A tale of sound and fury

A few days ago, I walked out of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art so angry I could hardly speak – vibrating, nostrils flaring, teeth locked, brows knitted – angry enough to step out in front of, and face down, a speeding car on the pedestrian crossing outside. I left with a desire to never ever return to the gallery. I left hating art.

The SNGMO's current exhibition, From Death to Death and Other Small Tales features pieces from the gallery's collection that have been mixed together with a Greek billionaire's private collection, to "create a new dynamic context for both collections." The show intends to "discover the diverse ways in which 20th and 21st century artists have approached the subject of the body."

There are a lot of big names on show here, enough to make the show almost a who's who of the last hundred years of contemporary arts. In this sense, it is an impressive exhibition to visit in my home town, doubly so that it is free. Clearly, I should be thankful to have the opportunity to be allowed to see such stellar artworks, plucked from the firmament and brought down to lowly little Edinburgh. Sadly, I am not thankful.

The exhibition is, for the most part, a cold dead thing – the title, of course, should have been a clue. It is one long, insipid and uninspired in-joke, with a few good pieces that serve only to highlight the paucity of talent on display elsewhere. Works that are so puerile as to become utterly vacuous, rub shoulders with pieces dense and unfeeling enough, that the bodies which inspired them could only have been corpses. It is an unhappy, uninspired and uninspiring view of the world and ourselves. While it might seek to find something universal in our bodies, it instead finds only darkness and self-obsession.

Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain', 1917

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that it only took us just over 30 minutes to take in the whole exhibition, including a return to linger over five small and beautiful Francesca Woodman photographic prints. I have never walked around the gallery faster. Dust flew in my wake. I may never have seen most of these pieces before, however I have seen similar from the same shallow end of the art pool, where shock and spectacle have become the all-encompassing point. I've seen the like in modern and contemporary galleries across the country. Finding Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' a little past the half way mark in the exhibition made for the ironic centre to the exhibition: an artwork whose sole merit is the in-joke, elevated to high art: the clear forefather of much of the work on show here.

Witness the found objects, exhibiting as much worth as a pair of discarded old shoes in a gutter, such as Joseph Beuys' 'Felt Suit' (1970); the ugly forms typified in twenty embarrassingly poor Tracey Emin scribbles; Picasso's 'Nu Assis' (1969) that comes across as the barrel-scraping of a dirty old man; the numerous video art pieces – a medium that is singularly hard to engage with – and a whole room covered in a black wallpaper, patterned with toilet wall cock 'n' balls and lady's spread legs. The viewer is not so much left pondering their body and its time on earth, so much as the more prominent question of why is much of this called art? There is little creativity on show, while it is hard to imagine the artists having taken anything even close to a delight in the making of their work. Almost all that is on offer is cruel irony, a sneer from on high. If I wanted to be this depressed, I'd stay in bed with the curtains closed and have our endless winter rewound and started again.

In short, the exhibition left me cold, much as last year's Sculpture Show did. Like that show, this features work conforming to the same narrow view of the world of art. Also like that show, this one is going to run for many, many months. Yet, where the Sculpture Show lasted for six months, this one runs for nine. It is in considering this final aspect that I became so angry.

I accept that there is a whole world of art out there that says nothing to me, does nothing for me and is made without any heart. I do not like it, yet I accept that it exists and that it will be shown and that there must be, somewhere, people who take something from it. I even admire the gallery for trying something different in their curation of these exhibitions.

What I find unacceptable is that the SNGMO has been given over to this narrow viewpoint for such breathtakingly long periods of time. In the past two years, these exhibitions have taken over the entire gallery for fifteen months. It is astoundingly arrogant: like it or lump it is the message. In the past, where one could visit parts of the permanent collection in the upper galleries, now one has no choice but to return to these exhibitions, or be deprived of museum level modern art for almost two thirds of the year.

I have been visiting the gallery for around twenty years. Today it feels like the gallery and collection that I have loved and thoroughly enjoyed for all that time has been changed into something that is no longer for me. Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps, simply, my view of art is hopelessly outdated and I am lost in an ancient back water in this post modern world. Or perhaps, even more simply, I just don't like art any more.

Grasping an enormous edge

Several notable things happened this week. Firstly, and maybe most excitingly, the invites for Kevin Low and my show Worlds Apart at Union Gallery went out. This, together with posting a sneak preview of our work online, has made the whole things suddenly seem real. 

You are invited!

Being in the studio working with such concentration, I more or less lost sight of what I was doing and why I was doing it. This exhibition, that has been planned since October last year, is almost here and for the first time, maybe, I can almost grasp what that means. Further, after spending much of yesterday photographing (and re-photographing and re-re-photographing) my paintings I was for the first time able to see them all in one place at the same time, even if it was only on screen, and the enormity (if that does not seem too egotistical) of what I have created also hit me.

All of this good stuff happened at the end of a week that did not begin well. It began with me trying to finish the last painting in my new series. I had thought the week before, erroneously, that it was finished. At the weekend, it became clear that really it was not. The problems arrived when I tried to start working on it again. I simply could not find a way into the painting and, after an infuriating afternoon, I lost my temper and it went badly, and notably, wrong…

You are invited to this too!

Happily, I discovered that I am still good at fixing things and so it was that with perseverance, a couple of hours and a lot of glue, the wrong was righted and a day later I was able to carry on working on the painting until it was complete.

Some paintings come easier than others. Few I have ever painted have been as hard as this one. I am glad I have finished it, however I doubt I will ever really care for it because when I look at it, I remember what happened and how it felt; things I'd rather forget.

Writing down, albeit obtusely, what happened is not exactly the best way of forgetting. Nevertheless, I am writing this blog to record my life in art and this was an important event. The painting is drying now, sitting in a messy studio that soon I will have to tidy. Maybe when I see it in Union Gallery in a few weeks, I'll have a change of heart about it. Let me repeat that.

In just over two weeks, I will be delivering my paintings to Union Gallery and a few days after that, they will be on show. In public. This is such a huge and exciting thing that even not I am still not quite grasping what it means. This is not my first exhibition by any means, I've been at this for over ten years now, however it might be my biggest one to date. And certainly, I think it is the best work I have ever made and I just can't wait to see it all hung and out on show. If you're in Edinburgh in April, I really hope you've make it along.

In fact, if you are in Edinburgh on the night of Thursday 5th April, we are having a private preview. Come along and say hello. I'll be the one with the salt and pepper goatee beard and the big smile.