Exhibitions 2
Robert Gober (Tate Gallery, Liverpool, till 22 August) Henry Moore and the Sea (Pallant House, Chichester, till 19 Septem-
Plugging his cause
Giles Auty
Last week's travels transported me from the leafy lanes of Sussex one day to the treeless centre of Liverpool the next. Nor could the art on offer have been in greater contrast. In my youth artists such as Henry Moore were looked on as modern, but who could have envisaged then the extreme forms so-called art has taken sub- sequently? Moore may have been mother- `Cat Litter' and, in background, 'Hanging Man/Sleeping Man, 1989, by Robert Gober fixated but at least he essayed a kind of universality both in his forms and his mes- sage. By contrast, Robert Gober's artistic gospel, if it can be deciphered at all, seems particular and personal. Gober was brought up in a Catholic household in central USA. There his homosexual orientation brought him into conflict not just with conventional, small- town morality but with the values of his parents. But it may have escaped him here that had they not been heterosexual them- selves he would not have been here in the first place. Homosexual resentment and irritation at the so-called straight world can hardly avoid such unpalatable truths. My visit to Liverpool was prompted by my inclusion in a panel chosen to debate issues of art, morality and (in)decency in relation to Gober's work. The latter takes the form of 'environments' littered with objects of a somewhat obscure symbolism. Unfortunately, the format of the Liverpool Tate's galleries betrays their origin as a warehouse, frustrating attempts to make spaces disorientating and claustrophobic since the false walls required by the artist end well short of the vaulted brick ceilings and their ostentatious chrome-plated duct- ing. In short, the overall effect militates against meanings — which are pretty arcane to begin with.
Indeed, I do not think the average, unprompted visitor will have the least idea what this exhibition is supposedly about. This kind of experience has become all too common now and demonstrates the grow- ing self-indulgence and ineffectiveness of a number of the latest art forms. One of Gober's interior environments includes wallpaper of his own design featuring a black man hanging from a tree, a wedding- dress and a brace of bags marked 'cat lit- ter'. The train of the long wedding-dress, symbol of 'straight' married purity, trails in the muck apparently. In the meantime, the cat litter supplants soiled nappies which would have been to 'obvious' a symbol. Another 'room' features black wallpaper based on a motif of indifferently drawn male and female pudenda; the walls mean- while have specially made sink drains let into them. Is heterosexual congress a sink of iniquity?
Luckily, two famous young art historians trained at the Courtauld were on hand to explain such matters, and for those mysti- fied even by their highly imaginative inter- pretations there remained a catalogue featuring an interview between the artist and one Richard Flood and an essay by Lynn Cooke, another doyenne of the 'new' art history. Talking of Mr Gober's 'ersatz generic drain', Mr Flood goes on to say, 'I was obsessed by the cross in the bottom of the "Drain". That is what I went to imme- diately, I thought "migod, I never realised a drain was Pentecostal".' No satirist would dare invent such lines.
Art today is in the hands of a new priest- ly caste, employed to decode assemblages of objects which might easily appear mean- ingless otherwise. Clearly these decoders make themselves indispensable to all who imagine such obscure and solipsist art is what those who visit our publicly funded galleries of living art deserve. Gober's work has already filled the Serpentine Gallery in London for several weeks. Today, any Ger- man or American artist with a sufficiently powerful dealer gets free use of Britain's subsidised spaces to boost an international `reputation' that is usually 95 per cent man- ufactured. Since I am one of the few to complain regularly about this state of affairs I must assume that few others, including those in the highest authority, either care or dare to express their feelings.
On a burning June day it is hard to think of a pleasanter town to visit than Chich- ester, or a lovelier period of English archi- tecture than the early 18th century to which Pallant House belongs. Henry Moore and the Sea is a touring show of modest size which chronicles some of the sculptor's associations with the coast of this and other countries. Moore loved sea-bathing and as a lifelong gatherer of rocks and pebbles found plenty to amuse him even when not immersed. Moore's drawings were described once in my hearing as 'grotesque' by none other than Francis Bacon. The present exhibition comprises some 36 works, including small bronzes, drawings and lithographs. Some of the latter go some way to explaining Bacon's reactions but there is poetry also, and even humour: a holidaymaker's feet framing sea and sail.
I tend to admire Moore the carver rather more than Moore the modeller, and it is worth recalling that it was the late Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester and patron of all the arts — whose collection forms part of the basis for the permanent displays at Pallant House — who commissioned one of Moore's loveliest carvings, the Madonna and Child for the Church of St Matthew, Northampton. Although a Christian image, perhaps the dogma of the Immaculate Conception alone would redeem such an icon in the eyes of Mr Gober?
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