THE VIEWER'S AESTHETIC REACTION IS NOT ENOUGH
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Alexander Kennedy examines Keith Coventry’s witty take on High Modernist
painting at Tramway and is not amused.
II the terms of abuse that one could normally
use to criticise an exhibition of Pop
Minimalist paintings by the painter Keith Coventry have already been co-opted in advance by the artist himself. The YBA label. which usually denotes a bullshitting tendency. suits him well. He flaunts it in fact. To say that his take on High Modernism and Minimalism is glib. ironic is also no criticism. this is the aesthetic he deals with. Bringing his version of ‘Secondary Modernisnf to Glasgow could he seen as ‘coals to Newcastle‘: his work
already looks quite safe and comer here. Some of
the works are interesting on a superficial level. but the ramifications and twists and turns of a 'conceptual painter‘ with a love/hate relationship with Modernism makes one‘s head spin then roll off.
The viewer is forced to challenge his/her immediate aesthetic reaction to art (always a good thing) by works such as 'Supermodel Paintings (l-l())'. where two white circles overlap on a black ground. These
are 'Super' in the sense that they are sort of
Suprematist (following Malevich's take on Constructivisml. but the title forces us to read them as portraits of models. This sleight of hand is a bit clumsy. and is true of almost all of the paintings — your aesthetic reaction isn't enough: the titles of the works knock it on the head.
It is difficult to pin down the sense of dissatisfaction that one gets in front of an art object that invites you
to snort in recognition at the ridiculousness of
extreme formalism. Is it something that is left over from ‘real'. ‘serious' Modernist paintings. that were supposed to shake the viewing subject down to his or
her fragmented foundations by some kind of
l Adornian ‘shudder".’ This objective may seem
laughable today — the supposed romance and sublimity of ‘colour field’ Abstract lixpressionist canvases always seemed a bit ridiculous. for example
— but this attempt to ridicule or critique the aims of
Minimalists and High Modernists somehow manages to create an even larger comedy question mark at the centre of the canvas.
The abstractness. dissonance and purposelessness which Modernist canvases demonstrated. is taken as a given. a heady liberating nihilism that is used against itself. The Modernist artist's attempt to be ‘non- objective' (to not represent anything in the “real world‘) is ridiculed by Coventry (in ‘Kebab Paintings' and ‘Junk'l. Yet. he also relies on it as a given for his own paintings to ‘work'. Maybe when we giggle knowingly in front of these canvases we are not laughing at how ridiculous the original premises of Modernist painters were (that's a given. they were blind Utopianists lacking our hindsight). but at the fact that Coventry himself seems to think they were actually proven. solid enough to be overturned and relied on through irony. Or are we laughing at ourselves? By ridiculing the myth of the art object‘s monadic state and the artist‘s heroic autonomy. Coventry reinstates it. His version of ironic re- appropriation propitiates the God of Modernism — the artist‘s ego.
The only thing that saves Coventry from this
annihilating ‘second death' is his ability to change
styles. or use different ways of applying paint in order
to question the sanctity of the artists originality of
approach.
Keith Coventry, Tramway, until Sun 17 Sep 000
Visual Art
llit >l<
THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
1!! Girlpower and Boyhood This exhibition acts as a kaleidoscopic probe that has been forced into the depths of the pre-pubescent psyche. The paintings. prints and drawings on show present a joyfully sinister version of childhood, with luminous images of centaurs. evil twins and enchanted forests covering the walls. Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, until Sat 30 Sep.
* Doves and Dreams
The lives of Frances Macdonald McNair and James Herbert McNair, rendered in wistful watercolours. A vast amount of work by this ‘Spook School' double act is on display in the Hunterian Gallery, including a mock-up of a drawing room and other aesthetic treats that will make you throw your Mockintrash coffee cup straight in the bin. Hunterian Gallery, University of Glasgow,
Glasgow, until Sat 78 Nov.
* Robert Mapplethorpe Society portraits, still lives, 88M fantasy images and other subjects by the New York artist Robert Mapplethorpe still manage to raise an eyebrow. These black and white masterpieces make you look beyond the penis to its classical dimensions (or so we are told in the catalogue essay). National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 5 Nov.
* Emergent Artists at GSA Jane Topping and Billy Teasdale present new work that flickers between representation and abstraction. Topping’s drawings and prints literally deconstruct personality, with Teasdale's sculptures breaking the body down into libidinous urges trapped in Jesmonite. See review, page 93. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, until Fri 15 Sep.
7—21 880 2006 THE LIST 91