WILLIE DOHERTY – PHOTO/TEXT/85/92
2012-04-09Doherty’s ongoing concerns with the complexities and contradictions of contested terrain were firmly established early on. These works probed the tensions and anxieties of what was visible and invisible, of what could be said and what could not. The works in the exhibition reveal something of the social and political conditions of the period that saw the entrance of the Irish Republican movement into the political process and negotiations with the British government over the North of Ireland. They also bear traces of the artistic possibilities and debates at the time of production, which sought to politicise conceptual art practice.
The specific content of these works – of boundary building and the pervasive nature of surveillance, the apparent incommensurability of polarized political factions and the scars these divisions leave on the landscape – remain relevant today.
Opposite – Shifting Ground (The Walls, Derry), 1991
Exhibition runs through till May 27th, 2012
Matt’s Gallery
42–44 Copperfield Road
London
E3 4RR
