Barry Flanagan: Sculptures 1965-2005 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

28 Jun — 24 Sep 2006

ANGUS FORBES Journal July 2006

© Angus Forbes 2006

Which Way to the Museum of Modern Art?

Leaving the house only for essentials I had been writing for eight days straight and felt that I deserved a reward.

So I took myself off to the Groucho Club. It was June, on a Friday night and I got there at about nine o'clock.

Don Boyd was sitting in the bar with two blondes.

Last year at the Hurt wedding Don and I sat next to each other and had a chat which resulted in his later crossing the room to request from me a copy of the Wingate script I'd written for Jonathan Shteinman. Don had told me it was the best subject for a feature film he'd ever heard.

I'd posted the screenplay to Don but when after six months nothing had happened I wrote in conversational tones asking if he'd received it and if so had he read it yet?

He sent the script back to me unread with no covering note. Some British producers may consider this kind of behaviour expedient but I do not. Even Tinseltown acknowledges.

So we were in that special Groucho mode of being completely invisible to one another despite the fact that we were at adjacent tables. But it was Don Boyd who was with the two blondes and all I had to seethe on was one Guardian.

However the tables were about to be if not brought together then delightfully turned. I looked up to see the beaming countenance of Barry Flanagan who with his lovely partner Jessica Sturgess were asking if they could join me.

Barry's sculpture I have always liked but especially since I saw an arrangement by him of metal and fabric objets trouvées at Tate-which-now-calls-itself-Britain.

Over many years Barry and I had engaged in late-night raps at the Groucho during which we would talk inspired nonsense (he the inspired and I the nonsense) for a half-hour or so.

Even if he was not sure of my name, Barry recognised the face and knew that at least he and Jessica would be joining a kindred spirit in that club to which celebrities only go safe in the knowledge that they will be ritually ignored.

Within minutes of their sitting at my table Barry and Jessica told me of the upcoming celebrations in Dublin for the opening of two exhibitions and the installation of several of his famous hare sculptures in O'Connell Street.

'Why don't you come?' I hesitated, and Barry immediately added that there would be a room for me at the Morrison Hotel for three nights at his invitation. If I could get myself to Dublin, his festival would be mine to enjoy.

Shortly we were joined by The Prince of Darkness himself James Birch and his companion Clare. A contingent from the Whitechapel Gallery added themselves and the table which began with one man and a newspaper had evolved into an animated forum of art gossip. Boyd and the blondes had long since departed to do whatever it is that people like them get up to of a Friday night.

As the hour passed two I got up to leave to a chorus of 'See you in Dublin!'

Ten days later I check into the Morrison Hotel at 7 p.m. In the room the bubbly is cooling and the fresh flowers welcoming, all courtesy Barry Flanagan the perfect host.

The Morrison is subtly glamorous in the sheerness of its design, moody lighting and deep leather sofas. Across the Liffey is the hotel built by Bono of U2 but this place looks more like it belongs to The Edge. I don't remember the boardwalks along the river from when I visited in '86; refurbishment of the city since then had been on a larger scale than I'd imagined, like an enormous Covent Garden.

The total smoking ban has had the effect of giving Dublin a vibrant sidewalk society. Dissidents and intellectuals have always preferred to huddle beneath dripping awnings, so you swiftly become accustomed to taking your caffeine indoors and your nicotine al fresco along with the other diehards.

A trend among young Dubliners is to pose outside a hip bar or restaurant smoking in the hope that anyone who sees them will assume them to be customers. It will be interesting to see if this activity catches on in London when the total ban comes into force in England next summer but my guess is that it's a small-city phenomenon and will not travel.

Next morning Jessica leads a gaggle of us along the river and up O'Connell Street where Barry's massive bronzes of leaping and dancing hares adorn each major intersection.

Up from O'Connell stands the lovely Georgian edifice the Hugh Lane Gallery where the mayor opens the show. The actor Stephen Rea and many of Barry's art world friends including a sun-tanned Kasmin and Barry's dealer Leslie Waddington are among the guests.

Lunch is taken upstairs. None too soon for me; what with the ferry trip yesterday I hadn't eaten for some time.

At lunch I sit next to Michael Price, a painter friend of Barry's who lives in the US with his Korean/American wife Heasook Rhee. Heasook is a concert pianist and will perform with the violinist Amaury Coeytaux at Barry's opening at the Museum of Modern Art this evening.

Michael is originally from England and like Stuart Brisley whose performance piece was so integral to A Few Unusual Hours (see The Journal Throws a Party) consolidated his career in Western Germany during the 1970's.

Michael confirms that the West German art scene was a lot more progressive than the British in those years; regional kunsthalle vied with each other in promoting increasingly adventurous work, a situation which pertained up until reunification when inevitably the bubble burst and many of the foreign artists working there sought fresh fields over which to pursue their careers. Michael and Heasook have travelled from New York for this Flanagan-Fest.

An excellent meal, my first in Dublin for twenty years, puts the smile back on my face and bodes well for this reborn city which when I last visited it was regarded even by many of its own inhabitants as a gastronomic wilderness. *

Back at the Morrison for afternoon tea I link up with James Birch and his companion Malgorzata, whose work is to seek out and/or make films on, by, or about poets. Millie who used to help out behind the bar at the Colony Room is also at the Morrison sharing with Gabriela Salgado.

Gabriela curated the Colony artists' show at James Birch's gallery in 1998 when the ashes of the club's owner Ian Board were decanted from their urn and into his bust (the sculpture, dear, not the titties). I swear I saw hundreds of tiny Ians as his remains fluttered between the vessels.

Also at the long black table are Jessica's sister Antonia and the Ibiza contingent; Barry has a home on the island, where his second family live with their mother Renate. Keith Snellin, Barry's 'digitiser' and his partner Hazel Howarth are in residence at the Morrison as well as Roland and Clare Muldoon who operate the Hackney Empire Theatre.

Roland tells us he first met Barry on a pre-Beatles dole queue in Bristol; so dismal had Roland felt that glimpsing Barry way behind him and instantly sensing a like mind he left his place in the line and befriended him on the spot. It works like that sometimes.

When I first visited Dublin in 1975 there was a bar called Sacks to which my host Gareth Browne and his set repaired at most available opportunities. It was at Sacks that I was introduced to Bullshots and met for the first and I hope only time the author of The Ginger Man, J.P.Donleavy.

I had never before met a person whose mere presence was a warning to not dare speak. In the New York Times of February this year Donleavy concedes that until recently he had 'lost my ability of dealing with people at all.'

The only other figure I have met who comes near Donleavy in this respect is Mel Smith. He at least allows you to croak out a syllable or two before the disdain on his face makes it clear that you were not invited into his discourse.

The oeuvre of Smith however is mild compared to that of Donleavy - the latter undeniably has the Muse on his side.

It is Donleavy who is to give the speech this evening at the Irish Museum of Modern Art to open Barry Flanagan's second show of the day. Proceedings are set to begin at 6. *

Of all clichés about the Irish the most commonly confirmed is that if you ask one of them at random for directions you will be either sent the wrong way or given advice which is impossible of taking ('I wouldn't be starting from here').

But members of staff at the reception of a hip hotel in the heart of a European capital hardly qualify as random.

The card Barry gave me with the address of the Museum of Modern Art on it is missing so at 5.15 I go to reception. Keith says he and Hazel are taking a cab, but as the rain has stopped and if the place is close enough I prefer to walk. I have my camera and who knows what I might see? I don't want to be late for The Ginger Man man though.

The young woman behind the desk has a soft brogue but by her colouring could be Czech or Polish. No matter, it is an efficient establishment as the service so far has shown.

Anyway who knows who is from where these days? It's the global travel industry I'm dealing with and the responses are confident and emphatic. She draws a mark on the map and says the Museum of Modern Art is 15 minutes' walk away. I have 45.

As an example of Georgian architecture the Law Society of Ireland is even more splendid than the Hugh Lane Gallery where we were this morning, I reflect as I navigate its perimeters in search of a sign to the Museum of Modern Art.

For this is where the hotel receptionist has made her mark.

Realising my (her) error and seeing no taxis in the Dublin peak-hour I have no choice but to jump from frying-pan to fire and consult a random member of the Irish public.

The word 'museum' seems to hit pay-dirt and not far away I come to a sign that includes that talismanic tri-syllable. This must be where the receptionist had meant to indicate.

Approached from beneath by a ramp the National Museum of Ireland does not reveal itself as a structure until you round the slip road at the top of the ramp where stands the directory for the building. This reads that among its other facilities this Georgian (again!) former military barracks does indeed house The Museum of Decorative Art.

Surely the culture which gave us Wilde and Shaw could not be so lax as to confuse 'modern' with 'decorative' in its official signage, you think, and determine to find out.

It is now six o'clock. Some official at this museum will be able to give the correct steer to the other. Must happen all the time. The ceremony won't start for a while yet.

You come to the largest quadrangle you ever saw. And there is absolutely no sign of life. No straggling members of the public, no person in the darkened offices, nary a janitor, no bell to ring - it is the Marie Celeste on dry land. You wonder where they could all possibly have gone so quickly.

Of course by now you're remembering what Jessica said at the Groucho, that the Modern is housed in an old hospital, but so certain had they seemed at the Morrison that early information had been shunted to the back of the mind.

Down the echoing ramp and back onto the main drag you see a taxi only to be met with the driver's shaken head when you conflate 'modern' with 'hospital'. Time is edging forward.

Finally you see a taxi stationary and with its light on.

Gingerly (appropriately) you approach. 'Is there a building popularly known as the Museum of Modern Art that you know about?' you hear yourself asking. A nod and you're there.

(On the other side of town, naturally.)

The quadrangle of the former Royal Hospital which houses the Modern is smaller than that holding the National but no less beautiful. It must be galling for republicans to have their capital's finest buildings forever tagged with the name of a British monarch, but that's empire for you.

An opportunity to compare the two quadrangles arises when on arrival I greet Roland and Clare who had just gone through the exact same experience as I. Like me they had elected to walk and just as I had done had obtained their directions at the hotel; my footsteps must have been dogging theirs by only ten minutes.

Taxi-taking Keith tries to suppress a smile. He has the advantage over us in that he has been a frequent visitor to Dublin over the last couple of years in his capacity as the bringer of computer technology to the Flanagan studio and knows that there are no exceptions to the national cliché.

In the event my timing had not been too bad because the speeches have yet to be delivered. As we gravitate into the gallery Barry is huddling with Donleavy near the mikes.

The writer is smaller than I remembered but he is 80 now and was only at his half-century when I last met him. He seems less formidable, smiling even, so I guess the decades spent in seclusion at Mullingar have had a mellowing effect on J.P.Donleavy. That was before he begins to speak.

I said to Barry later that as Donleavy had been holding forth I had had the wrong instrument in my hands; instead of a camera I should have been pointing a tape-recorder (but had I done that I would have violated the author's copyright so perhaps it's just as well I didn't).

Concentrating as I am on trying to expose my frames in the milliseconds during which the writer looks up from his text, the one phrase I am able to retain is about the Irish at last being free of the 'black hand of Catholicism'.

Suffice to say that the director of the gallery wears a pained expression throughout Donleavy's peroration.

Only at speech's end does Donleavy bring the tone around to the business at hand and this he achieves uproariously by welcoming us, crazy as we must all undoubtedly be, to the club that is Barry Flanagan. Amen to that.

Barry follows with a heartfelt exhortation to applaud the workers at the foundry who actually make his sculptures.

To use an English phrase, the lads aren't half chuffed.

But what about Barry Flanagan himself? I realise that so far I haven't said much about the generous-spirited man who is after all the subject of these fortunate pages.

Barry was born in Prestatyn, North Wales, in 1941, studied at Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts then in London at St.Martin's School of Art from where he graduated in 1966. For the next four years he taught at St.Martin's and at the Central, also in London. There followed a sustained drive of application and creativity culminating in his being chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale of 1982.

Flanagan has been showing ever since, most recently as far as British institutional spaces are concerned in an exhibition at Tate Liverpool in 2000. It must have been a work from this show which I saw in London and which so impressed me as mentioned at the beginning of this piece.

Dublin is not the only city to have one of its most famous public spaces lined with Barry's hares; Park Avenue in New York has been similarly graced as has Chicago's Grand Park.

Why hares? 'If you consider what conveys situation and meaning in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact more limited than the device of investing an animal - a hare especially - with the expressive attributes of a human being. The ears for instance are able to convey far more than a squint in the eye of a figure, or a grimace in the face of the model' writes Barry on the IMMA website.

Other creatures do figure in Flanagan's work though; one of the O'Connell Street bronzes, An Unlikely Alliance, has an American cougar sitting atop and at right-angles to a young elephant, with both animals cast roughly to scale.

But the hares in the outdoor works are immense. Twenty-five feet above the Dubliners sitting around its base, Nijinski Hare dances upright on one rear leg, its front right thrust horizontally forward forming a 'fist' at its end. Barry's and my conversations have so far tended to the elliptical and zanily enough so but like Nijinski Hare I sense that were his punch to come it would be unlikely to be pulled.

Barry used to be clean-shaven but now wears a tuft of beard which with his trimmed moustache and silvering crown lends him the aura of a wizard; now that I have been granted the boon of absorbing his body of work in the mystic setting of Eire I need no further persuading that he actually is one.

Resident for a decade and recently made citizen, his Irish life-partner at his side and his faithful foundry at hand, heaped with the civic and national accolades to which this Journal has been testimony - Barry Flanagan is home.

© Angus Forbes 2006