More Paddywhackery from McDonagh: The Banshees of Inisherin

We all know of course that it’s nearly impossible for an Irish-made film to get bad reviews in the Irish press. Even our back-slapping book-reviewing establishment will admit to the odd stinker, but not our film critics. I do recall Neil Jordan’s High Spirits (an appalling farrago) getting treated as reverently as the latest Antonioni by a certain well-loved and now departed critic – who certainly knew better. So I went to see The Banshees of Inisherin recently with only mild expectations – heightened a degree by a mostly positive review by Peter Bradshaw (not an easy lay) in the Guardian. Readers - it left me cold and unimpressed. Now there were elements within it that I thoroughly enjoyed: the epic scenery around the Aran Islands and Achill; the soulful dog, the soulful cow, the soulful horse, the playful miniature goat and the virtuouso performance of Kerry Condon as Siobhan – sister of the afflicted Colin Farrell character. But the story line and the cast of cliched caricatures left me beyond indifferent. I didn’t believe a word of it. Now the McDonagh brothers have form in dishing up Paddywhackery – especially the older sibling. It’s perhaps a second-generation Irish thing where the smart London boys are inclined to exaggerate the priest-ridden, feckless Paddy tropes. But Martin is as guilty of that sin in this film as his brother John Michael was in the deplorable Calvary. No Irish-based film of theirs is complete without the brutal corrupt Garda or the compromised priest. The film is set in rural Ireland in 1923 so we’re not expecting latte-drinking islanders reading the New Yorker. Also, it’s a black comedy with Grand Guignol elements so we’re not expecting naturalistic characters and realistic situations. But even in comedy there has to be a reasonable foundation on which to build the story. And I couldn’t take seriously the basic premise. I just can’t believe a fiddle player would deliberately cut off his fingers – no matter how depressed he was. Neither can I believe that a priest would repeat local gossip in the confession. Or the naked Garda masturbating in his living room. And what was all this routine drinking at 2 pm? I’ve lived on isolated Irish islands with pubs and there was never such a practice – except on Sundays. The only place I encountered serious lunch-time drinking was amongst office staff in London in the Seventies. And the cliched characters: the snoopy post-mistress, the arrogant priest, the brutal Garda. Some positives of course: the surreal extension of the pigs in the kitchen trope was mildly amusing – especially that gorgeous cow. And the prosthetics were excellent – Brendan Gleeson’s fingerless hand was very convincing.  But overall a poor show Martin. The Tourist Board however won’t mind.

RDS Visual Arts Awards 2022

An edited version of this piece appeared in the Winter edition of the Irish Arts Review.

Aideen Barry, the curator of the RDS Visual Arts Awards tell us that “What you're seeing is a cutting edge snapshot of what the future of Irish art is going to be.” A bold statement which could perhaps do without the “cutting edge”. It’s a snapshot –  time will judge whether it’s old hat, emperor’s new clothes, or the real deal . Barry is a fine artist herself with an interest in the Gothic and the “uncanny”. Her work incorporates drawing, sculpture, and film and the show that she and her fellow judges have assembled provides a rich and entertaining blend of these media. 

Inside the entrance of the RDS Concert Hall you encounter Sadhbh Mowlds’ startlingly life-like Eve (see image above). I had to move very close to ensure it wasn’t a person so well-wrought was the illusion. Duane Hansen could hardly have done better and I wager he never used his own hair to give the legs a little authentic hirsuteness. This striking, award-winning work sets the tone for a show that aside from one dull and gratuitously esoteric work (accompanied by an earnestly worthy blurb) is full of colour and technical verve. Orla Comerford’s prize-winning Oidhreacht is an innovative video depiction of her father, a woodworker, building a boat. The film is projected on to three large curved screens and the images move from abstract to figurative depending how far you stand from the screen. This provides the viewer with a taste of Comerford’s own visual impairment. It’s a technical tour-de-force, an aesthetically-pleasing encounter, and a meaningful expression of the artist’s psyche. Another arresting piece of video was Aisling Phelan’s Dual Reality. A triptych of screens delivered a well-scripted meditation on the gulf between our identity and our digital identity. The long-list of candidates for the awards, and indeed the awards themselves, were inclusive in terms of colour and our LGBGTQ community. However, there was a noticeable shortage of male contenders on both the long list and the short-list. It possibly reflects the dwindling number of men taking fine art as a subject – with a touch of the zeitgeist thrown in. (A recent Graphic Studio Dublin show featured 16 female members and nary a male one. When I queried this with the curator she replied “I’d say you weren’t a bit worried when the art world was dominated by males for centuries”. A comment that suggests her selection process may have tainted by an element of revenge for the sins of our fathers.) It was good to see that one of this beleaguered gender at least made it to the final 13 – he also represented the art of painting, somewhat neglected in our art colleges. Syzmon Minias’s small self-portraits in oil were full of character with echoes of Vuillard and Eugène Leroy. Michelle Malone’s striking tapestries of the Artane Industrial School, accompanied by video and interviews with those whose lives were touched by the abuse in these places was another moving work and a fine record of hard times.The main award, the RDS Taylor Art Award, went to Venus Patel for her film Eggshells. As a queer person of colour she has experienced abuse, including ‘egging’. The film employed the offending object in a series of colourful vignettes where the artist danced her troubles away. I was however concerned by the number of innocent eggs that were harmed in this exercise. I was entertained by being allowed sit on Sinead McCormick’s very serviceable raft Adrift and getting that islanded experience. And Myfanwy Frost-Jones alarming film that dealt with pollution in Kenmare Bay combined grim facts with distractingly gorgeous views of the South-West. The show, notwithstanding the many substantial issues it addressed, was highly entertaining and professionally presented so it’s a shame it didn’t enjoy a longer run.

 

 

 

 

 

Male Printmakers Banished from the Garden

A visit to the Arts Council web site informs you that: “Diversity is a core organisational value in the Arts Council’s 10-year strategy to 2025”. This aspiration tells us that if you are an organisation that hopes to receive Arts Council funding you should make sure that your activities are inclusive. This embraces gender balance, the inclusion of racial minorities and those with physical handicaps amongst other criteria. A recent exhibition by members of Graphic Studio Dublin (GSD) caught my eye in this regard. I was a board member of GSD for many years and so continue to take an interest in its activities. The exhibition that got my attention was Geomancy – The Printmakers Garden curated by Aoife Scott at the University of West England (UWE) in Bristol from the 21^st to the 25^th September 2022. My issue wasn’t the missing apostrophe in the sub-title, although I admit that pained me, it was the fact that an exhibition that was a showcase for GSD featured 16 women and nary a man. Now I realise that there are far more women than men in GSD (the proportion is roughly 75-25%) but unless the show was confined to women (and it didn’t seem to be) you’d expect two or three men at least. Also, amongst the surviving males in GSD are four of the major print makers in the country: Robert Russell, Niall Naessens, Stephen Lawlor, and James McCreary.

 

I was curious about the reasons for this omission so I contacted Aoife Scott, a member of GSD (and a recent board member) via Instagram.  She responded that “the male artists just choose (sic) not to respond or be in the exhibition.” Passing strange, I felt, that any Irish artist would pass up on an opportunity to show in England. I contacted, through a mutual friend, the four male GSD artists I mentioned earlier and none of them had been contacted. It’s perfectly possible that she contacted other male artists that suited her vision (ignoring what could be considered the cream of the current crop) who all eschewed the opportunity. But here’s the nub of the matter: realising that she was going to have an all-female lineup she should have made an effort to find alternative male representation. Especially as she was a board member and so someone who should be aware of the responsibilities of her organisation. The four I had contacted said they would have jumped at the opportunity to show there. A curator is entitled to select the artists she feels best suit her project, but when a specific studio is involved, with male and female members, she should ensure that representation is inclusive. Otherwise declare the exhibition a women only event. The other option of course is to claim that all the men are shite artists and that they were rejected on aesthetic grounds.

 

Being the nuisance that I am I contacted Aoife Scott again and this time didn’t get a polite response but rather an outburst of childish invective. I quote:

 

            “Are you threatened by female artists exhibiting together and supporting each other John? Is it that you are worried that the arts are being taken over by women…I’d say you weren’t a bit worried when the art world was dominated by males for centuries.” 

 

We’ll pass over the inference that I am centuries old in this cheeky response but here, naked and unadorned is our curator’s rationale for male exclusion. She is seemingly intent, through her choices, in redressing the balance after centuries of imbalance - of visiting the sins of their fathers on the current crop of male artists. In doing so she is of course repeating historical injustices. More significantly she is using an Arts Council funded organisation to carry out a political agenda that goes very much against the Arts Council’s advocacy of inclusion.

 

However, she is just one individual with a palpable agenda. Where was the GSD board when all this happened. For that matter, where were all the male members? I had occasion at a recent funeral to quote Dante on those who remain silent in the face of wrong-doing:

 

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

 

This is hardly a great moral conflict, but it should be addressed by those charged with running GSD and by its members. It was noticeable in the recent RDS Visual Awards exhibition for art student graduates how few male artists there were. I was told that this reflected the diminishing number of men attending art college. We should be encouraging more male engagement with the arts rather than ostracising men for the sins of their fathers.