Gao Brothers, Nick Knight, Claire Morgan: Death, Show Studio Shop

until 31 Aug 2012



In Dublin once, there was an exhibition of three, only three, paintings by Dutch masters. I had thought, how bizarre, yet afterwards I realised that three is the exact perfect number of exhibits.

So, I was extremely pleased when now, years after, I entered the ShowStudio. Tucked away in a quiet laneway, hidden from the loud kitsch of Mayfair, a dead angel, a symmetrical cube and a firing squad are waiting in triptych.

Kate 2011, by Nick Knight, engulfed my heart immediately. I have always had a primeval fixation with wax statuettes. At 16, my friend had travelled with her parents to Bulgaria, she came back with the most beautiful gift, three vampyrettes, standing back to back in a column, dark, grey, waxy, I thought they'd be eternal. They melt ungracefully for 15 years.

Kate 2011 is their sister, an angel, woman, naked but not sexualised, dead. Her white waxy colour the most beautiful of whites. She is a Crucifix and she is hovering in a tiny tilt. How magnificent a little detail, I smiled.

Next to her, a perfect geometry of concentric cubes expands from a singularity. The imaginary lines of The Heart of Darkness, by Claire Morgan, are defined by spots, and those spots are dead flies. I would naturally tut at similar endeavours, but these flies are not just smirky material but they are a deadly, intelligent, exquisite and scary swarm.

The next room is occupied by a life-sized death squad and their prey: an almost stereotypical Jesus, dignified, inviting and wondering. You are welcomed to walk around them, and each angle makes this a different sculpture, making you observer from the sides or above, or both the victim and the executioner. The squad are all replicas of Mao. They are fat, overdressed, rigid and passé. They are old. They are the killers but they are the ones that are dead. Their Jesus is not the religious one. He is young, thin, and with a stature that is timeless and also contemporary, his hair is thick and untreated, not of an icon but of an eco warrior, a dissident, the one we will, probably, never dare be. They are all bronze, like all the statues of conquerors and butchers on horses. The squad are all alike. Bar one. One hesitates. Will we at least be him?
(Gao Brothers, The Execution of Christ)


more info:
http://showstudio.com/shop/exhibition/death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gao_Brothers
http://nickknight.com/main.html
http://www.claire-morgan.co.uk/