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	Book Reviews

John Boyd: A Partial History of the Spurious II
July 16 - September 15, 1999

Lyndon Fine Art Inc.
301 West Superior Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Telephone: 312/943-1133
Tue.-Sat.9:30-5:30 PM

"What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom's, who attracted Stephen's, gaze?" James Joyce, Ulysses

Twenty one oil paintings by John Boyd. And a six page catalogue (eight if the cover is counted). (And since covers can't count, it must be counted). Eight paintings in John Boyd's newest visual narrative series, "A Partial History of the Spurious II," are now on display at Lyndon Fine Art Gallery, Chicago, and a first response evokes James Joyce's equally perplexing Ulysses. Like the great Irish classic, Boyd's series immediately draws one in and a viewer is up and at the details and specifics, and only after a spell of this... realizes the overall sense of it will not be easy to pin down.

I really enjoyed these works.

The catalogue opens with two short commentaries by Dublin-based artist and writer, Niamh Ann Kelly. Kelly does note: "The paintings presented here represent the space between the artist and the viewer -- it is a place where there are no distinctions made and no authority invested in any particular party." She goes on to write: "Many things are said and even more is left unsaid, as recognition of either differences or similarities can often be elusive. And so, your guess is yet as good as mine." I take her at her word.

The most obvious fact about "A Partial History of the Spurious II" is that it is undeniably about viewers and the gallery. And that the two men, seemingly an ego and alter ego, do exist in what Niamh Kelly calls "a world frozen, a moment of reflection trapped in colour and form." But John Boyd makes the viewer clearly feel that we, adjacent gallery-goers, are in the two men's space -- we are noticed by the paintings' denizens, and perhaps intrude upon them. In at least five paintings of the series, one of the two men gaze out directly at the public -- a tortured gaze, perhaps even hostile stare. There is at least one of the pair who apparently disapproves of the art ritual, while his partner seems to accept and even indulge it.

Certainly the pair constitute identical twins; and the likeness appears, likewise, as a hanging portrait in the first panel, "Rebus (The Snollygoster's Return) and again in the eighth and final "Lapsus Memoriae (Schematomantic Deception). In this final panel, the portrait image, a second rendering, hangs upside down. The catalogue commentator, Niamh Kelly, noted: "They observe everything: sometimes in disguise from each other, though at times they do each, in passing, acknowledge the presence of the other." If indeed they are ego and alter ego for the artist: there is one who willingly participates, sometimes wearing, in different panels, different masks, either for his partner or for the public. But the alter identity comes sullen and sceptical. Communities of artists have existed since at least the ancient Greeks. Art markets per se, despite some sporadic starts, came into being by the 18th century. And a mercantile 'Art World', as we understand it, is a very contemporary phenomenon. Artists have to do their art; and sell it. They often relish far less having truck with the 'Art World,' and its fashions.

"A Partial History of the Spurious II" in style and expression does harken to Rene Magritte et alia: and one discerns specific visual references in the objects of art within the world of the panels. Some motifs participate in a continuity of action throughout the series of panels, much like magician's props. The intermittent mask and the mime-like gestures contribute to the sense that one is viewing a mute theatrical enactment of the gallery-going ritual. The fish, so well known from Magritte, begins its brief career in panel 1, "Rebus (The Snollygoster's Return)," as a small painting-within-a-painting. Another painting to its right, an image of a pencil (another favored Magritte motif), suggests both a disembodied corpus for the fish, and a pointer, or equation with the portrait which hangs at the canvas' right. The fish reappears in panel 4, "What is Said or Left Unsaid (The Hat is Blind)," where the alter ego figure tests, just to see if it will bite. (Or perhaps... if the off-canvas viewer will bite?). In panel 7, "The Confabulist's Inheritance (A Piscatorial Complement)," the alter ego possesses the fish, as a now seemingly three-dimensional object. In panel 8, "Lapsus Memoriae (Schematomantic Deception)," the alter ego is seen exiting past the inverted portrait of the pair's identity: the alter ego now wears the fish as a face mask. Throughout the panels it seems the 'ego' half of the pair keeps intent observation of the off-canvas gallery viewer.

If a spectator is so very intent on intruding upon the artist and causing a demand for gallery rituals, in which the artist is called upon to perform, he may well deserve "A Partial History of the Spurious II." After all, the off-canvas viewer is warned in panel 4, "What is Said or Left Unsaid," that "(The Hat is Blind)." The hat, too, bears the same face as all the human images in the panels. And so when, in panel 5, "Prosopagnoia (Obscurum per Obscurius)," the hat, now suspended for display, is contemplated by the alter ego persona, there is the implication that incomprehension is endemic.

Throughout Boyd's panels here are several such image sequences that operate in tandem with the primary narrative. The hat, the pencil, the fish, as well as geometrisized forms and color fields, all vacillate between appearances as paintings-within-the-paintings of these panels, and appearances as presumable objects in the space of the panels. As Niamh Kelly noted in the catalogue: "The paintings... occupy the space between the artist and the viewer...." "A Partial History of the Spurious II" is a delight for the conceptual reason and to the dissective and insatiable eye. There is much play and playfulness gathered about a serious, and perhaps even 'ironizing' core.

I am so often told that the Celtic spirit loves to ironize. Why irony? Perhaps it's just candor, pure and simple. Artists are compelled to create art. Art is something quite different from the 'Art World' flotsamed about it. The initial impulse toward art is something apart from the process and results that ensue. "A Partial History of the Spurious II" raised, right at the start, some of the sensations and instinctive uneasiness that first accompanied James Joyce's epic, Ulysses.

I fully realize that Joyce worked hard at Ulysses, and yes, it is a very big book. But what if he was just enjoying himself? Then a lot of very serious scholars have missed out on the party. John Boyd's paintings are well worth a visit. You'll become part of an experience that is part of an experience within an experience. Snollygoster, indeed!

"A Partial History of the Spurious II" (1999), a showing of twenty one oil paintings by John Boyd is now at Lydon Fine Art, 301 West Superior Street, Chicago. It can be viewed until September 15th.

--G. Jurek Polanski

Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net.