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This text is an excerpt from
the essay Boyle Family, by
David Harding.
The full text is included in HICA's Exhibitions 2010 publication.
Mark
Boyle, from Glasgow and Joan Hills, from Edinburgh, seemed to sum up so
much of what it was to be part of what we perceive the Sixties to be about
and, living and working in London, they were at the epicentre of it. Two
thoughts come to mind, one a joke and often repeated is that, if you can
remember the Sixties then you weren't there. And the other, less well
known but more to the point, is that, 'if you can see a bandwagon you've
missed it'.i
I like that thought because it is so succinct and explicit in saying that
you don't consciously fashion a way of being and doing based on
prevailing trends - you just have to become immersed in what you yourself
are doing and keep doing it. It is only much later that it can be said
that something special had happened and that you were part of it.
When you
read about the life and work of Boyle and Hills of that period, and
remember the so-called Sixties extended to around the mid-Seventies, their
immersion in their work - the prodigious amount of creative ideas and
production - and their involvement with the broad spectrum of individuals
and groups across the London arts scene from poetry to pop, it is evident
that they were very much a part of the Sixties bandwagon. They helped to
put the wheels on it.
The
randomness and the everyday that became central to their practice has of
course its roots in Dada and then Fluxus which was being manifested just
at the time when the Boyles were committing themselves to making art.
Journey to the Surface of
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the Earth
and the Institute of Contemporary Archaeology are two of the myriad of
concepts that Boyle and Hills developed and they remain driving forces of
Boyle Family work today.
Chance and
the rectangle are still at the core of Boyle Family work. An invitation
to exhibit at HICA held both of these key elements. In as much as an
invitation to exhibit in any new space/gallery contains something of
chance, it comes out of the blue for the artist. Deploying the
long-developed processes of their Institute for Contemporary Archaeology
proved not to be what really interested them and plans to exhibit a range
of works were dropped. In fact all Boyle Family ingredients were already
there - go to a site accept what is found, frame it and present it. In
this case it is the view. One might think, so what, great views are one
of the big attractions of the Highlands of Scotland - but it is at this
point that the interests of HICA and the Boyle Family converge. Making us
aware of what is special in the everyday.
The other
sources of daylight in the gallery, including the entrance to the gallery
have been boarded over leaving only the picture window. Access to the
gallery is now through the cottage kitchen. This is significant since on
entering the gallery unprepared the image presented is stunning.
In this
most 'concrete' presentation of an artwork, I hesitate to give it the name
of exhibition, we are asked to contemplate something which, rather than
fitting the usual riff of content and form, is more context and form.
i
Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister, in a speech in Canada. Surely it was
the work of one of her speech writers?
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