Action (C3-20) – Gavin O’ Curry
Gavin and I met at the Goethe Institute in Dublin to view and talk about his exhibition, ‘The Lost American / Crying in the Chapel’.

Thursday, 9th April, 2009

‘Here Comes The Sun’
Gavin included a painting in the exhibition called ‘Crucifixion’. The painting’s depiction of a shirtless Elvis with arms outstretched in a cruciform pose sent ideas into orbit around several ‘suns’. The ‘Son’ of God (infamously crowned ‘King of the Jews’) and the King of Rock ’n’ Roll (the ‘Sun King’ – bearing in mind the sudden apogee of Elvis’s first recordings at Sun Studios in Memphis). The exhibition’s dichotomies of darkness and light mean the sun in the sky gets a look in too.

The second focal point of the show is the eye itself, trained upwards by a black reflecting dish (a giant opaque cornea resting lightly on the floor) towards its equivalent form in the transparent oval skylight overhead.

On the way to the pub we talked about sadness in music, especially in certain voices. I was reminded of something Dave Hickey wrote about Chet Baker, “he knew that all songs are sad songs, borne as they are on the insubstantial substance of our fleeting breath”
The action included my writing a longer text in response to Gavin’s show. You can read my text here.