Willie Doherty19 November 2011 – 28 January 2012

Exhibition Guide

Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Introduction

To celebrate the purchase of Buried (2009), WolverhamptonArt Gallery have prepared an exhibition of work byinternationally renowned Irish artist Willie Doherty. The show has been developed in partnership with Matt’s Gallery,London, and is Doherty’s first in Wolverhampton. Theproject links to the Gallery’s wider ambition to collect andexhibit contemporary art addressing themes of conflict andidentity.

The exhibition consists of two single-screen videoinstallations –Ghost Story (2007) and Buried (2009) –and a body of photographs selected by the artist.

The first part of the exhibition displays examples ofDoherty’s early black and white photographs with text,including the rarely seen diptych Stone Upon Stone (1986).This is followed by colour photographs from the 1990s,which refer to the landscape of Northern Ireland and specificsites of conflict.

The videos are projected within purpose-built darkenedenvironments in the second gallery. Sound-proofing foamand carpet have been used by the artist to contain soundwithin each space. This achieves a more immersive andimmediate experience for the viewer.

Border Crossing, 1997.

Willie Doherty

Willie Doherty was born in 1959 and raised in Derry,Northern Ireland. Positioned at the border separatingNorthern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland, Derry is aplace deeply bound up with the history of the Troublesconflict.

Much of Doherty’s work has been shaped by his experienceof living in a society deeply divided by political and religiousconflict and of being forced to deal with feelings ofoppression and fear. At the age of twelve Doherty witnessedBloody Sunday (30 January 1972), one of the worst singleincidents of The Troubles during which 13 civil rightsprotestors were shot dead by members of the British Army’s1st Parachute Regiment. In the days that followed, heobserved a mismatch between the media’s reporting of theincident and the events themselves. This convinced him ofthe unreliability of the photographic medium, leading him toexplore the inconsistencies that occur in the representationof reality. Since he first began exhibiting in the early 1980s,Doherty has returned to the themes of place and memory,most notably in Ghost Story (2007).

Doherty has twice been shortlisted for the Turner Prize, in 1994 and 2003, and has represented both Ireland andNorthern Ireland at the Venice Biennale, in 1993 and 2007.He also represented Great Britain at the São Paulo Biennalein 2002. A retrospective of the artist’s work was held atDublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane in collaboration withDublin Contemporary 2011.

Last Bastion (1992)

Early work

Having briefly left to study sculpture in Belfast, Dohertyreturned to his native Derry in 1984 and began to makework inspired by images readily about the place. The blackand white photographs he created in the late 1980s andearly ‘90s feature text overlaid on images of Derry and thesurrounding area. These early works came out a sense offrustration that the artist felt with the way in which theconflict in the North of Ireland was being represented by the outside world. Doherty wanted to create low-key imagesthat avoided directly representing the more immediate signsof conflict in the landscape. His images of the walls of Derryor the banks of the River Foyle dealt instead with theeveryday reality of living in Derry.

The history of The Troubles is often described in terms ofpairs or opposites (English and Irish, South and North,Catholic and Protestant, Green and Orange, Unionist andRepublican). Doherty’s use of text in the early works allowedhim to explore the language of political conflict and set suchwords and phrases in opposition to each other.

Stone Upon Stone (1986)

Doherty’s use of the diptych format in Stone Upon Stone

(1986) allows him to present two voices in one work.Seemingly identical views of the west and east shores of the River Foyle are positioned side by side in the gallery.Each photograph is almost, but not quite, a mirror image of the other. The west bank (Nationalist) is stony and barrencompared to the east (Loyalist).

The artist has inscribed the photographs with symbolic signsof Republicanism and Loyalism. TIOCFAIDH ÁR LÁ (our daywill come), in green lettering, accompanies THE WEST BANKOF THE RIVER FOYLE, while THIS WE WILL MAINTAIN, inblue lettering accompanies THE EAST BANK OF THE RIVERFOYLE. Despite the similarity of their compositions, the twopositions are separated, not just in terms of the use oflanguage (Gaelic / English), but also through the culturalcodification of the colours green and blue. These colours are synonymous with the opposing political positions of Irish Nationalism and Loyalism. By employing a comparativestrategy, the artist brings each side’s use of language andlandscape to light for scrutiny.

Colour photographs

Doherty stopped making text based works in 1991 andstarted to produce large format colour photographs focusingon landscape, objects in the landscape, and the multiplepossible meanings that could be drawn from them.

Roads, roadblocks, checkpoints, borders, and abandonedcars evidence the presence of conflict in the landscape. In At the Border IV (1995) Doherty directly engages the viewerin a site of conflict, positioning us at the border dividing thenorth from the south of Ireland. In other works (Critical

Distance, 1997), we see a surveillance view of the city as aconstellation of streetlamps and lights from windows.

The photographs are printed on high gloss cibachrome paperand mounted on aluminium. They are purposely hung lowand unframed to bring viewers into a close relationship withthe work, and to suggest that we experience the images as if we were visitors in Northern Ireland rather than visitors ina gallery. The artist has carefully selected photographs thatrespond to the video works in some way, either in relation tolocation or in terms of visual motifs in the work.

Video installations

This exhibition presents two videos: Ghost Story (2007) and Buried (2009). Conceived as a companion piece toGhost Story, Buried was filmed in the same location in Derry: on or near a disused railway line, now a footpath.Both videos deal with themes of place and memory; thepath becomes a metaphor for retracing steps.

In these two videos, as in reality, The Troubles are notsolved; the trauma has not gone away. It lives on in the mind and memory. This idea is expressed differently in each film. In Ghost Story the narrator is haunted by eventshe has witnessed, while in Buried the ongoing presence ofthe past is suggested by traces of things buried in thelandscape.

Doherty does not approach his video installations with apreconceived idea of what the final work will look like. He begins by filming specific sequences. After a set ofsequences has been finished the artist considers what toinclude or cut in a final sequence of sections. These are most often repeated as a single loop.

Ghost Story, 200715 minutes, colour, sound, single-screen installation

Ghost Story was commissioned for the Northern IrelandPavillion at the 52nd Venice Biennale, and first shown there alongside two of the artist’s earlier video installations,Closure (2005) and Passage (2006). In this exhibition, thework is shown with Buried, a work that Doherty developed as a partner piece in 2009.

Ghost Story consists of a number of different scenes unifiedby the motif of a road by the side of a river. Sometimes weview the path through the trees and sometimes the cameraleaves the path, to walk between a fenced wall and somegarages or to lead us to someone waiting in the corner of an underpass. The road is the place however to which theviewer always returns.

The scene reminds the narrator (Stephen Rea) of a ‘brightbut cold January afternoon’. Walking along the desertedpath he is haunted by ghosts in the trees, ‘shadow-likefigures’ with a look of ‘terror and bewilderment’ in theireyes. The face might represent the face of history lookingback or a character seeing the ghost.

Stills from Buried

Buried (2009)8 minutes, colour, sound, single-screen installation

Buried (2009) was commissioned by and first shown at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh.

Unlike Ghost Story, Buried has no voice-over. The soundplaying over the imagery consists instead of archivalrecordings of crowd scenes from the early 1970s, combined with ambient sound recorded during filming. Doherty slowsdown and muffles the archival audio material, burying it into the background.

The camera moves low to the ground throughout the video,searching for something hidden in a dark and menacingwoodland clearing. The things that it brings into focus might be innocent –loops of wire, a latex glove, a shotguncartridge, the remains of a fire, discarded clothing –but weare left fearing that something more sinister is at play. As the camera reveals traces of material evidence, we sense that the past is buried but ever present. At the end of thesequence, the camera returns once again to the samewoodland, pointing to the persistence of memory and theongoing trauma of the past. The notion that the past cannotbe resolved is reinforced by the video’s looped format. Asviewers, we become caught in a perpetual nightmare.

Collecting with the Imperial War Museum

Buried is Wolverhampton’s first co-acquisition with anothermuseum. An edition of the work was purchased jointly withthe Imperial War Museum, London, in 2010, with supportfrom the Art Fund. The piece can be exhibited at bothinstitutions.

Co-acquiring works of art allows organisations with similarcollecting interests to pool resources to make significantpurchases. This type of arrangement is particularly suited tothe acquisition of film and video works, where the mediumtype means that the work can be more easily shared. Thespecific requirements that are often attached to showingfilm works also means that the expense of purchasinghardware for exhibition can be shared betweenorganisations.

In September 2011 Wolverhampton Art Gallery wereawarded funding through the Art Fund RENEW scheme to build a new collection of contemporary art focused on the conflict in Israel/Palestine and its wider implications inthe Middle East. This is a joint project with the Imperial WarMuseum that will allow both organisations to collect in a complimentary way. The new collection will provide aninteresting comparison with the Troubles collections held at both institutions.

Background to the Northern Ireland collection

Wolverhampton Art Gallery has a long tradition of collectingart tackling social and political themes, beginning with the Pop Art collection. In the 1980s the Gallery purchased a small number of works on the theme of The Troubles, a conflict which began in the late 1960s when NorthernIreland’s divided political life spilled out onto the streets inthe form of civil rights marches.

In 1993 the Gallery were given the opportunity to develop a distinct collection of artworks on this theme through theContemporary Art Society’s Special Collection scheme. Onethe first purchases through this scheme was Border Incident

(1994) by Willie Doherty. The Gallery’s decision to collect on the theme of The Troubles coincided with the IRA andLoyalist paramilitary ceasefire declarations of August andSeptember 1994. In response to this milestone event theGallery mounted a large-scale exhibition that sought toreflect upon how the subject had been addressed in thevisual arts.

Since the mid-1990s the Gallery have continued to build the Northern Ireland collection with assistance from CAS,the Art Fund, and the Heritage Lottery Fund’s CollectingCultures scheme. It contains work in a variety of mediumsand is internationally recognised as the only UK regionalcollection of its kind.

GHOST STORY

I found myself walking along a deserted path. Through the trees on one side I could faintly make out a river in the distance. On the other side I could hear the faint rumble of far away traffic. The scene was unfamiliar to me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the trees behind me were filled withshadow-like figures.Looks of terror and bewilderment filled their eyes and they silently screamed,as if already aware of their fate.The scene reminded me of the faces in a running crowd that I had once seenon a bright but cold January afternoon. Men and women slipped on icy puddles as they ran for safety.A few, in their panic, ran towards a wire fence, further trapping themselves. As they scaled the fence a military vehicle drove through it tossing them intothe frosty air.Troops spewed from the back of the vehicle as it screeched to a sudden halt.They raised their rifles and fired indiscriminately into the fleeing crowd.

The next day I walked over the waste ground that was now marked by deeptyre tracks and footprints, fixed in low relief and highlighted by a sharp hoarfrost.I could find no other traces of the crowd.I returned many times to the same site until another fence was erected and a new building was put in place of the empty, silent reminder.I wondered about what had happened to the pain and terror that had takenplace there. Had it been absorbed or filtered into the ground or was it possible for othersto sense it as I did?

The narrow streets and alleyways that I walked along became places wherethis invisible matter could no longer be contained. It seeped out through every crack and fissure in the worn pavements andcrumbling walls.Its substance became visible to me in the mossy, damp corners that neverseemed to dry out in winter or summer.A viscous secretion oozed from the hidden depths.

The smell of ancient mould mingled with the creeping odour of dead flesh.The ground was often slippery under foot as if the surface of the road wasno longer thick enough to conceal the contents of the tomb that lay beneaththe whole city.

Some people claim that they are a malevolent presence while others believethat they offer guidance and advice to their family and friends. Not everyone can see them. They inhabit a world somewhere between here and the next. They move between the trees.Caressing every branch. Breathing, day and night, on every flickering leaf.They are restless creatures whose intentions are often beyond ourcomprehension.

His body was discovered on an overcast Sunday morning.I recognised him from the small black and white newspaper photograph that had accompanied the story of his murder. He smiled reluctantly, self-conscious and timid when confronted by the lens.As a boy, I stared at this photograph looking for a sign; unable to accept that the face was that of someone already dead.

I retraced my footsteps along paths and streets that I thought I hadforgotten. I walked past the place that I used to avoid and quickened my pace. He was waiting for me, as I always feared he would, emerging from ascorched corner where broken glass sparkled on the blackened ground.

My train of thought was interrupted by a further incursion of unreality. My eyes deceived me as I thought I saw a human figure.No matter how quickly or slowly I walked the figure did not seem to get any closer. When I took my eye off the figure it disappeared.When I stared at the point where the path vanished the figure emerged once again from the trees or from the path itself. I could not tell.

I remembered shapes and colours from a flickering television screen.The outline of a car silhouetted against a grey sky.One door wide open and the car skewed awkwardly into a shallow ditch.A detail of the interior, grey checked fabric, an oily stain, a cassette player.The number plate, three letters and four numbers.The car had been abandoned and was partly burnt after a failed attempt to eliminate any forensic secrets that it might yield.At first, I didn’t see or hear the car.It seemed to appear from nowhere.In the evening twilight it was difficult to make out who was driving.The car slowed down and waited for me to approach.

I became lost in memories of the minute details of photographs of peopleand places that I did not know.Men being taken away blindfolded. Their hands tightly bound by plastic cable ties.Barking dogs. Cages.Bodies in a pile. Guards standing over them smiling for the camera.Stains on a white floor.A car blown apart in a surgical strike.A shoe and a newspaper lying on the dusty road.A dazed family huddled in a bright sunlit street.Their clothes and faces splattered with blood that seemed to match themosaic pattern on the wall behind them.

The daylight wraith takes on the likeness of a living person. The wraith is usually a vision of someone who is in another place at the timeof the appearance. It manifests itself during the hours of daylight in a place where the livingperson could not possibly be.A wraith can assume the likeness of a close friend or relative or even appearas the viewer’s own image. The appearance of a friend or relative usually means that the person isalready dead or in great danger. To see one’s own image is a warning of one’s death within a year.

This guide is available to view at www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk

Ghost Story text reproduced courtesy of the artist.Images courtesy of Matt’s Gallery, London and Alexander and Bonin, New York.

Text by Zoë LippettDesign by Victoria Bithell