Saints Alive - Michael Landy at National Gallery

This exhibition is Michael Landy’s response to and re-portrayal of his study of paintings of the lives of the Saints held in the National Gallery.  On first walking in, I was confronted by a bewildering larger than life automaton of St Appollonia.    I thought that she was holding a knife, and was about to stab herself, an image of self-martyrdom.  I realised on reading the guide that she was martyred by having her teeth pulled out with pliers, which she was shown holding.

The first room holds a series of Landy’s 2D drawings, some small, some huge.  He used these to make 3D interactive automata . He has cut-up pieces of the original paintings and combined with his drawings of wheel and other mechanisms and linkages, to create surreal assemblages.  Whilst looking at the drawings, I could hear loud, banging sounds from the working pieces, and I wanted to run away. 

I noticed these drawings, in particular:

“Nationality Saints”

This was Cut-ups of Deer and dragon and different Saint images arranged into a tree shape conjoined at the bottom by a pierced heart.  Saints associated with their countries, a hierarchy?  I wondered what do these symbols mean?  If I was a Catholic, particularly one living in the period of the original paintings, I would be able to read the symbolism of these images easily.  I cannot relate this to my reality, as the context is so radically different for me living now.

“ All the St Catherine Wheels”

I enjoyed the drawing of inter-linked Catherine Wheels in this, and couldn’t help noticing the snake-heads with evil eyes and thinking of the Biblical story of Eve’s temptation and downfall.

“Fingerpoint”

This depicted St Thomas called “Doubting Thomas”, because he doubted that Christ was arisen until he could actually feel his wounds.  This was a literally invasive work, but the 2D image worked better than 3D for me, because I liked the way the elements were joined, coloured and arranged.

And this 3D installation:

“Spin the St Catherine Wheel and win the crown of Martyrdom”

This is a large broken wheel mounted on one wall which could be turned by a handle attached to a smaller wheel.  Around the edges of the wheel, in letters of gold, where written the various tortures that St Catherine, and her converts underwent.  “You eat nothing for 12 days”, “You will convert the Roman Empress who will then be punished for this by having her breasts torn off.”  It reduces that pain and suffering to the level of a fair-ground show, roll roll up, win the Lottery.

Although I think it was intentional, there was an irritating tackiness about the 3D not in the 2D.

The exhibition was absurd and somewhat macabre, highly irreverent, and no doubt offensive to some.  It conveyed to me the idea that the Saints, and by extension, we are linked together in pain and suffering, that we inflict on each other and on ourselves in the name of beliefs.   Also, that there are/were manipulative wheels within wheels of the power of religion, who is doing the manipulation?  What is “in our control” and what isn’t? In the exhibition, we are, and how much relevance do mythological Saints have for us now, in the 21^st Century?

The Curator’s stated wish was to have us go and seek out the original paintings, but it didn’t prompt me to want to do that.  So I don’t think I exactly liked the exhibition as a whole, but it did make me think.  The exhibition reminded me of the Victorian keenness for automata.  I discovered that the artist’s pre-occupations are with consumerism, make, break, and throw away, and that he works within a group named Artangel.