EXPERIMENTAL Aug 2024 The Artists in The Exhibition: A Depiction – Brass Art at HOME

Jo Manby

This text is an adaptation of a short story, The Lady in The Looking-Glass by Virginia Woolf. A major British novelist, Woolf (b1882 – d1941) was central to the historic Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists who practiced during the interwar period. Among Woolf’s finest works are Mrs Dalloway (1925), To The Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928) and The Waves (1931), which she wrote alongside a steady output of journalism, literary criticism, biography and short fiction. In her work, she experimented with new modes of expression, and in her testing of language, became adept at manipulating her material from a distinctly visual arts-oriented viewpoint. I re-read The Lady in The Looking-Glass, from the posthumously published collection, A Haunted House, after I’d just been given a fascinating personal tour of Brass Art’s exhibition at HOME, ‘rock, quiver and bend’, by creative producer of visual art, Clarissa Corfe. I was immediately struck by the way Woolf writes with an artist’s eye; a painter’s eye for colour and form and light, but also with something far more conceptual and transformational.

In The Lady in The Looking Glass, which was first published in 1929 in Harper’s Magazine, the protagonist, Isabella Tyson, has left the house and the narrator is left to guess at her personality and inner life. Meanwhile, the room and its normally inanimate objects are magically charged with spiritual force and energy. Rooms flush unexpectedly with colour. There are mysterious rustlings and a sense (or sound?) of breathing permeates the scene. Switch back to HOME and Brass Art, the renowned collective of artists Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz & Anneke Pettican have installed five groups of works that aim to evoke the essence of Woolf’s imagination and that haunt the space with vivid, twilit silhouettes, shifting washes thrown off by animated neon, ambitious and technically fascinating two-channel video work, and a strange dull glimmering. The majority of Brass Art’s works here are directly inspired by various Woolf novels. The neon work this voice this life this procession (2024) quotes from Mrs Dalloway; the torrent of things grown so familiar (2024-) references The Waves. The two-channel video work using LiDAR scanning and Kinect capture data is the result of the unique permission Brass Art were granted to enter and scan Virginia Woolf’s own writing hut at Rodmell, Sussex.

Rather than write a review that would be inevitably peppered with quotes from Woolf’s writings, I have attempted to apply an art critical perspective to a work of literary fiction, and to adapt the story by placing ‘the artists’ (loosely referencing Brass Art) in the place of the Lady of the title, and their exhibition in place of the mirror. The gallery is Isabella’s garden, the artworks its flowers. At one point in Woolf’s story, the postman delivers letters which are spread across an occasional table. In this adaptation, the postman is a workshop leader and the letters are notebooks or iPads (it’s up to the reader), which workshop participants draw on. In the transformation that ensues, Virginia Woolf appears to reference Brass Art’s exhibition from beyond the grave. Woolf has already reviewed the show; you just need to read The Lady in The Looking Glass from a different angle. The original version begins with the sentence ‘People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms.’ All Woolf’s words are in plain text; my alternative, intervening text is in italic and in brackets.

Brass Art: ‘rock, quiver and bend’, curated by creative producer of visual art, Clarissa Corfe, is on show for free at HOME, Manchester until Sunday 1 September 2024.

(Curators) should not leave (exhibitions) hanging in their (galleries) any more than they should leave (a stack of used twenties) or (a laptop with private data on it). (The visitor) could not help looking, that (wet, cold) summer afternoon, (at the neon work, this voice this life this procession) that hung (in the threshold of the gallery). Chance had so arranged it. From (entering the first space of five, there could be seen, beyond the orange glow of the neon) not only the (contents of the next room, but the softly creaking silver foil installation) beyond. (There could be seen a passage of intense darkness, a glimmer of foil, until) slicing off an angle, (the partition wall of the exhibition) cut it off.

The (gallery) was empty, and one felt, since one was the only (visitor) in the (exhibition), like one of those (ghost hunter influencers), who, (armed with paranormal detector equipment), lie watching the shyest (spirits) – (spectres), (phantoms), (revenants) – moving about freely,  themselves unseen. The (gallery) that afternoon was full of such shy creatures, lights and shadows, (foils fluttering, cellophane twitching) – things that never happen, so it seems, if someone is looking. The quiet (gallery space) with its (polished wooden floors) and (oases of artworks), the (2-channel video comprised of LiDAR data and Kinect capture with sound this voice; this life; this procession) was full of such nocturnal creatures. They came pirouetting across the floor, (unfixed from their single channel silent, colour, 3 minute video loops, slowly lifting their arms, elbow-high, blowing into their primary-coloured cellophane headdresses like gods and goddesses whose body paint had corroded away, their multiple limbs articulating at their sides, infinitesimally slowly). And there were obscure flushes and darkenings too, as if a cuttlefish had suddenly suffused the air with purple; and the (gallery) had its passions and rages and envies and sorrows coming over it and clouding it, like a human being. Nothing stayed the same for two seconds together.

But, outside, the (exhibition mimicked the crowded, brightly lit bar) so accurately and so fixedly that they seemed held there in their reality unescapably. It was a strange contrast – all changing here, all stillness there. One could not help looking from one to the other. Meanwhile, since (the galleries were all open plan), there was a perpetual sighing and ceasing sound, the voice of the transient and the perishing, it seemed, coming and going like human breath, while in the (bar) things had ceased to breathe and lay still in the trance of immortality.

Half an hour ago, (the artists) had gone down the (gallery space) in (their) thin summer dress(es), carrying a (a handful of collages and a spirit level), and had vanished, (obscured from view by the orange bathed wall of the gallery threshold). (They) had gone presumably into the (gallery) to (make some adjustments); or as it seemed more natural to suppose, to (add or exchange) something light and fantastic and (gleaming) and (magical), (A Painted Show Thing, a series of colour, silent, single channel video loops), or (the torrent of things grown so familiar 3D printed artefacts composed of lights, mylar, stands, bronze hooves, size variable). (The artists themselves) suggested the fantastic and tremulous (the torrent of things grown so familiar standing on CT scans of skeletal horse hooves cast in bronze and giving off the scent of beeswax; foil shaped as if the artists had sprayed silver paint from an aerosol into a cave, or indeed their own body cavity, and then, after it had set, peeled it off and assembled it in the gallery); rather than (A Painted Show Thing or Spiderling; the collages; or the LiDAR data and Kinect capture scan work of Virginia Woolf’s writing hut, this voice; this life; this procession, with) her own burning roses alight like lamps on the straight posts of their rose trees. The comparison showed how very little, after all these years, one knew about (the artists). For it is impossible that any woman of flesh and blood of fifty-five or sixty should be really a (work of art). Such comparisons are worse than idle and superficial – they are cruel even, for they come like (the artwork) itself trembling between one’s eyes and the truth. There must be truth; there must be a wall. Yet it was strange that after knowing (them) all these years one could not say what the truth about (the artists) was, one still made up phrases like this about (grotesque cellophane tableaux vivants and single channel video loops). As for facts, it was a fact that (they were women; that they were adept at securing funding for their artistic pursuits; that even though it took them six years of subtle, solicitous persuasion, they had secured permission to scan Virginia Woolf’s writing hut, and, using the most advanced of technologies, had scanned) the rugs, the chairs, the cabinets, which now lived their nocturnal life before one’s eyes. Sometimes it seemed as if they knew more about (the artists) than we, who sat on them, wrote at them, and trod on them so carefully, were allowed to know. In each of these cabinets were many little drawers, and each most certainly held (notebooks), tied with bows of ribbon, sprinkled with sticks of lavender or rose leaves. For it was another fact – if facts were what one wanted, that (Virginia Woolf had many notebooks. Many of these notebooks contained drafts of stories and novels and plays and poems – she died at a relatively young age, and yet judging by the body of work that she did leave behind), and the mask-like indifference of her face, she had twenty times (more stories left in her when she died). Under the stress of thinking about (Virginia Woolf), the (gallery) became more shadowy and symbolic; the corners seemed darker, (the bronze forelegs of the horse) more spindly and hieroglyphic.

Suddenly these reflections were ended violently and yet without a sound. A large (figure loomed into view and) blotted out (the low frequency glow of the artworks, set up a trestle table, and), strewed the table with a packet of marble tablets veined with pink and grey, and was gone. But the picture was entirely altered. For the moment it was unrecognizable and irrational and entirely out of focus. One could not relate these tablets to any human purpose. And then (a group of young people came in and sat down at the table and handed round the tablets), bringing them into the fold of common experience. One realized at last that they were merely (notebooks). The (workshop leader) had (handed out notebooks).

There they lay on the (wooden)-topped table, all dripping with light and colour at first and crude and unabsorbed. And then it was strange to see how they were drawn in (by the young people) and arranged and composed and made part of the picture and granted that  stillness and immortality which the (exhibition) conferred. (The notebooks) lay there invested with a new reality and significance and with a greater heaviness, too, as if they would have needed a chisel to dislodge them from the table. And, whether it was fancy or not, they seemed to have become not merely a handful of casual (notebooks) but to be tablets graven with eternal truth – if one could read them, one would know everything there was to be known about (the artists), yes, and about life, too. The pages within those marble-looking (notebooks) must be cut deep and scored thick with meaning. (The artists) would come in, and take them one by one, very slowly, and open them, and read them carefully word by word, and then with (three) profound sigh(s) of comprehension, as if (they) had seen to the bottom of everything, (they) would tear the (covers of the notebooks) to little bits and tie the (pages) together and lock the cabinet drawer in (their) determination to (preserve the truths that had been written down by the participants).

The thought served as a challenge. (The artists) did not wish to be known – but (they) could no longer escape. It was absurd, it was monstrous. If (they) concealed so much and knew so much one must prise (them) open with the first tool that came to hand – the imagination. One must fix one’s mind on (them) at that very moment. One must fasten (them) down there. One must refuse to be put off any longer with sayings and doings such as the moment brought forth – with (talks and tours and private views). One must put oneself in (their) shoes. If one took the phrase literally, it was easy to see their shoes (as they walked through the gallery), at this moment. They were very narrow and long and fashionable – they were made of the softest and most flexible leather. Like everything (they) wore, they were exquisite. And (they) would be standing (on a ladder in the far gallery, raising the spirit level to line up a new photograph – the one with the image of the boulder next to a vine covered wall). (The spotlights would gleam on their) face(s), into (their) eyes; but no; at the critical moment a veil of cloud covered the (spotlight), making the expression of (their) eyes doubtful – was it mocking or tender, brilliant or dull? One could only see (the silhouette of their faces) looking at (the ceiling). (They) were thinking, perhaps, that (they) must order a new (emergency foil blanket for the boulder); that they must send (an email to the curator); that it was time (they) drove over to see the (director of the new city centre art gallery). But one was tired of the things that (they) talked about at dinner. It was (their) profounder state of being that one wanted to catch and turn to words, the state that is to the mind what breathing is to the body, what one calls happiness or unhappiness. At the mention of those words it became obvious, surely, that (they) must be happy. (They were funded; they were respected; they had lots of contacts; they exhibited widely – undertook residencies in Hong Kong, commissions in Canada). Avenues of (inspiration) radiated this way and that from where (they) stood with (their spirit levels) raised (to line up the photograph) while the lacy clouds veiled (their) face(s).

Here with a quick movement of (their spirit levels, they tilted the photograph) and it fell (to the floor. As it fell), surely some light came in too, surely one could penetrate a little further into (their) being. (Their) mind(s) were then filled with tenderness and regret… (To drop a glazed artwork) saddened (them) because it had once (had an aesthetic value), and (aesthetic value meant something to them). Yes, and at the same time the fall of the (artwork) would suggest to (them) how (they) must die (themselves) and all the futility and evanescence of things. And then again quickly catching this thought up, with (their) instant good sense, (they) thought life had treated (them) well; even if fall (they) must, it was to lie on the earth and moulder sweetly into the roots of violets. So (they) stood thinking. Without making any thought precise – for (they were like) those reticent people whose minds hold their thoughts enmeshed in clouds of silence – (they were) filled with thoughts. (Their) mind(s were) like (the torrent of things grown so familiar) in which light advanced and retreated, came pirouetting and stepping delicately (on skeletal bronze horse hooves; 3D printed hands gesturing, beckoning, glowing in their cave; a neon hand clicking its fingers); and then (their) whole being was suffused, like the (gallery) again, with a cloud of some profound knowledge, some unspoken regret, and then (they were) full of locked drawers, stuffed with (notebooks), like (Woolf’s) cabinets. To talk of “prising (them) open” as if (they) were ( ) oyster(s), to use any but the finest and subtlest and most pliable tools upon (them) was impious and absurd. One must imagine – here (they were) in the (exhibition). It made one start.

(They) were so far off at first that one could not see (them) clearly. (They) came lingering and pausing, here straightening (a label), there (running a finger along a frame), but (they) never stopped, and all the time (they) became larger and larger in the (exhibition), more and more completely the (people) into whose mind one had been trying to penetrate. One verified (them) by degrees – fitted the qualities one had discovered into this visible body. There were (their) green-grey dress(es), and (their) long shoes, (their toolbox) and something sparkling at (their) throat(s). (They) came so gradually that (they) did not seem to derange the pattern(s) in the (gallery), but only to bring in some new element which gently moved and altered the other objects as if asking them, courteously, to make some room for (them). And the (notebooks) and the table and the (workshop) and the (single channel video loops) that had been waiting in the (exhibition) separated and opened out so that (they) might be received among them. At last there (they) were, in the (gallery threshold). (They) stopped dead. (They) stood by the table. (They) stood perfectly still. At once the (gallery) began to pour over (them) a light that seemed to fix (them); that seemed like some acid to bite off the unessential and superficial and leave only the truth. It was an enthralling spectacle. Everything dropped from (them) – clouds, dress(es), (toolbox), diamond(s) – all that one had called (this voice; this life; this procession) and (the torrent of things grown so familiar). Here was the hard wall beneath. Here (were the artists themselves). (They) stood (bare) in that pitiless light. And there was nothing. (The artists were) perfectly empty. (They) had no thoughts. (They) had no friends. (They) cared for nobody. As for (their notebooks), they were all (blank). Look, as (they) stood there, old and angular, veined and lined, with (their) high nose(s) and (their) wrinkled neck(s, they) did not even trouble to open them.

(Curators) should not leave (exhibitions) hanging in their (galleries).