A Walk Through MCAC

I am sure none of you live in the Armagh town of Portadown, so I do not feel so bad about tackling this subject so long after the event. At present, since June 10th, no less, Portadown’s Millennium Court Art Centre (‘A Centre for Art since the new Millennium’) is running a exhibition by artist, Mr. Stephen Brandes : The Last Travelogue of Joseph M. An exhibition on which only laurels should be heaped.

Having been first impressed by Mr. Brandes’ work at an exhibition of Irish drawing in the same gallery, I was much looking forward to yet more of his vigorous biro-etchings on large squares of linoleum. These had been images of maps and trails and obscured and abandoned country cabins, which had brought to mind Peter Greenaway’s excellent A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist.

The new show continues further in this direction, presenting the memories of a salesman as his life flashes before his eyes. He remembers all the hotels that he has stayed in and the unusual tourist attractions he has happened upon. It is all done with a grim sense of humour, clearly inspired by the literature of Mittel- and Eastern Europe: the satires of utopianism and bureaucracy; the strangely named hotels, not unlike the Hotel Occidental in Kafka’s Amerika. The wordy fragments and parts of sentences that accompany the illustrations are worthy of framing themselves; although, word-pairings such as “the highest mountain in Lower Saxony” or “piped brass band music” may be deeply amusing to no one but myself.

Most intriguing of all is a map of the British Isles with each of the devolved home nations painted a different colour and the borders clearly marked. They are unnamed, but easily recognisable, except for a blue mass, on the Westside, between England and Scotland. This, I later realise, must be the Independent Republic of Cumbria. Coming not too long after the shootings in that county, one visitor asks: “Cumbria, eh? Isn’t that somewhat ironic?” “No, it is not,” replies a member of staff, always eager to help.

Unlike A Walk Through H, there is no narrator to connect the paintings and sequence the order of events. Fortunately, on this evening of the opening, we are granted an explanation from both the artist himself and the gallery’s Exhibitions Officer and (all impartiality set aside) Heaven’s Own Ms. Geraldine Boyle. One shouldn’t attempt to follow a narrative at all, Mr. Brandes said, for it is an ‘exploding fiction.’ Falling from the highest mountain in Lower Saxony, the memories of Joseph M.’s life shoot off in all directions and, from them, we can only make certain assumptions about his life, without being able to draw a definite plotline that led to this moment.

Another ‘exploding fiction’ is Mr. Momus’ Exploding Beowulf, which the singer performed in Berlin earlier this year. In this stage show, he performs his song, Beowulf, from 2003’s Oskar Tennis Champion, in various different forms, repeating the song or replacing it with scripted or improvised scenarios. These variations on the theme of Beowulf – again shooting off in all directions – allow one to consider possible multiple meanings or ideas in the song, without prescribing any one. Which is pretty much how pop music works anyway.

In some ways, deciding on no definite meaning or story is amazingly lazy. But coming up with the many alternatives looks like hard work.

Exploding Beowulf can be viewed here:

While parts of The Last Travelogue of Joseph M. can be seen here:
Well, over here, actually.