Robert McNally
dal 2/9/2011 al 7/10/2011
Segnalato da
2/9/2011
Robert McNally
David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen
"Shotgun in't mouth, brains on't wall". The title refers not to a suicidal tendency but the process of duress under which the work is made. McNally takes several of his narrative cues from the most popular daily news and uses it as evidence of what people enjoy seeing.
The title of this show refers not to a suicidal tendency but the
process of duress under which the work is made. McNally pushes himself
into a too tight time frame to make the work. The resulting drawings
are the artists’ brains on the wall.
McNally takes several of his narrative cues from the top 10 most
popular daily news items on the BBC website. He regards this as a
barometer of public interest removed from editorial hierarchy. McNally
uses it as evidence of what people enjoy seeing and a guide to what he
should include in his drawings to entertain his audience.
The drawings in the exhibition do not offer guidance or judgement in
the sense of Dutch 17th century morality paintings. McNally is more
interested in the hypocrisy of those works than their moral message, a
bawdy painting of a brothel scene masquerading as social critique.
McNally’s complex, compelling drawings create twisted, folding spaces
inhabited by drifters, religious icons, historical figures and self
portraits as everyman, walking through a fragile, paper world of
violence and disaster. All of this is presented as if on display in a
vitrine, existing purely for our gawping.
Robert McNally is in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
(NL), West Collection (US), Damien Hirst’s Murderme collection (UK),
Robert Devereux collection (UK) and Ole Faarup collection (DK).
Image: Robert McNally, Orion (detail), 2011, Pencil on paper, 112 x 73 cm
Opening Friday September 2, from 17.00-20.00
David Risley Gallery
Bredgade 65A, 1260 Copenhagen
Hours: Wed-fri 12-17, sat 11-15
Admission free