C106 review

Paris: Dead Bodies at Centre Culturel Irlandais

The Irish Cultural Centre, located in the former Irish College in Paris, does not have a dedicated exhibition space but a wonderful multi-functional room that is used for exhibitions, theatre and talks. The current exhibition, to be followed in November by Perry Odgen's photographs of Francis Bacon's studio, seems to have been the brainchild of researchers in the Irish Studies unit of the Sorbonne who are looking into the general theme of the dead body in Irish art.

Veronica Nicholson: Nature morte - road kills, (1996 - 2001), collection of animal bones and twenty photographs mounted on board, each 29.5 x 19.5cm; photo Colm Pierce; courtesy Centre Culturel Irlandais

Appropriately enough, the Centre is located a stones throw away from the Panthéon, that extraordinary secular homage to the French obsession with necrophilia, where the great and the good of the nation are interred for posterity. All are male and most are long-forgotten military bloodletters and obscure politicians rubbing caskets with the likes of Rousseau, Voltaire and Victor Hugo.

I may be mistaken, but dead bodies are hardly a feature of Irish art. Even the horrific events of the last three decades have evoked an oblique response from artists rather than a direct confrontation with events. The work of Willie Doherty is emblematic of this focusing on the spaces of death rather than the event itself.

One exception might be the work of the Belfast painter Jack Pakenham, where tortured figures seem to exist in a no-man's-land between life and death. Indeed it is surprising that Pakenham's painting, The Raft of the Medusa, Ulster Version, is not included in this show since it would make a marvellous foil to Andrew Folan's digital take on Gericault's original Raft. While Folan's print is a witty and striking reworking of the original, Pakenham stresses the accusatory and condemning nature of the original.

Veronica Nicholson and Dermot Seymour are concerned less with the human world than that of animals and our casual mistreatment of them. Road kill is a metaphor for more than just our contempt for other species; it also covers our determination to sacrifice the world around us on the altar of the automobile. The death of small animals on our roads is the subject of Nicholson's colour photographs. The dead bodies of birds are laid out, surrounded by symbols of mourning, and presented to the viewer in an iconic fashion. Beautifully photographed, the works are disturbing and provoke thoughts of how far the modern world has alienated itself from nature.

Dermot Seymour's relationship with dead animals is rather more ambiguous. A dedicated angler, he has killed many fish in his time and probably would not share Nicholson's ontological dismay at the sight of dead animals. His rapport with the animal kingdom is not confined to corpses, although a fascination with road kill is beginning to emerge in his work. His cows can be accusatory, sometimes clearly sick and often they seem threatened by sinister technological forces.

Dead Bodies is an interesting idea for an exhibition, even if it only makes us think of different cultural attitudes towards death and its portrayal.

Jim Smyth teaches Cultural Studies at Queen's University in Belfast.

Andrew Folan, Veronica Nicholson, Dermot Seymour: Dead Bodies, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, September/October 2003