John Reardon

WORKS made as far apart as the Czech Republic and Co Kerry, are scattered around the City Arts Centre gallery, into the toilets and even out on to the street, for John Reardon's first Irish solo show. The sculptor's area of interest appears to be power, and more particularly the physical structures and hierarchies which allow power to manifest itself.

Reardon frequently chooses to explore these ideas through items of sculptural furniture, including beds and tables. The most prominent form in the work, however, is the chair, an object which, in Reardon's hands, comes to represent both the individual and the political machinery for exercising power.

The largest piece is a set of chairs which seems to invite visitors to sit and watch a slide show, itself featuring seating arrangements from various parliaments, meeting rooms and debating chambers. Reardon's chairs, however, only seem to offer an invitation. As they are made of cardboard, any suggestion of utility is bogus.

More seating arrangements appear in Reardon's sombre, Warholesque oil on glass images. Here, the surfaces of chairs and desks are allowed to meld into geometric patterns, as stark, industrial grids emerge from the repetition of individual shapes.

Given his interest in furniture, it is not surprising that Reardon's work constantly reiterates notions such as "coming to the table", the phrase suggesting both joining in a communal meal and entering into negotiations. Both these senses of the words come together in Bread and Iron. Here, two painfully narrow chairs are placed at an equally contorted metal table. Across the table, small loaves of bread, carved into models of rudimentary housing, are waiting in battle formation. The loaves suggest a meal, but they may simply be pieces in a chess like game with unfathomable rules. In either case, the chairs offer the illusion that somebody is in charge, when in fact only the structure exists: the chairs remain empty.