Cork 2005: A desire to do "something really special" for Cork 2005 lay behind John P Quinlan's decision to invite writer and artist John Berger to mount the exhibition of drawings which will be opened by Fiona Shaw at the Vanguard Gallery on December 8th.
Berger, who won the Booker Prize for his novel, G, and whose other work includes his ground-breaking television series, Ways of Seeing, for the BBC, will be exhibiting for the first time with his Spanish collaborator, Marisa Camino, who will also be in Cork.
After a 12-year career as an international auditor, Quinlan, more recently the owner of a craft shop, gallery and award-winning pub in Macroom, Co Cork, has built the success of his city-centre gallery on little more than an appetite for risk and a flair for contemporary art. With the co-operation of his friend and colleague, Jim Savage, of the Limerick College of Art and Design, Quinlan made the exhibition proposal first of all to Berger and then, when the invitation was accepted, took it to Cork 2005, which has since managed the event.
There were a few moments of tension as a result, as Cork 2005 offered Berger his choice of venue - but, luckily, he came down in favour of his hosts at the Vanguard. Even so, some changes must be made to this austere interior, a floor in the old Huguenot complex of buildings restored during the makeover of Paul Street some years ago but which still kept its splendid warehouse rafters, low ceilings and arched windows. The venue has six walls for hanging, but, at Berger's request, a double-sided glass wall must be added to these, as some of the 35 drawings have been executed on both sides of the surface material. Quinlan, who established the Vanguard in 1991, is happy to make what he calls "minor adjustments" in order to ensure the presence of a major artistic figure.
In his introduction to the exhibition catalogue Quinlan describes Berger as a critic and an artist who has the power to alter our perceptions. He is especially gratified that Berger has chosen to exhibit drawings, "the first touch from the mind to visual realisation". Furthermore, the fact "that he has chosen to work in collaboration with another artist, Marisa Camino, is proof, if proof were needed, that even as an elder statesman he is still prepared to walk the high-wire without a safety net".
After all the planning had been done and delays due to illness endured, there was the excitement of the arrival of a simple portfolio containing what Quinlan describes as plain, unadorned, delicate pieces of paper, inscribed by both artists without any sense of their having been made by different individuals.
"Turning to each new delicate tissue, images revealing themselves, I felt a sense of the potential that this exhibition would have, the way the sheets of paper would be presented so that those direct marks would shine through," writes Quinlan. "Traditional means, traditional subjects, all made to endure, showing proof, if it were needed, of the relevance that drawing still holds for Berger and Camino."
Most of Berger's week in Cork will be spent supervising the hanging, but he will give a public lecture at the Firkin Crane in Shandon at 7pm on Tuesday, December 6th, and tickets for this will be made available by RTÉ.
The exhibition catalogue is by David Brett, sponsored by Cork 2005, while the fine publication, Berger on Drawing, edited by Jim Savage and published recently by Occasional Press, is also a project of Cork 2005. The exhibition will continue at the Vanguard until January 21st next year.
