(selected by Sarah Lowndes)
Falls Burns Malone Fiddles, 2003
The Irish-born, Glasgow-based artist Duncan Campbell's interest in the (re) uses of found materials have previously resulted in several interconnected strands of practice: knitted versions of nightclub posters, setting up the artist-run radio station, Radio Tuesday and making video work using pages torn from high fashion magazines. However, for his contribution to Luke Fowlers Shadazz VHS compilation 'Evil Eye is Source' in 2002, Campbell produced a visual track of unkempt underpasses and kerbside trash.
The following year, this interest in the pressures of urban environments was pushed further in a video work made for his solo show at Transmission, Glasgow. Campbell produced the enigmatic yet compelling 'Fall Burns Malone Fiddles' (2003) by piecing together a series of black and white still images of young working class people and depressed neighbourhoods, sourced from a Belfast archive.
The soundtrack to this montage of photographs was the Edinburgh-born actor Ewan Bremner (perhaps best known as Spud in the film Trainspotting) reading a rhythmic monologue, which combined excerpts of dense sociological theory with looser, stream of consciousness passages. The audience had to work hard to make sense of the work, which was on one hand seductive, and on another frustrating. (Sarah Lowndes).
'Informed by Becketts dark humour - who wrote that nothing is funnier than unhappiness - Duncan Campbell assumes the voice of a single narrator who is bound to a vernacular, intentionally incomprehensible, private language. 'Fall Burns Malone Fiddles' (2003) unravels as a series of images collected from a Belfast archive. The spirit of protest in the citys working class and depressed neighbourhoods is reanimated by Campbell's rhythmic reading delivered as a muddy stream of consciousness.' (Manifesta 5, San Sebastian, 2004).
This film was featured in the Sparwasser HQ exhibition of artist video works selected by 50 artist-run spaces Old Habits Die Hard (Berlin, Oslo, Istanbul, Norwich 2004/5) and was selected by Matthew Noel-Tod for Revolution is Not What it Used to Be, one of the S1 / salon programmes in Sheffield 2004.
Duncan Campbell (b. 1972) completed the MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 1998 and BA Fine Art at the University of Ulster, 1996. Solo exhibitions include Falls Burns Malone Fiddles, Galerie Luis Campaa, Cologne (2004), Revolution is Not What it Used to Be, S1 Artspace Sheffield (2004), Manifesta 5, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, San Sebastian (2004), Emotion Eins, Frankfurter Kunstverin, Frankfurt am Main (2004), Fresh and Upcoming, a project with Luke Fowler at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (2003), Old Habits Die Hard, Sparwasser HQ Berlin and Norwich Gallery (2003). Upcoming projects for 2005 include a show at Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin and Breeder, Athens.
He lives and works in Glasgow and is represented by Galerie Luis Campana, Cologne.
> www.luiscampana.de
> Art from Glasgow: David Sherry, Duncan Campbell, Maria Doyle, Stuart Gurden, Joanne Tatham & Tom O'Sullivan (Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, until 26 November 2005).
(Duncan Campbell was also nominated by Michelle Cotton)
October 2005
Further information
Falls Burns Malone Fiddles, by Kevin KellyPresented in the main gallery of Transmission, Glasgow (2003) Duncan Campbell's exhibition offered little in the way of frills. A single screen hung from the ceiling in the darkened space. On request...
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