Profile °14 – ANDREW KEARNEY

essay by Simon Ofield; interview by Aoife Mac Namara; intro by Mike Fitzpatrick 

ISBN 978 0946846 740      60 pages (paperback)   22.5x22.5cm    83 illus

This book is a visual tour de force. In its exploration of how installation artist Andrew Kearney is confidently finding his way through the complexity of his own work personally, and contemporary art practice in general, it bombards the reader with thought-provoking concepts and powerful imagery. Simon Ofield has composed his essay on the artist as an accompaniment to Kearney’s work, rather than being about his work. Kearney speaks openly about his background, his influences and inspirations. He speaks of alienation, communication and sexuality, of attempts to communicate associated emotions to the viewer – and of not being disuaded from doing so by any displeasure the viewer might experience – and of his growing interest in the use of sophisticated new technologies.

EXTRACTS

"A particular joy in Kearney’s work is his ability to maintain overall control of complex concepts and large-scale visualisations through rigorous design and execution. This ability to deal with complex issues, using a myriad of technologies while retaining a coherent holistic effect, is a particular strength and confidence he brings to contemporary art practice. The ambient nature of his installations speaks of Kearney’s ability to create theatre and embrace his audience, and while the work is not bombastic, it does have a particularly haunting and lasting appeal. Kearney’s negotiation, relationship and place with the art world, his hometown and his sexuality are as ambiguous and opaque as his work."

— from the introduction by Mike Fitzpatrick

"Nearly all critical encounters with Andrew Kearney’s work comment upon his skill for refining and redesigning the space of the gallery, and the overwhelming sensation of his formal installations ... The finish and formal confidence of Kearney’s installations both generate and distract from often-anxious speculations as to their meaning. Kearney’s work has incited much curatorial and critical speculation as to its metaphorical meaning, and whilst this is true of much contemporary art, it is perhaps the assurance of Kearney’s installations that induce anxiety over what they are about – anxiety that both author and work appear unwilling to moderate. Much of the writing around Kearney’s work over the past fifteen years – both catalogue essays and reviews – develop understandings that can be placed alongside his installations, but often acknowledge their inability to quite encompass the form and effect of his work."

— from the essay by Simon Ofield

 "Visualisation, metaphors. These are words that I sometimes feel are useful in discussing the work. However, they are also limiting. They can suggest that the work is about the representation of specific events, feelings or memories. This might be misleading. The work is more performative than that, more open-ended, more involved with a process, a process that involves the viewer being placed in particular spaces and coming in touch with various sounds, images, smells, spaces and objects – elements that will be encountered differently by different people...
          There is a certain arrogance about the work that irritates people. I don’t make a lot of effort to spell things out. But then, the experience of being at sea or bewildered is something I am offering the viewer through the work. I like the idea that people who are very confident in language, who live in socially privileged circumstances, or who have never known what it is like to be excluded because of sexuality, or to have dyslexia confused with stupidity or slowness, might experience though this work, however briefly, the frustration and anger experienced by those of us regularly excluded from other aspects of society. How menacing a place can feel if your way of life is never accommodated within it."

— Andrew Kearney in conversation with Aoife Mac Namara