Someone to Watch Over Me

'Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:'
Ode On A Grecian Urn, Keats

For the past two years, a controversy (or it could be called a crisis) has been brewing within the visual arts. Without wishing to overstate the case, this crisis, I believe, could be called 'a crisis of faith'. Crises of faith come in many different forms: they tend to freeze the mind before permitting it to follow a new course. This 'freezing' process could be likened to anxiety, or to protohysteria. An invisible weight of responsibility appears to lie behind all that is perceived, forbidding the notion of security. Soon, this weight of responsibility declares itself as a paradox: it becomes 'the tangible unknown', or 'active nothingness'. It creates dread. This process (or this crisis) can be studied in almost any philosophy (from Plato to Stendhal to Kristeva) which touches upon the subject of Love. The next gradation of this process (and this gradation is only made open to those who find, for whatever reason, that they cannot avoid it) is a confrontation with religious conviction. 0ne may believe that reading Harold Bloom, for instance, would prepare one for this struggle - theoretically at least. The testaments of writers such as Kierkegaard or Gide reveal that the struggle with religious conviction is wholly real, wholly terrifying and not to be meddled with lightly.

The progress of 'the young aesthete' towards the struggle with faith (from vertigo to centrality) is at the basis (some would argue) of nearly all Western philosophy. Faced with the religious, the intellect and the imagination becomes, initially, mute. For the first time in his glorious, romantic, career, the young aesthete has got himself into a corner which he cannot merely talk his way out of. The game is over: one either wrestles with doubt, daily, until faith is achieved; or, one remains amidst simple prettiness. It's really as simple as that.

So what on earth has all of the above got to do with visual art? Or with Andrew Renton's 'Show Hide Show'? Viewed by insiders, as yet another exhibition of new sculpture, 'Show Hide Show' is probably quite easy to slot into some current topography of visual art. Viewed by an outsider, and by one for whom non-representational art is not aesthetically pleasing, a much broader problem emerges. This problem can be defined as follows: when art (the works in 'Show Hide Show', for instance) becomes mute (or 'du mb') is it merely commenting upon its own cleverness or attempting to address the religious? The question of faith? It is my opinion that the artists themselves - schooled within the problems of craft, and aesthetics - are largely unaware of (and possibly indifferent to) the problems of faith. Their work has coincided with their curator's spiritual crisis. In this much, at least, Andrew Renton's catalogue essay for 'Show Hide Show' is a vital work in the exhibition. In his essay, Renton states one principle. Paraphrased, this principle runs as follows: 'Art is always already elsewhere'. At this point, two things happen: the cynics shrug their shoulders, and attempt to answer a question of faith with arguments which are simply intellectual; and (secondly) Renton himself is forced to make a choice. That choice is an ancient choice. The works in 'Show Hide Show', all of which are 'gagged' spiritually, will do little to expedite a decision. For the works (some of which are, incidentally, pleasing to the eye) are simply messengers. They fit the contours of the gap created by absent faith. They repeat 'we will not, and could not, help you' - again and again. They are also capable of endless repetition and endless replication. That's what the whole 'new movement in British art' is about: 'we will not say anything for as long as you want'. Paradoxically, this is an echo of one of the 'postcard sculptures', by Gilbert & George: 'All My Life I Give You Nothing, And Still You Ask For More'. Inkpads, stacks of crates, glass mazes, wooden plinths, inset with barrier rope systems: all of these components (which constitute the work in 'Show Hide Show') are concerned with mediation and denial. The works deny the viewer access to meaning. At the same time, the works are their meaning. They are the spiritual equivalent of a cash-point machine with no keys.

Renton, at the end of his catalogue essay, writes: 'Show Hide Show will not stay in place. It has already taken place, and is about to take place. It is within the bounds of the gallery walls, and yet it is infinitely boundless. There is no show. No. Show.' If one accepts the notion that 'Art is always already elsewhere' then Renton's concluding paragraph makes perfect sense. 'Art' (metaphor for Faith) is both constant and omnipotent; it cannot be seen, or created, directly. 'Art' may only be glimpsed, or witnessed as a trace, or shadow, which endorses its existence. On this criteria, the work of Fra Angelico and the work of Jake Chapman (for instance) are united in their purpose: they suggest what might be if one might be capable of seeing. The serenity of the work of Fra Angelico is matched by the silence of 'Show Hide Show'. Both forms of art are striving, by different means, to grasp belief.

And now we must face a few difficulties: the works in 'Show Hide Show' will be, unfortunately, of minority interest; the society which mediates 'art' will make its various comments and then pass on to the next thing; outside of that society, I fear, nobody will care less. Glancing through the windows of the gallery, uninformed punters will most probably shrug. In a year's time, something else will have come along. In the meantime, Constable is packing them in at the National Gallery. His things, after all, look like something. The old arguments, in short, between different schools of thought, will continue. But Renton has done something extreme: he has (I suspect) made the problem quite clear by going to extremes. A show along the lines of 'Show Hide Show' (as a repetition of 'Show Hide Show') would be wholly nugatory. The question remains, however: how long, and how real, is the struggle with Faith? Does all of this really matter? Or is it just a load of old boxes and clever gimmicks? If Renton is right, why bother to make art at all? Why not favour meditation? It is my guess that Renton will soon become articulate. His show is a parable. Like all parables, without faith, it is just a quaint story.
Deep water; difficult times.

Show! Hide! Show!, curated by Andrew Renton, was at Anderson O'Day Gallery, July - September 1991