failings brought about by age, Cranach the Elder has created a form of Memento Mori. If this picture were translated as a still life, this couple represent the maggot settling on the bloom of the apple.
This woman’s hand rests lightly on the shoulder of her partner, with her other, loosely entwined in his. His left hand gently holds her around her back. Her body is orientated as the object of desire to the viewer, whilst he gazes on adoringly. Let us now sequentially view the other paintings from this theme of ‘The Ill-Matched Couple’, and follow the shift in embrace.
‘Ill-matched Couple: Young Widow and Old Man’, Lucas Cranach the Elder, (1525-30). Oil and tempera on wood, 79 x 58 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besancon
The second painting is ‘Ill-Matched Couple: Young Widow and Old Man’, (1525-30). Although their unity is suggested in their matching caps, there is now no escape from this second dark interior; unlike the first painting, there is no window. The elderly male companion recedes into the shadow. Whilst he still gazes with certain ardour at his young partner, her grip has noticeably shifted. She still holds his hand, left in right, but her other is placed on the material object – his luxuriant fur collar. The copper of her finery has dulled, in comparison to the first painting. As she looks, more knowingly, her eyebrow arches, out of the plane of the painting towards us, her necklace has tightened and the braided detail of dress has slipped, to resemble the chains of a prisoner. The black stitching on the white ruffles on the arm of her dress appears like wire. The painting’s title gives us more biographical detail. As a ‘young widow’, this is her second marriage, more likely entered into for security, not love.
‘The Ill-matched Lovers’, Lucas Cranach the Elder, (1531) Tempera on wood. Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna
In the third painting ‘The Ill-matched Lovers‘ (1531) and variation, the young woman no longer looks towards us to meet our gaze. She is elsewhere, staring wistfully into the distance, whilst her male companion, hands clamped around her waist, devoid of the smile worn in the first two paintings, expresses more of an urgency, as he paws her. Her left hand is placed on the fur of his cloak, a detail that whilst referring to wealth also could signify that the man is more animalistic, given the nature of their embrace. The economic necessity of their exchange is stressed. As the woman returns the half embrace with her right hand, her left is slipped into the man’s open purse, positioned over his groin. With the sexual connotation of the hand in the purse, we are left in no doubt of the type of labour involved. With the complicity of the woman in this arrangement and the introduction of currency through the inclusion of the purse, the folly of greed also enters the frame.
‘Ill-matched Couple- Peasant and Prostitute’, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1525-30) Oil and tempera on red beechwood, 32 x 23 cm. Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt
The fourth painting in this selected series makes this exchange explicit in its title and labelling of the characters: ‘Ill-matched couple- peasant and prostitute‘ (1525-30). The male hold has shifted from the proprietary hand around his partner’s waist and shoulder, to both clasping around her neck. As he looks through rather than at his companion, the woman is freed to have both hands handling the purse. In all four of these paintings, reading in the western tradition from left to right, the man is always on the left, the woman on the right, making the male primary and the female secondary, in its order. In an intriguing variation of the theme, the next two in the series swap the ages of the partnership.
‘Ill-matched Couple: Young Man and Old Woman’ Lucas Cranach the Elder (1520-22) Oil and tempera on red beechwood, 37 x 31 cm. Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest
The fifth painting is Lucas Cranach the Elder’s ‘Ill-matched Couple: Young Man and Old Woman‘ (1520-22). The man now is clean shaven with lustrous curls, whilst the woman wears a white cap, denoting age. It is now the woman who has the toothless grin. She holds the money bag and places coins directly into his cupped palm. This inversion of order, of young husband and old wife, also appears in ‘The Ship of Fools‘, with the adage that with ‘no hope of children nor lynage‘ there can only be pain and strife:
Suche ar they that for treasour and ryches
Whyle they ar yonge in theyr chefe lustynes
An agyd woman taketh to theyr wyfe
Lesynge theyr youth, and shortynge so theyr lyfe [4]
‘Ill-matched Couple: Young Man and Old Woman with a Maid’, Cranach Workshop, Lucas Cranach the Younger (c. 1540s) Oil and tempera on pine, 91 x 61cm. Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, Coburg
In the sixth painting, ‘Ill-matched Couple: Young Man and Old Woman with a Maid‘, painted in 1540s by Cranach Workshop, (possibly Lucas the Younger, the painter’s son), a third person is introduced into the scenario. The old woman is more grotesque in this version, with wrinkles on her neck cascading towards her immodest cleavage. Her eyes and nose are pink and the few teeth she has left are sharp and wolf-like. As she cups the young man’s beard with one hand, her other is outstretched to receive a full bag of money. The maid kneels in the bottom left of the frame, proffering a glass, an open vessel, to the couple above. In this scene, the old woman becomes a procuress for the young maid or prostitute.
For this essay, I have gathered these six paintings together, in their own fictitious singular space, in order to show each in respect of its neighbour and establish a pattern. In this way, the decline of connection between the protagonists, can be charted incrementally, through the shifting nature of the embrace. In reality, each of these works is dispersed, residing in different museums across Western Europe. However, this was not the original architectural context for the paintings. With Cranach the Elder employed as Saxony’s Court Painter, such works would have been hung intimately in the chambers of German Princes, as a moral tale, instructing against hurried choices. In contrast, the paintings to be found in women’s rooms would have promoted chastity and virtue.
The other staple subjects that Cranach the Elder painted were religious iconography in support of Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation, a movement which was establishing itself in Germany at that time, and also the commissioned portraits of important people, in particular, of his employers, in his role as court painter to the Electors of Saxony. The ‘ill-matched or unequal couple’ does not hint at either glory or the good. Instead, through its parable of age and youth, and through representing the economy of such an embrace, it focuses on the foibles of the fallen, the human condition and how we can fool ourselves, often by circumstances, financial necessity or by society’s dictates.
Jenny Brownrigg, August 2014
Footnotes
[1] From the chapter ‘Of younge folks that take olde wymen to theyr wyues nat for loue but for ryches‘, p.347, ‘Ship of Fools, Volume 1‘, Sebastian Brandt, iBooks
[2] Lucas Cranach the Elder was a venerated German Renaissance painter and printmaker
[3] Cited in Albert Werminghoff’s ‘Conrad Celtis und Sein Buch uber Nurnberg (Freiburg i. B., 1921)
[4] From the chapter ‘Of younge folks that take olde wymen to theyr wyues nat for loue but for ryches‘, p.344, ‘Ship of Fools, Volume 1‘, Sebastian Brandt, iBooks
Introduction, ‘Cabbages in an Orchard: Graham Fagen’ publication
A new publication, designed by Owned and Operated accompanies Graham Fagen’s exhibition ‘Cabbages in an Orchard’, Reid Gallery, The Glasgow School of Art. Download my introduction here. The publication is full colour, and contains commissioned essays by Graham Fagen and Johnny Rodger. The exhibition and publication are part of GENERATION, a programme across venues in Scotland led by National Galleries and Glasgow Life, looking at 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland. The publication is £10 and can be ordered from GSA Shop.
I invited Graham Fagen to look at Charles Rennie Mackintosh works held in The Glasgow School of Art Archives & Collections, in order to find the common ground between his work and Mackintosh’s. The resulting new body of work, plus three early original Mackintosh watercolours, from The Magazine, a DIY publication Mackintosh worked on with his student peers, runs in the Reid Gallery until 29 August 2014.
Five Art Curators Consider Transforming an Interior
‘Five Art Curators Consider Transforming an Interior’ by Jenny Brownrigg has been published as part of ‘The Burning Sand Volume III’, edited by Sarah Lowndes and designed by Sophie Dyer & Maeve Redmond. Download full text: Five Art Curators Consider Transforming An Interior
[Excerpt]
…”The owners, they don’t ask for money, and God knows we don’t have money, but I can transform it all”. Romano is the leader of the group for no other reason than this is the way he sees it.
Irme tries to overlook Romano’s use of ‘I’. Surely he should remember that they have been brought together from different countries by the Festival organisers to work as a symbolic group for this project…”
The Burning Sand Volume III also includes work by Nerea Bello, Wolf, Luke Fowler, Kathryn Elkin, Tony Swain, Sarah Lowndes and Lauren Gault. It retails for £4 from Aye-Aye Books and is distributed by Good Press and Motto . Volume III was launched on 18 April 2014 as part of Glasgow International with support from Outset. ISSN 2052-5699
‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’: Michael Stumpf, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow International 2014
Alphabet Chat Letter ‘O’ [1]
“Here is a secret about the letter O”, says Big Bird. “Whoops!” The camera frame turns him, and the ‘O’ he is holding, upside down. “It looks the same upside down, but I don’t.” [2]
‘Ring’, Michael Stumpf (2014). Cast acrylic resin. Mackintosh Building, Director’s Balcony, GSA. Photo: Janet Wilson.
‘Ring’, cast acrylic resin, 2014. Michael Stumpf. Mackintosh building Director’s Balcony.
‘O’ can be seeing something in the round. Where is the object positioned in relation to you? Can you move round it? Can you see inside it? What information do you need to understand what it is you are looking at?
Included in the ‘O’ of this essay are references to Michael Stumpf’s past work, descriptions of his present work for Glasgow International at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA), some Sesame Street philosophy and other thoughts for you to include or exclude, as you encounter ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’.
‘Ring’, Michael Stumpf (2014). ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, The Glasgow School of Art. Photo: Janet Wilson
We first travel back to Michael’s exhibition ‘In My Eye‘ at the Pipe Factory, Glasgow in January 2014 [3]. A projection screen was placed in the middle of the gallery. In this action by the artist, the viewer was able to encounter the screen as a three-dimensional object as it could be walked around. The film playing on the screen presented a sequence of objects which slowly revolve: a small brown vase spins against a black backdrop; the camera circles an abandoned men’s black tap shoe. We are shown the surface of these two objects with the sheen of the glaze and the soft black leather and metal toe tap. We are then reminded that these objects have an interior as both begin to quietly emit smoke. The act of filming explores the object in a different way.
I am reminded of ‘In My Eye’, as we make choose the image for the GSA poster and invite for ‘This Song Belongs to Those Who Sing It’. Rather than repeat the same digital image across both, Michael decides to use the two flat surfaces to show front and back view of the same sculpture ‘The Sound of Silver‘ (2010).
‘Sound of Silver’, Michael Stumpf (2010). Recyled fabric, acrylic resin, denim, tap-shoes, powder coated steel. Front view.
‘Sound of Silver’, Michael Stumpf (2010). Recyled fabric, acrylic resin, denim, tap-shoes, powder coated steel. Back view.
Michael likes us to see things from different angles and to be aware of looking, “to see things in the round”. This can often be reflected in his choice of title. For the Pipe Factory exhibition it is ‘In My Eye’. In the Mackintosh Museum there are two pewter word sculptures separated by the void at the heart of the space, itself an inverted architectural ‘O’. One says’Looking at me’. The second says ‘Looking at you‘.
“Above the nose I’m sure you’ll agree / there are two things that help you see/ they help when Elmo looks at you / and you use yours to see Elmo too” [4]
‘Looking at You’, Michael Stumpf, detail ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’ (2014) GSA Photo: Janet Wilson
What are we looking at in the Mackintosh Museum? Does it look back? The silver foil creates a smooth new skin on the longest wall. It offers up a new depth in the room. To the left, the reflection of the yellow-washed side wall folds back through the silver into infinite space. The painted right hand-side wall is reminiscent of a dawn or sunset, with the Mackintosh Museum’s resident headless Nike ‘facing’ towards this landscape composition. Both colour walls create a glow upon the burnished copper of the two Museum display cabinets which have been revealed for this exhibition and treated like sculptural objects. The polished glass on the case to the left of the director’s doorway becomes a mirror. The dark denim panel inside it provides a clear back drop and depth. Looking at me. There are no glass panels on the display case on the right. It is the same but different.
‘Looking at me’, Michael Stumpf (2014), detail. ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, GSA Photo: Janet Wilson.
‘Perplexed’, Michael Stumpf (2014), ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, GSA. Photo: Janet Wilson. Paper, calico, aerosol paint, denim, acrylic-resin, steel, tube clamps.
The three suspended works from the beams hang low to the floor, allowing us to circle them. Each of the works in the Museum has a different relationship to our body, as we look and relate to it. Is it recognisable? What size are we in comparison to it? Does it change relating to where we are positioned? A gigantic denim triangle draws the eye up to take in the volume of this space.
‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, Michael Stumpf, Mackintosh Museum, GSA. Photo: Janet Wilson
‘Endless long bowed phrases’, Michael Stumpf (2014). Denim, plywood, steel, tube clamp. ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, GSA. Photo: Janet Wilson.
“When I imagine a triangle, even though such a figure may exist nowhere in the world except in my thought – indeed it may never have existed, there is none the less a certain nature or form, or particular essence of this figure that is immutable and eternal which I did not invent, and which in no way depends on my mind”. [5]
Both the Mackintosh building and Michael take a non-linear approach to time. There is a strange circular timeframe in the Mackintosh building where past, present and future co-exist all at once. Michael talks about trying to move differently within an artistic practice – “not to get sucked into following the one line”. He both revisits past works and ideas whilst moving forward in his practice, viewing materials and methods as an alphabet which can be drawn from. Small forms can potentially be big. A chain which appears graphically on the front of a past work called ‘Sweats‘ (2012), becomes a three dimensional work for this project.
‘SWEATS Lovesong; Song (ring, chain, rope, nail, rock)’ (2012), Michael Stumpf. Ongoing series of screenprinted sweatshirts.
‘Ring’, cast acrylic resin, 2014. Michael Stumpf. Mackintosh building Director’s Balcony.
‘Link (flame red/red)’, ‘Link (red)’, ‘Link (violet, red)’, cast acrylic resin (2014), Michael Stumpf, GSA
The links from the chain move from exterior to interior – as a single ‘O’ outside on the Mackintosh Building’s Director’s Balcony and as a communal gathering inside the Mackintosh Museum on its floor. Denim, the ‘everyman’ material and stone often appear in different forms throughout Michael’s work. Stone occurs as an ordered section of wall in 2005, on which two polo shirts rest [6] then in 2012/13 as the archaeological strata from which different objects protrude [7]. Here in the Mackintosh Museum in 2014, we see the ‘mother’ stone, sandstone which has been chiselled, and also a pink cast from the stone which is suspended from the beam. [8] Michael also includes a small vase he made in the 1980s which his mother has sent over for the exhibition.
‘Song (Ring, Twig, Rock), sandstone, cast bronze, glass, steel, tube clamp (2014), Michael Stumpf. ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, GSA. Photo: Janet Wilson.
‘Called Upon’, Michael Stumpf (2014). Paper, denim, acrylic resin, aluminium, glazed ceramic steel, tube clamps, wood. ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, GSA. Photo: Janet Wilson.
“O-O-O-O-O-O-O-Oooo…/Grow and Go / Roll over the road” [9]
For ‘The Balconies Commission’ here at The Glasgow School of Art, Michael was invited to work with the new pairing of the Mackintosh Building and the Reid Building. The resulting text sculpture NOW SING sits on the Reid Building balcony and can be viewed as a street scene with its corresponding neighbour, the ‘O’ on the Mackintosh Balcony.
‘NOW SING’, Michael Stumpf (2014), Reid Building Balcony, GSA Photo: Sarah Lowndes
Architect Steven Holl, designer of GSA’s Reid building, wrote ‘The Alphabetical City’ in 1980. It examines how city buildings in USA conformed to different letter types depending on the shape of the site. There are ‘T’, ‘I’, ‘U’, ‘O’, ‘H’, ‘E’, ‘B’, ‘L’ and ‘X’ types of housing. ‘O’ Type Housing has an enclosed communal space at its centre.
If we view the ‘O’ architecturally as having the space inside, the outer walls and the space beyond it, Michael’s work for this exhibition is situated at three points- inside the Mackintosh Museum, on the exterior of the Mackintosh Building, then over the road on the Reid Building balcony.This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It should be considered as an exhibition across an expanded field.
The words ‘NOW SING’ have been handmade by the artist – a truly monumental endeavour. The orange of NOW and the pink of SING echo the beginning and end of one day [10]. To say NOW is strange, because as soon as it is said, it is in the past. The viewer will walk past NOW SING on the way in, and see NOW SING, later on the way out. NOW SING could be directly asking something of us or be a declaration of intent for the new building.
‘NOW SING’ detail (2014), Michael Stumpf. Cast acrylic resin, steel, wood.Installed on Reid Building balcony, GSA, ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, GSA. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg
“O’s on the wall / O’s on the King and Queen’s costume / This is the Kingdom of ‘O’/ See all the O’s” [11]
Looking across to the Director’s Balcony on the Mackintosh Building, the ‘O’ placed on the railing is an open mouth on the façade [12]. After all, ‘façade’ is derived from the French for ‘face’. The ‘O’ also mimics the circular shapes of Mackintosh on the building’s iron work or even the glass globes on the Mackintosh weathervane. Look up. It is also like the ‘O’ of the ‘driven voids’ which are three architectural features to be found in the Reid Building.
“One of these things is not like the other / One of these things doesn’t belong / Can you tell which thing is not like the other?/ By the time I finish this song?” [13]
Early on, Michael visited our Exhibitions office and showed us a Vimeo excerpt of Gregory Hines and his brother Maurice presenting ‘Near and Far’ for Sesame Street. Maurice says, “Now this is near“. Gregory then tap dances in a circle around him, and continues to tap across to the back of the set. He then says “Now this is far“. They swap positions, in order to emphasise that in these pairings, they only make sense if one is in relation and oppositional to the other. Each time they trace a circle round each other before one moves off.
‘NOW SING’, Michael Stumpf (2014). View from Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow Photo: James Dean
Dr Sarah Lowndes has said of Michael’s work, “It is the essential thing-ness of his objects that is the most striking aspect of his practice”. I like the word ‘thing-ness’, which could be seen as serious and playful at the same time. On one hand, in grammatical terms, ‘thing-ness’ is a derivational suffix of ‘thing’. A derivational suffix takes a word as a source or origin and then adds to it. Sing – Singer – Song. Michael chooses a material from his alphabet then adds to it. On the other hand, ‘thing-ness’ sounds like a Big Bird word. ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’ is a communal offering for the architecture, its passers-by, The Glasgow School of Art community and its visitors.
Jenny Brownrigg, Exhibitions Director, The Glasgow School of Art. April 2014.
Text for: ‘This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It’, Michael Stumpf 4 April – 4 May 2014.
Footnotes
[1] Sesame Street – ‘Alphabet Chat Letter O’.
[2] Sesame Street -‘Big Bird and the Letter O’.
[3] ‘In My Eye’, Michael Stumpf 30/1 – 1/2/14, Pipe Factory, Glasgow.
[4] Sesame Street Lyrics – ‘Elmo Sings “Right in the Middle of the Face”’.
[5] René Descartes, ‘Discourse on the Method’, 1637.
[6] Collective Gallery, as part of New Work Programme, 2005.
[7] ‘This rhyme is 4 dimensional’, Michael Stumpf (2004-2012), shown in ‘Last Chance’, SWG3 Gallery, Glasgow. 8/12/12-19/1/13.
[8] Michael was classically trained as a stone mason before art school, so stone was a trade material for him before a creative material.
[9] Sesame Street Lyrics – ‘The O Song’.
[10] Text sculptures which declare, as an object, their own purpose or state have been a recurrent theme in Michael’s work. ‘Massive Angry Sculpture’ at Glucksmann Gallery in 2011 and ‘Fade to Black’, made at Scottish Sculpture Workshop in 2009 and shown in Leith Hall Gardens in Kennethmont, Aberdeenshire, are two examples of this strand in his practice.
[11] Sesame Street – ‘The Kingdom of ‘O’.
[12] Observation by Talitha Kotzé, The Glasgow School of Art Exhibitions co-ordinator.
[13] Sesame Street Lyrics – ‘One of These Things’.
‘This Song Belongs to Those Who Sing It’, Michael Stumpf (2014). Leaflet, cover.
Ways of Working and Thinking [4]
Ways of Working and Thinking [3]
Ways of Working and Thinking [2]
Ways of Working and Thinking [1]
Portraits of a building: Ally Wallace
Lydia Shackleton (1828 –1914) was one of the early artists-in-residence in Europe. For twenty three years, from 1884 onwards, she painted at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Dublin. She produced over 1500 botanical studies, each time taping a pressed leaf or flower next to her study on paper, allowing for a comparison between the real thing and her copy.
Scottish Opera, Ally Wallace (2012) Photo: Ally Wallace
Ally Wallace has since 2011, undertaken a series of self-initiated artist residencies in different kinds of buildings, ranging from offices to museums [1]. Each time, at the conclusion, he uses the space he has been working in, whether its walls or objects found within, as his ‘page’. From large paper works and structures to small watercolour studies, all hold details from the surroundings and are presented back to the building, its inhabitants and visitors. The elements he chooses to focus on, whether a section of marble balustrade or a detail from a museum collection, float as fragments on the white page. Whilst still recognisable, the images are always translated into a different colour ways than their real nature. A green piano is placed on the green baize of a writing desk. The pink fold of a marble staircase is given a brown shadow. The act of showing the ‘copy’ within the original space where it was created, affords the viewer a new reading.
Scottish Opera, Ally Wallace (2012). Photo: Ally Wallace
Plotting out the points where Wallace’s residencies have taken place in Glasgow, many of the buildings are hidden, as the city has adapted and shifted over time around them. In particular, The Martyr’s Public School in Townhead, Glasgow, is a case where motorway meets Mackintosh, with this early work by Charles Rennie Mackintosh only three minutes from The Royal Infirmary and the east end flyover. In subtle ways Wallace’s work observes and reveals these shifts of use and change by casting a democratic and levelling eye over past and present situation in the details he chooses to record. During his residency at Martyrs School, now part museum, part offices, the longer Wallace spent observing, he saw modern office furniture of Glasgow Museums administration set against the Mackintosh tiles.
In 2012, Wallace negotiated with the host organisation, Scottish Opera, to allow access for individuals to see the conclusion of his residency at their private administrative offices at 39 Elmbank Street, Glasgow. I slipped out of a busy group residency where the Mackintosh Museum at The Glasgow School of Art had been transformed into an open studio [2], to visit a building that I had not realised existed, only ten minutes away from my place of work. Once an engineer’s office, the building has a sense of grandeur, with a sweeping staircase that leads up to the landing. Wallace described to me the time shift he felt within the building: “You can look through the windows and where the masts of the ships once were, now the lines of the multi-storey balconies float in front of your eyes.” Here on the first floor landing, I found an ‘orchestra’ of his works, placed in a semi circle on music stands, all lit by natural light from the cupola above. I remember feeling privileged at having been invited for this one-to-one encounter. It is strangely unusual to feel like the work has just been placed there for you to see it.
‘Stair Trace’, Ally Wallace (2012) watercolour Photo: Ally Wallace
Wallace’s work always moves away from being just a surface reading of a space. The time of the residency allows him to move from a visual response to feeling like he is an element within the building; a ‘member of staff‘ rather than a visitor. During Wallace’s latest residency at the Lillie Art Gallery in Milngavie [3], he used the gallery as an open studio for a few days a week, chatting with any visitors who came through. This has resulted in the exhibition ‘Connected Parts’ (until 20 March 2014). By placing himself so publicly on show as ‘the artist’, he was reminded of the artist figure of Tony Hancock in ‘The Rebel’ (1961, Associated British Picture Corporation). In the film, Hancock gives up his office job and bowler hat to move to Paris to become a beret wearing artist. With such exchanges between Hancock and his disbelieving art landlady (the wonderful Irene Handel) who is less than charitable about contemporary art – “I’ m not one of the realist school of art, I’m an impressionist. / Well, it don’t impress me.” – the film is satirical in its treatment of the artist having a certain kind of persona and pretentious ideas which he believes no-one, critics or audience, has the right to question. The time spent in the Lillie Gallery allowed Wallace to question his own notions of what a traditional art audience may be and expect from visiting a gallery.
‘Connected Parts’, Ally Wallace (2012) Lillie Art Gallery. Photo: Alan Dimmick
In the first gallery, Gallery 2, Wallace produced a freestanding structure, which displays large paper works [4] with simplified details from bronze sculptures held in the Lillie Gallery’s Collection. The structure creates a new threshold within the gallery, shielding the visitor from the gallery entrance. The physicality of the materials Wallace uses, very much play with the traditional elements within the gallery. The untreated wooden struts of the framework, found in a nearby skip, are the same width as the painted strips of wood forming the double picture rail that circumnavigated all the gallery spaces. Moreover, the screen’s construction allows for the front and back of the paper works to be presented to the viewer, in a venue that perhaps may predominantly choose a classic museum hang. The paper Wallace uses is roughly cut rather than a standard size. This means the viewer is drawn to the paper’s physicality, as more than just a surface, for example in the detail of the way that the paint has dried, wrinkling the paper slightly. The circular cut out within one of the paper works allows for new views through to a red work on the far away wall. The circle, looking up through it, echoes the circular steel spotlight fitting in the lowered rectangular ceiling. Wallace’s way of working utilises the architecture and detail of the gallery and is not afraid to draw attention to the choices made in the space which make it what it is. The largest painted work makes use of this gallery’s floating ceiling, hung from its edge, creating a paper wall. Another paper work uses the picture rail, but is hung so it follows the contour of the corner of the room, rather like a piece of fabric in its gentle fold and change of direction.
‘Connected Parts’, Ally Wallace (2014) The Lillie Art Gallery Photo: Alan Dimmick
In the opposite corner, there is a little collection of smaller works, formally gathered together, around a cardboard structure. Each of works holds a detail from still-life paintings that Wallace chose from the collection. By citing the artists’ names in this part of the installation- ‘After Anne Redpath’, ‘After Leon Morocco’, ‘After Cynthia Wall’– Wallace is very mindful that the collection is part of the DNA of this particular building and that he is, as he puts it, “making art about art“. The roughness of the cardboard totem works well within this arrangement. As the brown of the cardboard still shows through the paint that has been applied to it, it’s surface echoes the tactile nature of the hessian walls, where the grid of the fabric is still archaeologically discernible through the layers of white paint that have covered it over the years.
Moving through into the next gallery, Gallery 3, with its blood red interior, this particular space acts like an expanded notebook for Gallery 2 and the residency, including studies of elements of the Lillie Gallery as well as 2d and 3d design ideas for Wallace’s resulting work. Watercolour studies of the linoleum floor pattern in the lobby, as well as observations of the shapes of specific door handles in the venue, show how the artist has made his in depth inventory. Recording the life of the building in such a way, fine tunes how I, as the viewer, spend my time in the space, as well as altering my attention to take in the elements beyond the work. As I move around the space on my second visit, I enjoy the glitter of the gallery floor’s silver surface and eavesdropping on the life of the building, in particular a conversation between the gallery staff and a visitor who is passing time. Subjects for discussion include how to cook pork, the making of shoes for strange shaped feet and a discussion about World War One: “Why do people go to war for no reason, because of one man who upset the caboodle? What a character. He was a real menace“.
‘Connected Parts’, Ally Wallace, The Lillie Art Gallery (2014) Photo: Alan Dimmick
In coming away from The Lillie Art Gallery, I carry with me an expanded portrait of the building, its inhabitants and the collection it takes care of. In particular, The Lillie Art Gallery should be commended for placing importance on creating a space within its programme for artists to take the next step in their practice, whether it is Ally Wallace or The Glasgow Group, who exhibited concurrently with ‘Connected Parts’. In particular, I have enjoyed Wallace’s painterly handling of colour, with bold acid yellows and pinks placed next to metallic silver and retiring beige. With the colours resonating in my mind, it seems fitting to conclude with another quote from ‘The Rebel’, which came out the year before the Lillie Gallery was established. Hancock has come up with an art movement and theory when put on the spot by another painter and calls it ‘The Shape-ists’.
“The colours shouldn’t end where the shapes end. They should send out a glow in the air. Why? Why? We’ll take this room for instance. At the moment I feel this room to be indigo. Can’t you feel it? No. Oh dear. An article will always suggest its own colour. Irrespective of the colour it’s transmitting. To me at the moment I feel this room to be transmitting indigo, with a feeling of the octagonal. Yes that’s it. Indigo octagon. This is incredible. An entirely new conception of art.”
Jenny Brownrigg. March 2014
Footnotes
1.Residencies at Scottish Opera’s office in 39 Elmbank Rd; RMJM Architects Hope Street office; and Summerlee, the Museum of Scottish Industrial Life.
2.Three Points of Contact Residency, The Glasgow School of Art leg 2012: http://issuu.com/threepointsofcontact/docs/threepointsofcontact
3.Milngavie is at the beginning of the West Highland Way, which leads onto 95 miles northwards to Fort William. The Lillie Art Gallery is a municipal gallery which opened in 1962 and has a collection of around 450 works of Scottish art dating from the 1880s to present day. It was built due to a bequest by banker and artist Robert Lillie (1867-1949).
4.In the 19th Century, Milingavie was a minor industrial centre with paper mills and bleach works on the Allander River. It seems fitting that Ally Wallace’s large paper works are here at the Lillie Art Gallery.
Jenny Brownrigg 