Kevin Gallagher

The zoom lecture I’ve just watched was with the artist Kevin Gallagher. He was born in America, studied in Chicago, then Rotterdam, before moving to Brussels. He works mainly with sculpture and does art installations. He views sculpture “as a tool to engage or orchestrate three dimensional space”.

Kevin started by describing on of his earliest experiences of contemporary art when he was 16/17 at the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago, by an artist called Thomas Hirschhorn. It was basically a room where the walls were covered in newspaper, with shelves filled with globes with duct tape on. He said he didn’t know what to make of it or how to even locate himself in it or where to look. It was immersive and disorientating. He thought that this was a good introduction to his own interest in the practice of building spaces or environments.

Kevin started by talking about three different installations. The first was “The You in You” in 2017. It was interesting and made up of different sculptures. The artworks that I particularly liked were called “Drowsy” and “Light Headed”. They were metal carts with two fans attached that blew pollen from real flowers onto a canvas with slow drying oil medium on it, creating these pollen paintings. There were also human sized coloured figural forms made of gelatin, dotted around the room. He also had some plexiglass sculptures with holes and socks sticking out of them, which I didn’t fully understand.

The next installation was in an apartment building called “Care and Rearing” in 2017. It involved a reading (said in darkness) and stacks of transparent storage boxes. Inside some of the boxes was some pickling liquid with some carved carrot forms. The carrots had a face and twig arms and legs. Kevin said that the storage boxes were like apartment blocks and that the carrots were looking up at their reflections in the liquid. It was a bit bizarre and didn’t really work for me. I did appreciate what he was saying about the carrots being preserved and how it can mimic our own environment, but it didn’t really resonate with me.

Kevins next example was an installation from 2019. The curators in Brussels were interested in focusing on the aerial perspective of the viewer, looking down at things. Kevin described his art as a slightly deconstructed American flag (striped second hand fabric sewn together) with a business kind of landscape with cans of food and batteries glued together creating a tower shape. There were also three mushroom shapes made of epoxy clay and painted, again with batteries embedded or tied to them. He’d positioned it on the floor by a window so you could view it from inside or outside. I appreciated the idea but I couldn’t see any way of putting it into my style of painting, or how I like to create.

“Figuration” from 2020 was housed in a small storefront on a busy street in Brussels. He constructed a false wall to lead you straight to a small framed silver gelatin print which was quite interesting. It had been immersed in a simulated stomach acid for 840 hours to degrade the surface, causing it to fade in places. There were also three lamps wrapped in sleeping bags called “Beacon” which were quite effective. There were also two small epoxy clay sculptures of a carrot and a corn (similar to the one from 2017) between the lamps, but I thought it was a bit strange and a bit weird. There were also some tubular sculpture and a small wooden hut with booklets inside. One of the booklets had tea labels with quotes on them from Yogi tea stuck to various pages. I did like some of the quotes – “The purpose of life is to enjoy every moment” and “Let things come to you”. I like it when artwork is inspiring, so these quotes did stand out to me.

I thought Kevin spoke really well about his art. I appreciated his ideas and how he relates them to the body and its habitat. However, although I can see it is always interesting to walk through installations and see the ideas etc, and how they can be thought provoking, Kevin’s style of sculpture wasn’t my cup of tea. Sometimes I don’t really understand what the installation is all about or what the artist is trying to say. Some of the readings he used and the quotes were a bit too wordy and went over my head! It’s always good to think about things, but I don’t really see how his style can translate to my style. I’m very much spontaneous, putting paint on canvas, not always knowing where the painting is going, what colours to use and often just straight to the point. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not but it’s just me.