The etymology of bereavement is to “deprive or rob of.” At root, it is something enacted upon us. So too is bereavement’s progeny, grief, arriving not just for the person who is gone but also for ourselves. After my husband Colin died from cancer at 40, I entered a period of grieving, both for him and my lost self.

In my time and culture, without the black parramatta silk or bombazine dress of the Victorians, or Jewish observation timelines, I found I lacked a defined process of mourning. So, I went back to work a week after the funeral and carried on until, after further unexpected and traumatic deaths close to me, I was no longer road worthy. I left my job and returned to my practice. Within death, a part of me was reborn. 

This return to making was markedly different from my previous practice. Then, my gaze turned outwards to contemporary society; now, I looked inwards to my own experience. Through my work, I bore witness to my grief in what had become a chaotic, uncontrollable world. Living as material, I began working from a place of transparent vulnerability.  

What emerged was a lyrical conceptualism blurring art and life, externalising emotion, responding to relationships and the situation I found myself in, and forming presence that manifested absence. This is a lived archaeology of loss involving people, objects, place and story. Physically, it formalised across photography, text, object, video, sound, and documentation of performative action, such as Sending messages to the sea (2021-22), inspired by lighthouse keepers’ wives, signalling to their husbands from the shore, where I used semaphore flags, the language of the sea, to communicate: “I am here my love, where are you?” to the vast expanse of ocean and sky.  

Making acted as a tether to the departed – a way to hold them close – so much so, that I found it difficult to finish pieces. Only when the Linenhall Arts Centre invited me to show with them in January did I finalise the body of work and realise that this was not a letting go. My solo exhibition, ‘How to create a fallstreak’, continues in the gallery until 4 March. The fallstreak of the title is a meteorological term for holes that can appear in cloud formations, referencing the proverbial gap in the clouds I was attempting to create.

While writing the exhibition wall panels, I found myself repeatedly returning to re-work these ‘tombstones’. While demonstratively focused on my own experience, I was also attempting to expand autobiography, to go beyond personal memoir and speak to others about shared human experience. I wanted to create honest, open narratives beside my pieces to enable conversation rather than hide behind distancing art-speak. 

My practice has become a memorial, a transitional object, a communication and a salve. As I embodied loss, so did my work. To fill a void of absence, to find a way back to myself, to heal and come to a new understanding of my loss, I made art. This allowed me to access a space of mourning and, with it, a restoration of self.

Neva Elliott is a contemporary artist based in Dublin. After ten years as CEO of Crash Ensemble, Elliott returned to her art practice in 2021. Last year she was made an Irish Hospice Foundation signature artist. 

nevaelliott.com

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Coincidences, Chance Meetings and Good Luck

BRIAN O’DOHERTY DISCUSSES ISSUES RELATING TO HIS ART CAREER WITH BRENDA MOORE-MCCANN IN HIS FIRST INTERVIEW SINCE HAVING OFFICIALLY BURIED ‘PATRICK IRELAND’ – THE PSEUDONYM /PERSONA THE ARTIST HAD WORKED UNDER SINCE 1972 IN PROTEST AT BLOODY SUNDAY. (1)

Brenda Moore-McCann: The Visual Artists News Sheet focuses on artists approaches to the development of the various professional, administrative and organisational aspects of their careers. Examining your art practice over the last 50 years indicates quite a different attitude to such a systematic approach. One might even say it demonstrates a subversive attitude that also appears in your critical writing. For example, in the 1986 Afterword to Inside the White Cube you noted that the economic system surrounding art was virtually unquestioned (aside from art of the 1960s and 1970s) by the key figure of the artist, so that we get the art we pay for rather than the art we deserve. Earlier in the 1960s when art critic of the New York Times, you wrote The Corruption of Individuality, in which you descried the erosion of artistic freedom in the face of the seductive spoils of a “hothouse, big-money atmosphere.” Finally, you once said about Orson Welles: “To separate Welles, Welles the director, Welles the actor, Welles the writer, Welles the magician, Welles in his various persona, from his work is a hopeless task, and eventually a dubious one. Like his films, he was his own fiction. He and his art interpenetrate in ways that some criticism finds unallowable. But who is making the rules here?” All these texts seem to me to reflect attitudes that appear within your art. Would you agree?

Brian O’Doherty: Everything seems so random, arbitrary and subject to chance that it’s a wonder we end up where we are. My own career, if you can call it that, is shaped by the usual coincidences, chance meetings, with nudges of good luck. I owe a lot to other people. To Thomas McGreevy, to a great woman named Nancy Hanks, to my wife Barbara Novak. Out of all that comes some sort of fiction you pass off as yourself, whatever that self may be. I never see the self as a stable entity, but as a fluid, multivalent series of accommodations to inward and outward pressures, giving birth to different personae. That’s everyone’s experience, I imagine. I’ve simply literalised some of mine—personae, I mean. Of course, all this doesn’t mean you don’t have your head together when you cross the road in traffic. I call that practical everyday person, who shops for groceries and pays the rent, ‘good serve’, a decent sort of fellow but not over-bright. I’d be lost without him.

BMMc: Your artistic strategies from the sixties on have deliberately sought to evade a consumerist approach. Probably the best representative category within your oeuvre is the ephemeral Rope Drawing installations of the last 36 years carried out by your recently buried persona Patrick Ireland. Can you comment on your main concerns as an artist?  

BOD: I’ve nothing against money, except when I don’t have it. But artists make things and things enter the turbulent economic money scape. Then odd things happen. Money becomes more important than art. Art becomes fetishised. Art fairs and auctions become verifiers of value. The magical powers of art depreciate. We are in the midst of great decadence. I can claim no moral or ethical superiority. I made temporary installations the main spine of my work for over forty years because that’s the art I had to make. It kept me outside the market. I supported myself – and my art – with other jobs. It helps to have a good wife who sees you over the impecunious bumps. All the installations were made by Patrick Ireland, who now has been laid to rest at IMMA, courtesy of Enrique Juncosa. All temporary, except for one in Kalamazoo. Temporary artworks, I think, sharpen the viewer’s perception. What you see is under threat of withdrawal. The mortal artwork already includes quotients of regret, anticipatory flashes of memory, including the memory of – in my case – yourself in the artwork. So, occupying a temporary installation can be a complex affair.

BMMc: Would you agree that your writings can often provide indicators of your strategies as an artist?

BOD: I used to write about other artists, but not so much anymore. I learn something when I write about other artists. I write about my own work in letters to friends. I do a lot of my thinking that way. The White Cube book obviously refers, in several indirect ways, to my own concerns as an artist. It came out of my installations. I was clambering all over those white galleries, attaching lines to ceilings, corners, etc. until ultimately I asked myself, “what is this white box I’m in?” Or rather the white box asked me, “why are you all over my virgin spaces?” I was astonished at the immediate reception of White Cube in Artforum. It seems to go on forever. More translations coming up – France, Italy. People now assume I have wise things to say about the gallery. I don’t. I said what I had to say. I’m no gallery guru.

BMMc: Now that your most prominent (and notorious to some)artistic pseudonym Patrick Ireland has finally been laid to rest,can you reflect upon the 36 year experience of living and working as Patrick Ireland?

BOD: Patrick Ireland as you know is a political creation. Bloody Sunday in Derry influenced me profoundly, as it did everyone else. I signed my work by that name until the Brits left Northern Ireland and all citizens were given their civil rights. Liam Kelly in Belfast and I stay very much in touch. He keeps me well informed. The time had come to abandon Patrick. I believe that taking another name is a serious business, nothing larky or funny about it. There are certain subtle effects on your own person. Patrick Ireland eventually became to me a distinct and visible person with his own thoughts and ideas. A separation took place. It has to do with the power of naming, with the power of the word. Words are intrinsic to my work. I suppose you could call Patrick Ireland a word, a signature. I must avoid any hokey stuff here. But a strange reciprocal exchange did take place, an interfusion, a shudder through your substance. I became used to working as him. When I was him, everything else dropped away. I was alone with the work, or with good helpers – in Dublin I was most fortunate to have Brendan Earley and Fergus Byrne, who think deeply about their work. Meeting younger artists is very necessary for me. Joe Stanley, who helped with Patrick’s coffin and effigy; Brian Duggan, who is indirectly related, and Jeannette Doyle who lent her shoulder to Patrick’s coffin. Now I have to get used to making art as myself again. I will miss the freedom and concentration that Patrick gave me. But he is joyfully abandoned. Irishmen are not killing Irishmen and women up North. By the way, Liam Kelly’s book, Thinking Long is full of images of artists responding to that conflict. It has produced some great works of art – Shane Cullen’s Fragments sur les institutions Republicaines. And remember Bob Ballagh’s powerful gesture at the Living Art long ago, in 1972?

Note

(1) After the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, Brian O’Doherty began using the pseudonym / personae Patrick Ireland in relation to his art practice; and as part of this strategy the artist ceased showing work in Britain. After 36 years working as Patrick Ireland, O ’Doherty formally ‘buried’ his alter ego in a ceremony at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (20 May 2008) as a gesture of recognition to celebrate the restoration of peace in Northern Ireland.

From the Archive:

“Temporary artworks, I think, sharpen the viewer’s perception. What you see is under threat of withdrawal. The mortal artwork already includes quotients of regret, anticipatory flashes of memory, including the memory of yourself in the artwork. So, occupying a temporary installation can be a complex affair.” – Brian O’Doherty (4 May 1928 – 7 November 2022)

Following the passing of pioneering art critic and conceptual artist, Brian O’Doherty, we are republishing an interview with Brian, originally commissioned for VAN July/Aug 2008.

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Following the passing of pioneering American conceptual artist, John Baldessari, last week, we are republishing an interview, originally commissioned by Jason Oakley for The Visual Artists’ News Sheet’s July/August 2006 issue, on the occasion of Baldessari’s Honorary Doctorate award by NUI Galway at Burren College of Art in 2006.

“Young artists are the future of art; you have to listen to their ideas; get into an interchange.  What I had to offer was advice on getting to where they wanted to be faster.  I found I cared.” – John Baldessari (1931–2020)

“In retrospect I can see some method in the resolution of an idea, but where the ideas come from is a mystery.  Ideas come from ideas.” – John Baldessari (1931–2020)

The making of art and the teaching of art do not always go together, even though for some they seem to be natural partners.  Just as some art teachers do not practice the art they teach, so some artists do not see a point in teaching. For some artists, however, the relationship of the two is important.

When John Baldessari came to the Burren College of Art in April 2006—to receive the honorary award of the Doctor of Fine Art of the National University of Ireland, he spoke as much about his teaching practice as his art practice and why it was important to him; and teasingly he hinted at connections between the two. As I am someone who is committed to the idea of art as a process of enquiry that leads to new knowledge, art and education are for me just two parts of the larger human endeavour. I was keen, therefore, to explore John Baldessari’s views on this subject. In an interview with him the day after the award ceremony I asked him what he found to be rewarding about art teaching.

He began by outlining how he had begun art teaching. “It wasn’t altruistic at first,” he told me. “I did it at my sister’s suggestion, to make money. I started at teaching in public schools and I found I liked it.” He had tried supporting himself by working as a technical illustrator, but found that unrewarding. “Teaching was much closer to my creative interests,” he said. Baldessari spoke about his motivation coming out of his early religious training and his sense of social conscience, “Art doesn’t help anyone, but I felt it could,” he said. Working with juvenile delinquents for a few months at a camp in the mountains with, “students whose attention span appeared to be about five minutes,” he discovered that, “here size mattered.” John Baldessari is 6ft 7ins tall, and whilst he impressed me with his mild and wryly humorous manner, I do not doubt his capacity to appear imposing should he wish to. Clearly he made an impact on those young offenders and he told me of one student who asked him to open the art room at night and with whom  he did a deal.  “It worked like a charm,” he said. “Some of the students seemed to like art even more than me!” His experience taught him of the good that art could do through its intrinsic value; “that it is worth doing for itself.” 

He went on to teach at various levels including junior college and on a university extension course. This was at the time when his reputation as an artist was becoming established and soon he was offered a teaching position at the University of San Diego. When the Dean moved to Cal Arts (California Institute of the Arts) he invited John to go with him. As his reputation as an artist gained ground and he became financially independent he moved away from education, “But I found I missed teaching.” 

So what was it about art education that had hooked him? “Young artists are the future of art, you have to listen to their ideas; get into an interchange. What I had to offer was advice on getting to where they wanted to be faster and I found that I cared.” His interest was no longer to do with money, but was to do with how artists understand and develop. 

I asked him whether he had ever considered teaching to be an integrated aspect of his practice as had been the case for Joseph Beuys, whose Free International University had been one of his artefacts. “What was important was the importance of being a role model,” he said, “If  I can do it then you can too. There is nothing mysterious about it.”

At this point I asked him about his creative strategy as an art educationist. “Do I have a strategy?” he replied, “I wish I knew. When I thought I was being strategic I wasn’t, and when I thought I wasn’t I probably was.” “Students watch you, they look for what is significant and what is significant to me may not be to them and what they find significant…”  Mentorship, he went on to suggest might be a good way of seeing it, and he told me about the Rolex Protegé Programme whereby an established artist gives one on one support to an emerging artist. I asked him to enlarge on the role of the mentor. “It’s probably very pragmatic. Whatever works works, whether it’s instruction or sympathy – both work.”

Here I referred to the educational strategy of the relationship of intention, process and outcome, which is closely identified with art education in Europe, and I invited John to respond. “I want to see what they do and what they want, and then I want to see how what they do relates. Then I try to fine tune in my own mind what they are trying to do; is there any carry through and how can I help?” In focussing on the what? and why? of art practice John Baldessari seems almost European as distinct from the conventional American engagement with how?, and its focus on mediums and technique. “It’s pretty much like bringing up a teenager. When I was a teenager I drove my mum mad!” 

I asked John to speak about the strategy and methods he used in his own work. “In retrospect I can see some method in the resolution of an idea, but where the ideas come from is a mystery. Ideas come from ideas.” He went on to discuss the idea of Darwinian evolution by citing a talk given by Julian Huxley in which he had heard the idea of the evolution of giant Galapagos tortoises discussed. “One tortoise comes out of another tortoise,” he said, “Ideas support each other. My next exhibition has come out of my five previous exhibitions. But now I’m exhausted, so what is the next step?” 

Well, what is the next step? “I think it is an unconscious connection,” he suggested. “Everything comes out of what intrigues us. It is all connected; there is a thread through all of my work; the elimination of information and the maintenance of narrative. When you have one word, does the second word change that first word or lead to something new?” 

He went on to talk of his interest in language and his belief that a word and an image are equal, “If a writer builds in words then I build in images,” he said. “Do you have a writing practice?” I asked. He shook his head not so much in negation as in perplexity. “Often I say I’m a frustrated writer.” “How do these creative strategies we’ve been talking about connect with your teaching?” “Well, I’m interested in clichéd information. I like breathing life into clichés, by which I mean dead language. It’s the same approach in teaching; seeing the clichés and revisiting the purpose of what’s being done, keeping it vital.

I went on to ask what contribution education might make to an artist’s success, thinking about the professional studies that have become part of most masters programmes.

“If you can think of anything else, do it,” he replied, Don’t do art for the money, for the market. My generation had no money. You had to have another job. And you can expect peer pressure to do different from what you do. Talent is cheap. Be crazy and be stubborn. Yes, and be passionate!”

This comment made me think of the means whereby emerging artists become established, so I asked about his views on contemporary art practice “Great art can appear any time, any place. You have to be open to being surprised. While you’re waiting at the garbage dump you have to look at a lot. Sometimes you see something and think, ‘I wish I had done that!’”

I asked him what he thought of the reworking of some of the art of the 1960s and 1970s without acknowledgement by artists much younger than yourself, sometimes appropriating your own work. He told me of an argument he had witnessed some years ago between Richard Long and Robert Smithson as to who owned the spiral, “In my view neither did, these things are ancient.” He also spoke of an artist who claimed that Richard Serra had stolen the title of a piece from him, Splash. “My answer to this man was, ‘So why don’t you claim the dictionary as yours, then you can claim that everyone has stolen from you.’ The fact is that art comes out of art, the same idea of evolution we were talking about just now. We build. No-one has ever been influenced by nothing at all. Education is a way of influencing too. It is the same process in art and in teaching. You have to look to the history of your own ideas and recognise what you are dealing with. Malevich reached a dead end with his white on white, but if you can push that forward then do it. But don’t fight blindly. Whatever works, works.”

“There is one thing that doesn’t work,” he added after a thoughtful pause, “didactic teaching. I reject that.” I asked him for good examples of teaching he had experienced. He laughed, “I received the worst teaching possible,” he said, “That was a big motivation.” “I think we’ve come full circle back to your own early experiences,” I said. “We have,” he replied, “Let’s join the others in the bar.”

Timothy Emlyn Jones, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, Ireland.

To learn more about John Baldessari go to his website, www.baldessari.org

Timothy Emlyn Jones is an artist who has exhibited internationally and is represented in public collections in a number of countries.  His most recent exhibitions have been in Beijing, Galway, Sydney and Venice.  At the time of writing this article, he was the Dean of the Burren College of Art.

www.burrencollege.ie

Feature Image: John Baldessari during his Honorary Doctorate confirmation at BCA; photograph courtesy of Burren College of Art.

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