Contemporary Art Daily, A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles
Pick of the Week: A Minor Constellation
A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery reviewed
Equation, Fergus Feehily & Günther Förg, June, Berlin
August 4 - August 27, 2022
Equation, Günther Förg & Fergus Feehily, curated by Camila McHugh
Something Günther Förg found compelling in exhibiting photographs was their reflective surfaces: “I have often observed how visitors to my installation try to find a position in which they don’t have a reflection in the glass. They want to see the photo as neutrally as possible, but that is almost impossible, for one can’t avoid the reflections.” For a show at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1986, he even glazed his framed photographs to accentuate this mirroring. Such attentiveness to perception imbues his works with fragility. Not because he elevates the position of the viewer—far from it—but instead because he draws out the inevitably of this clunky viewer-object contract. And its essential precarity.
He was similarly concerned with the way in which architecture occupied space—formally, as well as in a mode laden with history and connotation. His 1985 photograph Das Detail vergrößern (3) is part of a sequence of photos he took of Munich’s Glyptothek, in tandem with his photographic dissection of the nearby Pinakothek. It was a fascination with Villa Malaparte in Capri, and particularly how it had been documented, that first moved Förg to pick up a camera. Architecture with Fascist or Modernist inflection would become his frequent subject throughout the 1980s and 90s, and an attention to gridded window panes and spiral staircases another through line. This photograph shows a tight, vertical crop of Glyptothek’s interior dome, which, like the rest of the interior neoclassical museum, was originally built in marble in the early 19th century, and was rebuilt with red brick and painted with a light plaster after it was mostly destroyed during the Second World War. In a characteristically hazy, almost blurred focus, Förg’s dilating composition also lays power structures bare.
Fergus Feehily’s painting Dee, 2022 also plays with the possibility of reflection, though you can’t quite see yourself in the sheets of textured, shiny aluminum and pink, orange and silver glitter fabric that are fastened to a thin box shape with carpet tacks. But the work does invite a kind of continuous reorientation—it is seductive, strange, self-consciously ordinaryl. Feehily had also been thinking of English occultist and alchemist John Dee and his black spirit mirror: a lustrous surface that the Elizabethan court astronomer employed to summon visions of the spirit world. Paintings can be portals and Feehily’s resolutely small-scale work makes a claim for an artwork’s ability to encompass or engender something like a universe. Take the subtly expansive quality of the methodical and multicolored dabs of oil on wood that comprise Ever Loving, 2021 or the pulsating stars in blue on yellow in North Star, 2008. Both of these works make use of found frames, emblematic of Feehily’s interest in dragging intriguing fragments from the world around him onto the picture plane. Or perhaps more precisely, making this found material the picture plane. Counter to Förg’s consistently serial approach to artmaking, Feehily pays keen attention to a friction between artworks. What questions has this work raised that the next might broach? Or how might the next work attempt to embody something entirely other to the previous? Like Förg, on the other hand, Feehily is invested in painting as a proposition that is unconstrained by material parameters of paint or canvas, as an ongoing negotiation with both a weighty history and boundless possibility.
Meandering reflection on these two artists could take many directions, but their work also resists explication. These guys are the real deal.
A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles
July 30 - September 3, 2022
Tom Allen, Sophie Barber, Michael Berryhill, Dike Blair, Varda Caivano, Luz Carabaño, Lois Dodd, Fergus Feehily, Anna Glantz, Federico Herrero, Ulala Imai, Lauren Spencer King, Jennifer J. Lee, Daniel Graham Loxton, Paulo Monteiro, Alexandra Noel, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, Paul P., Santiago de Paoli, Dana Powell, Kristopher Raos, Eleanor Ray, Louise Sartor, Anna Schachinger, Shana Sharp, Hiroshi Sugito, Sean Sullivan, Altoon Sultan, Hayley Tompkins, Tinus Vermeersch, Tyler Vlahovich, Owen Westberg, Yui Yaegeshi, Zhiliang Zhao.
Yūgen, CCA, Andratx
July 30 - September 24, 2022
Aleana Egan, Fergus Feehily, Caoimhe Kilfeather, Martin Healy
The Japanese word yūgen describes “an awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses that are too mysterious and deep for words.” Another concept important in Japanese aesthetics - mono no aware - is literally "the pathos of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things."
Underlying these concepts is a philosophical understanding of the world as in flux and impermanent and suggests a non-linguistic form of comprehension. There are resonances of these concepts in each of the artist’s practices: an interest in and awareness of pace, duration and time and how these things are experienced and become manifested in different ways. There is also a sense of ‘slow time’ in the artists’ approaches to making work - where a convergence or co-existence of different times in objects, places and texts form a basis from which to generate sculpture, photographs and paintings.
Though the English language does not present concise translations for such resonant Japanese philosophies, language matters to the artists in different ways as does the non or pre linguistic which is intrinsic to both the generation and the reading of works.
Portals at Under the Leaf, Helsinki
May 14 – May 15, 2022
Portals, Feehily’s new artist book is available at Under the Leaf, Helsinki 2022.
Over forty local & international artists & publishers will participate in the first edition of Under the Leaf Art Book Fair in Helsinki: publications, installations, gigs, poetry readings and pop-up bicycle café. Monitoimitila o
Line-up for Saturday evening: Shia Conlon, Heta Bilaletdin, Victor Gogly & Laua Rip
backbonebooks at Miss Read, Berlin
April 29 – May 1, 2022
Portals, Feehily’s new artist book is available at Miss Read, Berlin Art Book Festival 2022.
Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair 2022 will take place on April 29th to May 1st at Haus der Kulturen der Welt and will bring together a wide selection of 300+ publishers, art periodicals and artists/authors.
In conjunction, the Conceptual Poetics Day will explore the imaginary border between visual art and literature.
Cameos Calls Dust, Galeie Christian Lethert, Köln
April 8 – June 4, 2022
Galerie Christian Lethert is pleased to present the solo exhibition Cameos Calls Dust by artist Fergus Feehily in which he subtly intervenes in the architecture of the exhibition space.
Feehily gave us these notes, remarking that they may or may not be useful:
A man stood outside a store, he was dressed as most Hare Krishna devotees in shades of orange, and tried to talk to anyone who passed. He was under a grey Northern sky. Was he in this street or was he in New Delhi?
I have long been interested in the lone actor, it could be snooker player Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, Harold Lloyd hanging from a teetering arm of a clock or the writer, such as Elizabeth Taylor, sitting alone at her desk.
Elizabeth Taylor wrote in her 1947 novel, A View of the Harbour: No one asks us to write. If we stop, who will implore us to go on? The only goodness that will ever come out of it is surely this moment now, wondering if “vague” will do better than “faint”, or “faint” than “vague”, and what is to follow; putting one word alongside another, like matching silks, a sort of game.
Portals, backbonebooks, Berlin
A new publication published by backbonebooks, Berlin.
Soft cover, 14.8 x 21 cm, 36 pages, indigo on 90gm arena white, metallic saddle stitching.
Edition of 100 copies.
backbonebooks, 2022
15€ plus p&p
“Always now and always here and always me: that’s what it’s like for you.
Now always and here always and me always: this is what it’s like for me.
Now. Here. Me.“
Short excerpt from Jerusalem. Alan Moore, 2016.
Contemporary Art Daily, Particularities, X Museum, Beijing
Contemporary Art Daily, After Daan van Golden, Parts Project, The Hague
&zines, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne
A compilation of contemporary artists’ zines
Martin Belou, Victor Boullet, Merlin Carpenter, Nicholas Cheveldave, Masaya Chiba, Magnus Frederik Clausen, Penny Davenport, Michaela Eichwald, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Dag Erik Elgin, Fergus Feehily, Francesca Gabbiani, Athene Galiciadis, Joanne Greenbaum, Tom Hardwick-Allan, Masanao Hirayama, Agata Ingarden, Nicolas Jasmin, Brian Kennon, Takuro Kuwata, Christoph Meier, Sophie Nys, B. Ingrid Olson, Sarah Ortmeyer, David Ostrowski, Julia Scher, Amy Sillman, Odessa Straub, Zin Taylor, Ariane Vonmoos, Yui Yaegashi
Display by Ulrike Schulze
Published by Antenne Publishing, At Last Books, Black Pages, Bunk Club, Frenetic Happiness, Innen, Misako & Rosen, The Institute of Social Hypocrisy, Ve.Sch Kunstverein, Weinspach & self-published
October 22 - November 13, 2021
Organized by Tom Lingnau, Weinspach
Hosted by Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne
The show’s interest is in single artist’s statements utilizing the zine format as it’s own exhibition space according to each artist’s individual practice. The compilation thrives to show a diversity of contemporary positions within the medium, whether it is photocopied, offset printed or risographed. Further sculptural, economical and social implications of publishing are mirrored with the inclusion of certain publishers providing their own curatorial framework as well as within the display work by Cologne-based artist Ulrike Schulze
Project archive on edcat
Exhibition page on edcat
The Visual Artists’ News Sheet, September – October 2021
Review of You & i are Earth by Frank Wasser.
You & i are Earth edited by Fergus Feehily, comprises a collection of texts that share painting as a starting point. Many of the essays lead us through a diverse range of thoughts and interests related to memory, music, history, literature, and personal experience, often taking note of the seemingly incidental yet pivotal. With contributions by Annie May Demozay, John Graham, Jack Hanley, Mary Heilmann, Naotaka Hiro, Fergus Feehily, Rebecca O’Dwyer, Paul P., Eleanor Ray, Luis Sagasti, Carole Seborovski, Mark Swords, Stephen Truax, and Joost van den Bergh.
Published by Paper Visual Art , March 2021
Particularities, X Museum, Beijing
Tom Allen, Lucas Arruda, Sophie Barber, Gareth Cadwallader, Fergus Feehily, Lewis Hammond, Brook Hsu, Jennifer J. Lee, Paulo Monteiro, Alexandra Noel, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, Paul P., Santiago de Paoli, Elizabeth Peyton, Dana Powell, Eleanor Ray, Louise Sartour, Anna Schachinger, Hayley Tompkins, Yui Yaegeshi
September 5 - December 5, 2021
Curated by Chris Sharp
Curatorial Assistant Jinger Xu
After Daan van Golden, Parts Project, The Hague
Daan van Golden, Richard Aldrich, Ronald de Bloeme, Carel Blotkamp, Indigo Deijmann, Maurice van Es, Fergus Feehily, Kees Goudzwaard, Mirthe Klück, Niek Hendrix, Robbin Heyker, Maja Klaassens, Marijn van Kreij, Just Quist, Magali Reus, Julian Sirre, Annemarie Slobbe, Alice Tippit, Riëtte Wanders.
September 5 - November 7, 2021
The origin of this exhibition lies in an encounter between the artists Robbin Heyker (1976) and Niek Hendrix (1985), who met by chance in 2015. It soon became apparent that Daan van Golden is an important reference point for both of them in their conception of art and their work. The concepts of “thoughtfulness” and “room for slowness”, in particular, played a central role in the discussions between Heyker and Hendrix.
Van Golden’s work is included in many museum collections, but he only produced a few works each year. He was therefore never very visible; his production was simply too low. Brushstroke by brushstroke, he built up an oeuvre that seemed to revolve around meditation, repetition, the personal, but also the mundane, the banal. Seemingly simple paintings unfold a stratification of complexities of the working of the image and its art historical context. In short, the fundamental question of what makes a painting, a painting and what does that mean? And what does that then mean for artistry? Both of them recognise themselves in these questions, but deal with them in a very different way. These are questions that, in the current art discourse, receive little attention in an institutional context.
Over the years, there have been many more artists for whom the work of the enigmatic Van Golden has been a source of inspiration, and each of these artists has approached it in a different way. Some even refer explicitly to Van Golden’s work.
The group exhibition that we are putting together based on the link with Van Golden is therefore not only a tribute to an important Dutch artist, but also a celebration of the far-reaching influence of his oeuvre on many generations of artists, worldwide moreover. An exhibition in recognition of the diversity and ambiguity of art and its makers. For us, the most important thing is to put on the agenda what Van Golden stands for, namely the previously mentioned ‘thoughtfulness’ and ‘slowness’.
Curators Niek Hendrix and Robbin Heyker
The exhibition has been made possible by Stroom Den Haag
Cool Invitations 8
Benefit exhibition, XYZ collective, Tokyo
Curated by Misako & Jeffrey Rosen
June 17 - July 11, 2021
Fergus Feehily, Erika Verzutti, C&K, Yui Yaegashi, COBRA , Futoshi Miyagi, Teppei Soutome, Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Yuka Hasegawa, Yosuke Takayama, Gina Folly, S.G.Rhodes, Josh Brand, MISAKO & ROSEN, Hikotaro Kanehira, Phillip Pilekjaer
Small Night Zine
THING'S SCREEN #2: Fergus Feehily's Into the Garden.
James Merrigan’s Podcast features Fergus Feehily’s 'Into the Garden', which as he states “I feel & believe is the closest I have gotten to having my own Fergus Feehily painting. Published in 2012, posted by the artist to me in 2013, I have kept it sealed in the glassine paper & envelope it came in. Among other things, especially the material mischief of 'Into the Garden', I discuss the idea of mark-making as best when it is ‘found’ rather than ‘forced’ upon the artwork – a "lower-case violence" “ - James Merrigan
The 100 Archive
“Taking its title from the enigmatic inscription on a seventeenth-century Dutch-made plate, You & i are Earth, edited by Fergus Feehily, is a collection of essays on contemporary art by a wide range of Irish and international writers, all of whom share painting as a starting point. Exploring serendipitous connections and recovered histories, many of the essays lead the reader through a diverse range of thoughts and interests related to memory, music, history, literature, and personal experience.”
From the Archive, The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
Fergus Feehily
Pavilion
Gallery 1
October 9 - November 18, 2009
The Douglas Hyde recently featured this show as part of the From the Archive Project, which was requested by Gráine Stack. She wanted to look back at the exhibition by Fergus Feehily, Pavilion, which took place in 2009. In response, we have created this page compiling extracts of the exhibition catalogue’s visual essay, some images of the installation, and individual images of some of the artworks. We have also linked a review from the time by Maeve Connolly.
This was Fergus Feehily’s first solo exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery. He was also part of our exhibition programme in 2012, when an installation of his work exploring light, darkness and luminosity was presented as part of our The Paradise project. Fergus Feehily was also part of two our group exhibitions Dukkha (2014) and Interlude: Aspects of Irish landscape painting (2011).
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Fergus Feehily’s unconventional ‘paintings’ (sometimes the work has little to do with applying paint to a support) are modest and restrained. Invariably elegant, they are often based on a found object or image that is transformed by a sequence of improvisational moves or procedures.
At the heart of this new collection of works is a curious relationship between reticence and revelation: in many of the paintings the surfaces are partly obscured by sheets of plywood, both raw and coloured. Typically, their tone is reflective and withdrawn; Feehily never uses strength or bravura to communicate with the viewer. His work is nonetheless emotionally resonant; it may look like a kind of formalism, but it isn’t.
Text by John Hutchinson