Lucian Freud Symposium

Hot on the heels of seeing Daphne Wright's "Ethics of Scrutiny" curated exhibition of The Freud Project, I attended a day long symposium at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). The programme of the symposium "Rethinking Freud & The Contemporary" was wide-ranging and fascinating.

The above photo by of Freud painting performance artist Leigh Bowery, taken by Bruce Bernard, along with a picture of the Courbet painting it emulated (below), was referenced several times during the day by different speakers.

The various speakers -- curators, artists, writers -- were all fascinating and added to the understanding of Freud (both his work and personal life). I was especially interested in what the artists had to say. Painter and inaugural Hennessy Prize winner, Nick Miller spoke about studio practice and portrait painting, and Daphne Wright, in conversation with writer Brian Dillon, spoke about her responses and choices as an artist curating the exhibition. Later in the day, the three Freud Research Residency artists spoke about their projects in response to the Freud Project at IMMA. Laura Fitzgerald's presentation was both humorous and significant as she, perhaps not intentionally, focused on portraiture. Sue Rainsford (collaborating with Bridget O'Gorman, who was not able to attend) discussed her project, A Knowing Body, which is at once both an intellectual and visceral development of work that takes a huge leap away and towards Freud!

 Performance artist Richard John Jones presented possibilities of work that echoes the relationship between Leigh Bowery and Lucian Freud. The eccentric Bowery was both a model and muse for Freud, the fleshy, nude portraits in many ways antithetical to Bowery's performance "disguises".

I find myself ever more curious about Bowery; I am a fan of the 1990s Simon Pegg tv show vehicle Spaced. I love the "Art" episode, and though I did not know at the time I first saw it, Leigh Bowery must have been the reference for "Vulva", the former partner of artist character Brian. Brian's wistful remembrances of performance duets, in flashback, are both hilarious and recognisable to anyone who has every experienced the absurdities of some performance art.

IMMA - Nick Miller & Edward Maguire Archive

 On Saturday I was at IMMA to have another look at a few of the shows there. There were three shows featured in the Garden Galleries, but I followed my daughter to the top floor to the Nick Miller & Edward Maguire Archive exhibition. There was jazz playing in the final room of the show (the sound had drawn my daughter to it), so we started at that and went backwards through the rooms.

While it's always great to see a painting show, as a painter I am always even more interested in the artist's tools, studio environment and method of working. So this final room was for me the best way to begin looking at Miller's reponse to Maguire's work.

There was even a key to the objects from the archive.

It was interesting to see the wizard costume hanging on the wall and later see it in a portrait. Theoretically one would see the painting first and then the costume, if one had followed the room chronology, but I think it works in either direction.

 Both Nick Miller and Edward Maguire are (and were, respectively) portrait painters -- Miller's work very expressionist and loose, and Maguire's almost hyper-real and controlled. In Edward Maguire's portrait of Paul Durcan (I think from the late 1970s) I could easily recognise the poet whom I had had the pleasure of hearing speak and read on several occasions in the 1980s.

I love Miller's portrait painting style. This is obviously a more recent portrait of Durcan; at least his aging wasn't a complete shock to me as I had already been made aware of the passage of time (with regard to someone else) when I saw Durcan more recently in a documentary about the Edward Maguire archive.

At IMMA, there was a display vitrine near Maguire's portrait of Anthony Cronin that contained the objects (ancient iron, pot & plate) that are included in the portrait. The exhibition was a joy -- seeing the studio artefacts in their own space, props displayed alongside paintings, jazz music (Bill Evans) permeating the space and the work of a completely different artist displayed in respectful response to Maguire's work.  I really enjoyed this exhibition of art and artefact.