C110 review

Cork: The Raw, not the Cooked at Fenton Gallery

Every artist has work that does not belong to their mainstream practice, uncharacteristic pieces that may puzzle them, make them laugh or even cry, that they would not normally submit to an exhibition. Katherine Boucher Beug, who values the subconscious and spontaneity in her own painting, invited artists to take part in The Raw, Not the Cooked, a show put together, appropriately enough, at short notice to fill a gap in the Fenton Gallery's calendar.

Those who responded include Maud Cotter, Angela Fewer, June Fitzgerald, Mags Fitzgibbon, Billy Foley, Ita Freeney, Vivienne Griffin, Jo Kelley, Suzanne Leutenegger, Sybil Montague, Janet Mullarney, Collette Nolan, Eilís O'Connell, Mick O'Shea, June Pollock (Fairhead), Vivienne Roche and Charles Tyrrell.

Mags Fitzgibbons: One month of 'nothingness' in Hammerschmidt Gasse, photography on brown paper, 122 x 168 cm; photo Billie Foley; courtesy the artist

The enthusiasm with which the artists greeted the project highlights the increasing pressure on contemporary artists to conform to the expectations of their gallery and their buying public. Many of the works were on paper, but there was no dominant aesthetic; the gallery looked untidy, verging on chaotic, and had more the atmosphere of a studio with work in progress than a place showing finished work.

The title was loosely based on Levi Strauss's Culinary Triangle, using the idea of raw versus cooked broadly, as a metaphor for the show's intent. Raw in this context is not the same as unfinished, nor is it a synonym for painful: it is something complete in itself with a life of its own that the artist is unable to develop or explain.

Mullarney's Claro che si, a photograph and its 3-D mixed-media off-spin, exemplified the genre, as did Tyrrell's enigmatic drawings, Kelley's Birds, Fitzgerald's fragile boat in raw clay and wood, O'Shea's Mouse trap, and Fitzgibbon's devastatingly sad photocollage, 1ne month of 'nothingness' in Hammerschmidt Gasse.

It was an uneven but exciting show, one that raised more questions than it answered. How important was a prior knowledge of the artist's work to an appreciation of their raw stuff? Is 'raw' really the right word to describe this kind of work? And, most importantly, how have we got to the point where artists habitually suppress this very exciting kind of work as being unhelpful to their reputation?

A similar exercise on a bigger scale with perhaps two or three curators instead of one (to stimulate discussion and set more clearly defined criteria) would be an ideal project for Art Trail 2005.

Alannah Hopkin

The Raw, not the Cooked, Fenton Gallery, Cork, October 2004

Article reproduced from CIRCA 110, Winter 2004, pp.71
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