CIRCA Art Magazine - Winter 2000

Perspective 2000, the Ormeau Baths Gallery's annual open exhibition now in its third year, has firmly established itself as a significant event in Northern Ireland's visual arts calendar. The private view had the best attendance of any exhibition I had witnessed in Northern Ireland so far this year, with a large proportion of the arts community making more than an appearance; they contributed to the atmosphere of anticipation and celebration.

The format of this open-submission exhibition has not really changed over the last three years. The exhibition continues to be open to all artists working in any medium who have work that has never been shown before or that they can afford to realise for the first time (along with enough extra disposable cash to cover the cost of making an application and fee).

This year Lynne Cooke, curator at the DIA Center for the Arts, New York, selected the exhibition and in her catalogue essay she clarified her perception of the role of selector:

Walking through the different gallery spaces Cooke's contribution as curator became very apparent, with each space appearing as separate small group shows; this was particularly noticeable in galleries three and four. In this way Cooke's curation set this year's Perspective exhibition apart from the usual open-submission-exhibition experience. Whilst not always successful in terms of the individual artist's work featured, the show did have a coherent feel.

The Absolut Prize - the £6000stg first prize - was split between Phil Collins and Niamh McCann. Both artists presented works that were particularly poignant in terms of Belfast. Collins' work The Marches, a four-monitor video installation, had an immediacy that seductively drew you in, and when in it, it was easy to lose all track of time. The two outside monitors featured interviews with locals whilst the two central monitors portrayed images of the Orange Order's traditional celebrations: marching, bonfires, drinking and staggering homeward. The rhythmical relationship between the monitors and the imagery they depicted continually shifted the focus from any one narrative reading and instead presented a dynamic media haze.

McCann's work Dislocated, a site-specific installation, explored the issues of contemporary life in Belfast in relation to tradition and history. The work set up an interactive relationship between the statue of Queen Victoria, located in front of Belfast City Hall, and the passing crowd. As people moved by the statue a sensor activated a set of lights that illuminated the statue. The intensity of the lighting was affected by the relative distance between the person/s and the statue.

The exhibition featured work by other artists who had also set out to explore aspects of contemporary life in Belfast, and of these John Duncan's series of photographs stood out. In his series of works titled Boom Town Duncan documents Belfast's continually changing urban skyline. Each photograph depicts a developer's billboard, featuring a preview of the future - a new apartment or shopping complex which would soon take the place of the otherwise empty plot. Duncan, through his series of simple photographs, articulated concisely a sense of complex transition that is contemporary-life Belfast.

As with the some of the more positive changes now being witnessed in Belfast, the Ormeau Baths Gallery continues to develop this exhibition through its considered choice of selectors, from its controversial inception toward firmly establishing Perspective nationally and internationally as a significant showcase of contemporary art in Northern Ireland.

¹Cooke Lynne, Doubleb(lind), Perspective 2000 catalogue.

Peter Richards is an artist based in Belfast.