February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The show’s title takes its name from a statement in the novel’s first chapter when Stephen Dedalus points to Buck Mulligan’s shaving mirror and proclaims: “It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.”
Representing the show, which first ran at the Graphic Studios Gallery in Dublin, the artists have created a series of thematically linked works, their whimsical notions and evocative anthologies, each capable of saying many things in a single frame. Some of the artists approached the work directly, referring to the characters, the text or the locations. Others, like Alice Maher, let the ideas find them. Marc Reilly, a Dublin artist, confessed to falling short of finishing the book. Instead, he produced an empirical piece that only indirectly refers to the subject. Overall the compositions invite the observer to delve deep into the concepts that lurk beneath the layers of surface and ink.
Some of the artists, like Dermot Seymour, John Kindness and Maher, are no strangers to New York galleries. Both Seymour and Kindness hail from Belfast and are graduates from the University of Ulster. And though others have gained recognition by exhibiting in Europe and the U.S., and whose work is held in public and private collections, the prospect of showing in a gallery in New York City, where Andy Warhol popularized Pop Art and Jackson Pollock pioneered Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s, is of great achievement and importance.
The 30 Irish and two American artists in this show are Yoko Akino, John Behan, Carmel Benson, Charles Cullen, Michael Cullen, Felim Egan, Barry Flanagan, Joy Gerrard, Richard Gorman, Terence Gravett, Michael Hasket, John Kindness, Jennifer Lane, Stephen Lawlor, Maev Lenaghan, Mary Lohan, Alice Maher, Kelvin Mann, Colin Martin, James McCreary, Margo McNulty, Niall Naessens, Lina Nordenstrom, Lars Nyberg, Ruth O’Donnell, Tom Phelan, Marc Reilly, Heather Ryan Kelley, Tracy Staunton, Stephen Vaughan, Susan Weil and Dermot Seymour.
Printmaking is, of course, an intricate medium. The techniques and methods used in “The Cracked Lookingglass” include etching, aquatint, woodblock, intaglio, carborundum and drypoint, to name but a few. Each of the artists demonstrated the various skills necessary to compile a show so rich and diverse in method, so delicately perfect.
The Old Print Shop, which was founded in 1898 in the East Village, houses thousands of original prints that date as far back as the 18th century. It seems a natural match for the artists representing the Graphic Studios, whose Temple Bar gallery boasts no fewer than 3,000 original prints from both Irish and International artists. If the galleries in Ireland cannot hold a candle to New York, Dublin is at least doing its best to keep the flame burning.
The idea of “The Cracked Lookingglass” exhibition came about several years ago, said Claire Power, the Graphic Studio workshop administrator, after an invitation from the Department of Arts and Tourism, to participate in the nation’s 2004 Bloomsday celebrations. Then, in 2002, Michael DiCerbo, an Irish-American curator from the Old Print Shop, visited the Graphic Studio. After meeting the Graphic Studio’s director, Stephen Lawlor, he proposed that a contemporary Irish exhibition be brought to New York. “To my memory, this is the first Irish exhibition in the last 106 years, since the gallery opened”, he said.
According to DiCerbo, the work by the artists is both emotionally powerful and technically complex. A print-maker himself, he keeps printing paraphernalia, like plates from his own work, at his desk. Inspecting the zinc plates for precision, he marveled at the meticulousness. “They must have used a good box to achieve this sharpness and accuracy”, he said.
Rachel Kim had come to view the show. She talked about the ideas that surrounded the work and wondered how each artist had come to that point.
“I never read ‘Ulysses,’ but I can appreciate art for arts sake,” she said.
The exhibition suggests that the artists, like so many readers of “Ulysses,” found themselves battling the literary monster. But the result here is, more often than not, complex themes rendered accessible. Too often art sets out to obscure the meaning, cloud the mind, complicate the uncomplicated in life. The simplicity of the work in this exhibition managed none of the above, but instead spoke volumes.
(The “The Cracked Lookingglass” will be on exhibition at the Old Print Shop’s second floor gallery through Aug. 13. Hours are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.)