After hearing a friend discuss Guthrie's 'A Highland Funeral', a painting which provoked a gut-wrenching sorrow and an near-phobic reaction, I was stunned.  Fascintated and touched, I was nonetheless disappointed that I have yet to experience a static piece of art that could incur such a visceral reaction.

A Highland Funeral, James Guthrie 1882

It's been about twenty minutes of staring at this picture, and though it's interesting to speculate what history this might have stirred in my pal, I don't think I have a relating personal experience to bring to the table.



I'm reminded of a discussion with Mark Brown, theatre critic for the Sunday Herald and above all, a champion of Howard Barker.  I was fortunate to pick his brains several times while studying at Dundee, and I'll admit that I found his solid opinionating entirely infectious.  Sometimes my stubborness surprises even myself.  I rallied the point that theatre was a force for social catharsis, and the experience as an audience member was a unifying one, that despite our unique standpoints, a story will connect with us through themes that are universally recogniseable. The elements that individuate us is a mimetic reaction - learning through the performance of example - which I believe is unachievable without striving to show how that somebody on stage could be, well, anybody.

It's not necessarily the best idea to take sides with Aristotle when you're with a Barker enthusiast; for an example, you will want to read his twenty-one asides on theatre criticism.  My favourites being:

1. The demand that the “critic reflect the collective view of the audience” nauseates.
2. When he asserts the “equal value” of all genres, the critic slits his own throat with a pen.

The concept of individual experience, particularly in contemporary art, troubles me greatly.  With a distinct bias for the auditorium, and a thrill for a well-directed site-specific experience, I very often feel lost and abandoned by the bright expanse of the art gallery.  I want to be taken by the hand, to understand how to experience the exhibit to its fullest... Yet the gallery's intention is to be defiantly individuating.

However, I am prone to appreciating a guiding path, and I have unfortunately found myself effectively queuing my way through an exhibit, ticking each bit off as I go.  I crave a narrative; I am thrilled by abstract narratives that, somehow, unconciously drive me through the experience.  When art forces me to make up my own mind, I am inevitably locked into uncertainty.  Typing this, I am struck by my own insecurity, that perhaps if I simply assume I empathise with the absent artist entirely, I might respond more completely.

Killing Time, Graham Eatough/ Graham Fagan, DCA 2006

Does this insinuate that I'm 'getting' it wrong?  It's certainly my loss that I don't make an emotional connection, but that's not to say that I won't.  Ultimately, I'm misunderstanding two things.  Firstly, there are significantly fewer examples to experience out there, and in a space that forces unique connections, I perhaps just haven't explored fine or contemporary art far enough. Secondly though, I am looking at it the wrong way; specifically, I want these installations to be a set design, and I'm waiting for something to happen.  I'm frankly disturbed by the static, unsure of how long I should 'appreciate' something before the reaction is complete.  I wish I had seen Fagan & Eatough's Killing Time at Dundee Contemporary Arts - that might have been an experience that cruelly tapped into my misconception, leaving me to wait and see like a character in my own personal Waiting for Godot. That would provoke a phobic reaction...