Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss

The pleasure was mine, recently, to attend the vernissage at Vienna's Kunsthalle Project Space of works by maestros of light and image, David McDermott and Peter McGough.  The exhibition features a series of cyanotypes, collected items, and four short films.

The space, open to the public with free admission, consists of a rectangular glass pavilion designed in 2001 by architect Adolf Krischanitz.  Krischanitz, a freelance Austrian architect, said in an apropos remark that, "Pavilions represent the beauty of the temporary; presenting themselves as transitory phenomena in the 'wrong' place, they perhaps help to create a right awareness."

L-R: Peter McGough, curator Dr. Gerald Matt, David McDermott
in the exhibition space - photo copyright © Kunsthalle

David McDermott (L) and Tav Falco (R) in front of In secret shall it mourn
 note: the date on the tombstone is exactly 100 years prior to the vernissage -
cyanotype © McDermott and McGough; photo © Via Kali

Housed in the "beauty of the temporary", the exhibition transports us to a world experienced and expressed by McDermott and McGough through cyanotypes taken with a vintage camera that is, as Peter McGough himself indistinctly noted, "an old one" with a 4x5 negative.  The excellent quality of the cyanotypes create an atmospheric texture, an ambience distinct, yet approachable; comforting and intriguing. The photographs, of their former home in Ireland at 26 Sandymount Lane, take us through the lush and mysterious countryside, and inside and around their home, one of apparent endless wonder and interest.  The exhibition is enhanced by several glass-covered tables showing items—such as photographs, antique tins, items of clothing and jewelry, and their own publications—that aid in bringing the visitor closer into their world.  The films heighten this unique experience, showing "moving pictures" of an Irish manor; a classic, art deco-era story of love and longing; an artful take on perfecting a scene; and the mini-masterpiece Mean to Me, featuring Linus Roache and Agyness Deyn.

Showing of Screen Test - copyright © McDermott and McGough

The beauty of their, and our, experience shows even in their list of titles for the cyanotypes (each dated both the years 1917 and 2010), which, when read, create a life of their own in poetry:


1.    In secret shall it mourn


2.    What eyes these long, long labyrinths dare explore


3.    Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss


4.    A secret of pensive pleasure


5.    And, wrapt in clouds


6.    Each fine feeling as it flows


7.    Each unhewn mass of living stone


8.    And high delicious revelry
...


McDermott and McGough—attributed to the proclamation, "I've seen the Future and I'm not going"—spoke passionately at the vernissage of a lifestyle which shuns corporate intrusion, especially in their attire, and of preserving the richly diverse past.  Or as David McDermott wished, that we would each pick a year of the past—as one would "go into the woods and pick a bird or a tree"—and preserve that year, living it. But don't think that their work is a result of just living in the past and denying the fullness and richness that we believe the present to be.  These works transcend time itself, providing a personal and idyllic view of a time and place, mistakenly elusive, that waits for us—invites us—if we choose to forgo our accustomed and habitual endeavors and simply enter...

Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss - 
copyright © McDermott and McGough