Mary Kelly 1976 - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Mary Kelly’s exhibition was thus a remarkable combination of the concrete and the abstract, everyday detail and grand theory. Predictably, the inclusion of stained nappy-liners aroused the derision of newspaper journalists. For once the accusation “a load of crap” appeared to be literally true. Roger Bray, an Evening Standard reporter, commented: “London’s young marrieds, who may feel that they have seen enough dirty nappy-liners to last them a lifetime, may however like to know what emotions all this is supposed to stir.” In an adjoining column references were made back to the Tate’s bricks affair and forward to the next ICA show Prostitution thereby situating Mary Kelly’s show as one of a trio of art scandals.
Frank Robertson, writing for the conservative newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, reported that he had spent 40 minutes in the gallery during which time he had heard a middle-aged woman remark: “I think it’s a load of rubbish. Taxpayers should not be asked to subsidise this sort of rubbish.” Although the ICA was a private organisation which required visitors to pay a fee to become members before gaining admission, it did receive some financial support from the Arts Council.
Laura Mulvey, a film-maker/theorist writing in the Feminist magazine Spare Rib, defended Mary Kelly’s exhibition against its critics. In her view the show was “a direct provocation to conventional concepts of ‘art’. It is the form of the exhibition... that causes so much outrage. A painting of a mother changing her baby’s nappy would be easily overlooked as kitsch, but not so with dirty nappy-liners annotated and placed within a discourse that needs work to be unravelled, and refuses to place the figure of the mother in view.” (In fact, Kelly’s 1983 book does feature a photo of her and her son opposite the title page.)
However, further comment in a later issue of Spare Rib indicated that even Feminists had problems understanding and enjoying Mary Kelly’s show. Margot Waddell and Michelene Wandor questioned the fragmented presentation of disparate objects and texts that required so much mental effort on the part of viewers. “The exhibition... appears to be open and accessible, in fact, it is opaque, and not so much participatory as excluding and exclusive.” They went on to complain about “weak visual metaphors” and “esoteric intellectualisation” and then added: “Such a heavy dependence on an inadequately presented theory can only distract attention from the ‘artistic’ nature of the work.”
Mary Kelly 1976 - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
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