Dividing space
Billy Leahy is impressed by the bipartite exhibition at the new Farmleigh Gallery which sees work by astrophysicist Jacques Mandelbrojt juxtaposed with that of other international artists who investigate the relationship between science and art
A converted cowshed is perhaps the last place you'd expect to find an artistic examination of the fabric of time. But until the last day of October, Ireland's newest exhibition space – Farmleigh Gallery – located at the rear of Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park, is home to such a weighty exploration. Making Time is in fact an exhibition in two parts, with the space divided between a retrospective of French artist, astrophysicist and mathematician, Jacques Mandelbrojt, and a showcase of works by renowned and seminal international artists such as Alexander Calder, Joseph Beuys, Bill Viola and Victor Vasarely. Just what would the former bovine inhabitants have made of it all?
If Making Time is a signal of intent from Farmleigh Gallery, it is certainly an impressive one, with the exhibition marking its entry on the Irish art scene with a bang – or should that be big bang? The show is the brainchild of Adrian Kelly, the curator of the Glebe House & Gallery in Letterkenny, who worked closely with Mandelbrojt in an attempt to create an exhibition which would compliment a retrospective of the French artist's own retrospective.
The roll-call is impressive: added to the four already mentioned, work from Sam Francis, Turner Prize-winner Richard Long, John Cage and Bridget Riley is also on display in a varied but surprisingly cohesive exhibition. The only real disappointment – and this should be mentioned in a brief breath – is the Joseph Beuys piece, which is sadly not a scrawled-upon chalk board, but a mere photograph of the German artist meeting Lady Rosebury at the black and white oil conference in Edinburgh in 1974.
Making Time has been scheduled to run during the United Nations Year of Physics (yes, it is 2005, and it had escaped my notice too), which not coincidently in the slightest is also the centenary year of the publication of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, in which he purposed that time could be influenced and may not be as rigid as Isaac Newton had reasoned. At the Farmleigh Gallery, it is more a case of how time influences artists and an understated investigation of the sometimes uneasy, sometimes rousing relationship between science and art.
Some pieces in the exhibition smoothly jink into place with this theme: Bill Viola's video installation 'The Reflecting Pool: Collected Works', for instance, has at its very core ideas of time and its function of measuring distance between events such as birth and death. Other works require a bit more effort to uncover their correlation with the concept of time and the relationship between science and art, with curator Adrian Kelly admitting it is doubtful whether all the artists would have been aware that they were touching on and addressing this. As a result, the exhibition benefits, as it becomes a more intellectually challenging and involving show.
As a single piece, Cage's 'One 11 and 103' is the most outstanding in the exhibition. The unassuming score brilliantly complements the minimal visual projection, creating a masterful and engaging work. Elsewhere, the room with works by 19th Century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, Richard Long, Michelle Lazenby and former Turner Prize nominee Tacita Dean is amazingly orchestrated and encompasses all the elements that render Making Time a successful début for the gallery.
But with so much to absorb in the larger space, the fascinating retrospective of Mandelbrojt in the adjoining room is slightly and, without doubt, undeservedly overshadowed. The short DVD interview with Mandelbrojt that accompanies his work is intriguing, with the artist explaining how each layer of his work is a reflection of time and space and how the vertical reading of a sketch, combined with the horizontal nature of a series of drawings, corresponds to axes of time. Ironically, getting into the complexities of Making Time is itself a time-consuming quest, and although ultimately very fulfilling, you probably shouldn't stay until the cows come home.