| The Secret Underground |
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The writer rummages among fragments of a forgotten history of Irish art in the 20th century.
Academics dream of discovering Rosetta Stones; radical documents that can unlock the secrets of a practice. Recently certain documents came into my possession that I understand are of this type. I believe that, given the necessary grants and sabbaticals, I can construct a career around these fragments; texts and images left by a group of artistic ground-breakers who until now have eluded analysis.
These documents, though tattered, torn and well-nigh illegible, hint at an incredible underground movement in the visual arts in Ireland that gives the lie to the myth that nothing of consequence to visual culture had happened here since the tenth century.
Of all the avant-garde strategies hinted at in these documents perhaps the large pink envelope marked simply 'Kells' gives us the clearest insight into the radical praxis of the group. Having established the Book of Kells as the primal source of their visual trauma (that nightmare of art history!) they sought, through their practice, to engage the fundamental mistake at the heart of that abstruse enigma. A diary note reads:
We must awaken from the nightmare of our visual tradition. That obfuscation that is a primary barrier to progress--forever uncoiling spirally and swelling lacertine lazily before our eyes without the slightest hint of the beauty of restraint--is, we all agree, 'The Book of Kells'. What feasible significant art, we ask ourselves, could possibly, in an avant garde context, come from such a self reflexive abomination of whirligig lines, skeins of coloured tracery, obsessive re-embellishment, rhetorical hyperbole; a maximalism--there is no other word for it--that passes the threshold of acceptable hysteria on a mindlessly absurd trajectory of self display.
"Bah! Ultimately it displays only the means of its own production." (Chairman's note)
It must be dismantled. We install drawing desks and all members of the group, each to his own private space, has taken a vow of silence. This ensures that there will be no distraction from our mission. Our mission, we are all agreed, is to disentangle an exemplary page of the hateful labyrinth that is 'The Book'. Unfortunately, due to one of those oversights that seems to mark our destiny, we neglected, prior to taking the vows of silence, to nominate and agree which page we would reconstruct. There is frantic activity but no consensus. I pray, notwithstanding, that the project succeeds. I must cease from writing now and return to my desk and begin my silence.
Here the writing ends. What a calamity! Why, I have often asked myself, did they not write notes to each other? Two reasons I surmise. (1) In addition to the silence vow they would also, and I believe I have come to understand them in these art matters, have vowed not to use some other form of communication that was not dedicated to the project in hand. (2) [and arising from (1)] They were avant-garde artists; oblivious to everything that might impede the flames of the furnace that was their creative life.
There are two other documents in the envelope. One is a page from 'The Book' overlaid with a grid. The other is, I believe, a selection from one area of the grid that has been disentangled. In keeping with the Utopianism that prevailed in the group at that time, it is not signed, but, clearly, something of moment was afoot.
From this amazing sample one can only imagine what the completed project might have looked like. In addition, understand that this labour of hate was accomplished before the advent of Quark Xpress--not to mention Agnes Martin--to get some idea of what might have been a critical and pre-emptive part of our Irish visual heritage. (Lost, now, alas!)
Noel Sheridan is an artist and Director of the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
Editor: CIRCA understands that further revelations may emerge from this research. We will publish them as they arise.
