I SEE FROM his website that Rowan Gillespie, the sculptor responsible for the Treasury Building’s climbing female (An Irishman’s Diary, April 3rd), is a big admirer of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Apparently he “fell under the spell” of the great expressionist while lecturing at the Munch Museum in Oslo earlier in his career.
No doubt the resulting influence is reflected in all of Gillespie’s work, including the Naked Lady of Nama. Even so, one senses a missed opportunity in the latter’s facial expression. Perhaps what the Treasury Building needs now is a more overt homage to Munch’s most famous painting, The Scream, to capture the public mood vis-a-vis the cost of the bank rescue.
Not that artists should be concerned with such issues. The public mood changes constantly, whereas art must aspire to permanence. But speaking of “aspiration”, that indeed is the title of the Treasury sculpture. Which, whether deliberate or not, probably did express the popular outlook back in 1995 when the piece was commissioned.
The name also suggests, contrary to my earlier speculation, that the figure is ascending the wall; although in these more pessimistic days, when the mood is not so much aspiration as desperation, she may appear to be engaged in a climb-down.
Certainly, it now seems significant that she is glancing nervously over her shoulder at the ground below.
Other sculptures have been similarly affected by changed circumstances. That defining monument of the boom period – the Millennium Spire – appeared at the time to represent Ireland reaching for the sky. Now it just looks like a giant pin: the one that burst the bubble (and led to what some people are calling the “kaboom” period). But perhaps this gloomy image will pass in time.
As – I hope – will another image: the one conjured up by the Minister for Finance last weekend. Defending the credibility of his bank rescue plan, Brian Lenihan said that Nama had already proven its – and I quote – “virility.”
It was an interesting choice of word. In light of which, the Treasury sculpture takes a whole new twist.
I still see her as Cathleen Ní Houlihan – a poetic representation of Ireland – trying to escape the building. But now I imagine the chain of events that precipitated her emergency exit were as follows.
Moments earlier, she had emerged from her morning shower: draped loosely in a bath towel and drying her hair with it, oblivious of the lustful eyes upon her. Suddenly, she found herself confronted by a rampant National Asset Management Agency, anxious to prove its virility. Dropping her towel with the shock, she fled from Nama’s slavering advances. And thus we see her, risking death rather than dishonour, as she abseils down the side of the building in panic, without so much as a rope.
MEANWHILE back in Scandinavia, but still on public art, I see that the ominous-sounding “Black Report” – Iceland’s inquiry into its banking collapse – is due out next Monday. The document has been long awaited. And where the art comes in is that the Reyjavik City Theatre plans to mark its publication with a public reading: non-stop and word-for-word.
In case you’re not impressed by this, I should point out that the report comprises nine volumes – at an estimated total length of 2,000 pages. So it will be a bit like reading Ulysses, followed by Finnegans Wake, with the Dublin phone directory thrown in. The round-the-clock performance is expected to take up to five days.
Iceland still seems to be in a worse situation than we are, at least according to Brian Lenihan. In that same interview on Nama, he said that for Ireland to default on its debt, as some advocated, would leave us “in the position of Iceland or Argentina . . . with insurmountable problems”. By contrast, the Minister said, our problems were entirely surmountable (thanks to the ultra-virile Nama which, as he implied, would surmount anything that moved).
I don’t know whether Iceland’s position is as impossible as he suggests. But in her cult English-language blog, Alda Sigmundsdottir says that the Black Report is expected to feature “some of the worst news” a nation could hear. So as locals attempt to cope with the resultant trauma, a public reading seems a good way to start.
It’s extraordinarily apt that current events in Iceland should be taking place against the backdrop of an erupting volcano. Most countries would have to settle for “pathetic fallacy“: the device whereby artists attribute human emotions to nature: like the “blood-red” sky through which Munch first heard his famous scream. In Iceland, however, they don’t need metaphors: they have the real thing.
Ireland’s bank inquiries will hardly extend to 2,000 pages (maybe the Moriarty tribunal, if it ever ends, will produce something of that scope). But in any case, perhaps some theatre group would consider public readings in due course. The Central Bank plaza would be a good place: it’s a natural performance space, with a dramatic backdrop. As for volcanic eruptions, or any other special effects deemed necessary, these would presumably have to be supplied by the props department.