C106 review

Belfast: And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other at the Ormeau Baths 

In the inaugural exhibition enabled by the Ormeau Baths Gallery's Guest Curator Programme, Ruth Jones and Ursula Burke presented works from the US, Britain and Northern Ireland from the early twentieth century to the present, which they consider exemplary of, or informed by, feminist art practices. This exhibition testified to the Ormeau Baths Gallery's vision and professional generosity in its willingness to support emerging artist/curators. The curators borrowed the title, And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other, from an essay by feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray on the theme of mother-daughter relations in patriarchal societies, bringing diverse works to a convergence informed by white Continental feminism. Artists chosen were Hannah Wilke, Ana Mendieta, Claude Cahun, Jananne Al Ani, Sandra Johnston, Helen Chadwick and Lucy Gunning. The theme of maternal relations was not maintained as the primary curatorial premise; instead all of the works were located in the less definitive context of "feminine desire and its fulfilment." Perhaps the maternal theme might have been interesting to retain with increased focus on practices in Ireland though, bearing in mind that in the South a patriarchal Constitution conflates the category of 'woman' with that of 'mother'; while the seeming expansiveness of "feminine desire" raises questions of other practices it might have accounted for.

Importantly, however, this show afforded an exciting opportunity to see significant practices, in the majority of cases exhibited for the first time in Belfast and indeed on the island. The curators' considered presentation of most of the works in separate spaces was necessary to a juxtaposition of practices from such a wide geographical and temporal span. Simultaneously, the works also had to be brought into dialogues with one another but, rather than becoming a free-floating exchange, this interplay needed to be accompanied with some recognition of their different contexts, which their sequestered presentation permitted.

Sandra Johnston: The space of a chair, 2003, installation shot of work and residue from durational performance; courtesy the artist

In her Sileuta (1976) series of photo images, Ana Mendieta, who considered herself a Third World diaspora artist in the United States, does not depict her actual body but its hollow imprint in sand. The water's erasure of her imprint is depicted over the series and in comparison to the bodily presence manifested in Hannah Wilke's works in the adjacent space, could at first glance appear as one artist's absence in contrast to another's presence. But if considered in terms of Mendieta's description of her relationship to the earth in the series, as a return to the maternal source, the imagery took on a different significance.

Hannah Wilke's Portrait of the artist with her mother (1978-81) comprises two separate portrait photographs, one of the artist and another of her mother. Wilke's mother does not face the viewer, while her bare chest shows the effects of a mastectomy. In her own self-portrait, her bare chest dotted with metal objects, Wilke engages with the look of the viewer in an image of an ominous plenitude echoed in Rosebud (1976), the wall-mounted sculpture composed of pink latex folds and metal pins, in the same space.

In a nearby space hung twenty-eight of Claude Cahun's intimately sized photographs of the artist and of her collaboration with Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbes). During her lifetime, these were exchanged between the artist and her companions and conveyed an affecting sense of the subject's striving for fluid forms of visibility.

Jananne Al Ani's mesmerising video A loving man (1996-99) was another work by an artist who featured herself as a daughter. This comprised an installation of five interfacing monitors, each showing footage of a single member of the family of four sisters and their mother. As each woman narrates the same account of their father's absence through the Gulf War, the others appear as attentive listeners. Over the course of the work, it emerges that some recitals of the narrative diverge slightly, or smiles indicate forgotten lines. A moving articulation of the effects of conflict, the account moreover operates as an object of interaction between the women.

Sandra Johnston's installation The space of a chair (2003) presented a series of photographs and a room in which one could sit and listen to a recording of anonymous women who describe their interior surroundings in homes and offices in Belfast. All of the women emerge as individuals intertwined in wider networks, dismantling notions of distinct public and private realms. Johnston also performed in the space for one day and left no obvious trace behind, returning the work to an exchange between viewers and speakers. Hung just outside the room, the photographs mostly depict defunct or discarded domestic objects in exterior settings. When viewing the photographs, the women's narratives remained audible and prompted associations between the objects they describe in their rooms and those in the images. In some cases suffused with a gentle humour, the objects in the photographs suggested anonymous individuals to whom they were once significant.

Lucy Gunning: The horse impressionists, 1995 (stills from video); courtesy the artist

Lucy Gunning's The horse impressionists (1995), a video of women, whinnying like horses, contacted through a classified ad, didn't amount to an equation of 'woman' with animalistic nature, or connote abjection. Instead the women's engrossed confidence underpinned their equestrian identifications/performances with a compelling authority. In the same space, permeating the gallery with its luscious smell, Helen Chadwick's Cacoa (1994), a spout of molten chocolate centred in a giant bubbling pool, had as spectacular an impact as you'd expect from such an impressive technical feat. While this work tends to be considered a play on the cliché that for women the pleasure of chocolate is equal to or surpasses that of sex, for this viewer it explores relations between feminine subjectivity and commodity fetishism under globalised capitalism.Through these layered and powerful works, feminism(s) emerged as a plurality of practices and nonconsensual debates. The full attendance at the accompanying programme of screenings and at the seminar discussion hosted by the Gallery was an indication of the many people to whom these dialogues matter.

Suzanna Chan is a Research Assistant at the School of Art and Design, University of Ulster.

And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other, Ormeau Baths Gallery, July - August 2003