The Niland Gallery, is a non-commercial exhibition space, initiated and run on a voluntary basis by Engage Art Studios in 2011. Engage Studios no longer run the gallery but the creative re-use and appropriation of this ‘slack space’ in Galway’s city centre proved to be a much needed addition to the visual arts scene in Galway. The space continues to act as an exhibition space in Galway, providing a unique platform for curators and artists. Niland House, Merchants Road.
Sandra Johnston
Rank and File consists of a large screen projection of appropriated footage of a film that documents the young Queen undertaking her first state duty, riding a horse surrounded by the Household Cavalry. The sound includes the national anthem. At the bottom of the images runs the lyrics of David Bowie’ song Jean Genie, which, we read in Cuttings 1, on of two texts distributed to viewers, was the favourite song of one of the ten Hunger Strikers in the Maze prison. From that place come the plastic yellow chairs, which Johnston salvaged from a skip some time ago, and have them mounted in steel frames and bolted to the floor of the gallery. The distance from the projection is comfortable for watching, a sensation undermined by the strip lights on the floor, and by the formation of the chairs. Two of each three face the screen, the third one faces them. Who watches whom? Who interrogates whom? Answers are as variable as the viewers choices. The idea that uncomfortably links the two parts together is the idea of duty. The Queen is said to devote her life to service to the nation. The Hunger strikers died – dutifully. An idea favoured by armed groups: contemporary Jihad are still making a virtue of dying for an idea, equally sinister.
The Cuttings I and II are texts printed on cards, literary elements of the exhibition. I cannot judge their literary merit, but clearly, they work as useful explanations and elaborations of both the references to history and personal motivation.
Settle alternates between endurance and swift action. A studio camera reads a man filming the artist slowly lowering her upper body onto a chair from a position horizontal to the ground. As if wounded by touching the seat her body hurls vertically up while she lifts the chair with one hand in the air. As if calm descending after the explosive act, the chair is carefully positioned in a different orientation to the studio camera, and the visual phrase repeats. At times the photographer near the artist is not included in the studio shot, when he is, we do not see what he sees. At other times, the shots of the studio camera are interspersed with his views. Highly skilful, beautifully composed and edited, this is one of the highlights. Similar, but less commanding, is its twin 360 degrees From the Heart, 2012. Johnston sits on the similar type of a chair, submitting her neck, head, and back to extreme physical demands, stretching, holding an uncomfortable position, reaching what feels like dangerous breaking points. Unwelcome and utterly misplaced ennui steals few seconds towards the end.
