Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Pixies Show Their StatureAuthor(s): Nigel GuySource: Fortnight, No. 289 (Nov., 1990), p. 28Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552610 .

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fragility of the 'gravestone' is shocking, yet the

hands fixing it to the wall seem to have been

there only seconds before. On one sheet there

are ruled pencil-lines not filled in with words, as if the act of writing had just been interrupted.

It is as if the act of commemoration, as of

writing itself, seems durably important, despite the indecipherability of the original meaning.

On these hurried acts of homage and remem

brance Bitzan has affixed posies and garlands,

bay-leaf crowns, shrapnel-like rusted tin, lace,

tiny flowers?and, most interestingly, a seal

with the artist's initials. The mixing of heroic

and military items with symbols of personal

grief may be read as a series of acts of 'sealing'

which, as surely as the seal on an envelope,

close in the actual, individual content of pain and feeling with an individualised and readable

but ultimately simplistic public sign. Another symbol of how human perception

processes experience and shields us from it is

the book?an artefact of natural materials yet

upon which much of our 'elevation' from na

ture to civilisation depends. A series of Bitzan's

works investigate the significance of books.

None is more chilling?yet more amus

ing?than The Book of Insects (letter paper), laid out open on a table like an early naturalist's

specimen-book. It shocks the viewer by pre

senting nothing more than pages of carefuly ordered 'splats', which could be squashed in

sects and resemble bullet-holes. This thick

volume is the book all totalitarian regimes

keep?each squashed, unimportant life filed in

a ledger of a number-obsessed bureaucrat.

But this open book is a 'closed book', as

closed as the commemorative inscriptions on

the paper memorials. We can compile totals of

the dead but find no real information about the

myriad of unique lives, squelched by the page turners over and over again throughout history.

In a tradition of investigative study of human

perception, Bitzan's art is particularly relevant

to Northern Ireland, where there is so little in

vestigation of how social memory seals the

stuff of experience, and how acts of public commemoration?at cenotaph or altar?play a

huge role in framing individual realities.

Celtic highlights _ _;_NATIONAL MUSEUM

The paten and ladle from the prized Derrynaflan hoard

"YOU WILL NOT hesitate to declare that all these things must have been the result of

the work, not of men, but of angels," wrote Giraldus Cambrensis of Irish art in 1185.

Work of Angels, an exhibition of early Irish metalwork at the National Museum in

Dublin, bore out this claim,She/7a Hamilton writes.

Metalworking was a prestigious craft in early Christian Ireland. Smiths had high social standing, and both secular and ecclesiastical art was highly valued. The

Christian church commissioned fine work and forged links with continental Europe in

its frequent missionary expeditions. Irish house-shaped reliquaries have been identified in Italy. Missions to Northum

bria in the seventh century led to the cross-fertilisation of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon

styles. Germanic influences in animal ornamentation led to the elaboration of Celtic

interlace patterns with beasts, serpents and people. The Vikings looted and disrupted work in many monasteries but, as they settled, brought new artistic influences and

supplies of raw material, particularly silver. The eclecticism of Irish artists is striking:

foreign forms and styles are frequently adapted, and Irish art?carried in trade and as

loot?had a strong influence abroad.

Many famous pieces are on show at the National Museum, notably the recently discovered Derrynaflan chalice. It is displayed with the rest of the hoard, including an

even more spectacular paten (communion plate) with a concave, mirror-like surface

and a deep complex border of filigree and enamel.

There is also Pictish metalwork. It has strong affinities with the Irish work but is dis

tinctive in its heavily-worked silver and the energy of its mysterious stylised beasts.

They may be tribal totems, but so little is known about the Picts it is hard to be sure.

Even the most elaborate and ostentatious pieces exhibited remain engaging

through their quirky observation of nature. Animal and bird forms are squeezed into

every available corner.

The artists themselves are not ignored. You can see their anvils, tongs, awls,

moulds; sticks of glass for making millefiori beads; trial-pieces delicately incised on

bone, antler or slate, the compass marks still showing; and a tiny crucible, dotted with

a speck of gold.

Pixies show

their stature

NIGEL GUY found musical magic in a group from

Boston

LAST MONTH saw one of the best shows of

the year in Belfast, from the Pixies. Following the top-ten success of their third LP, Bossanova,

the Ulster Hall was packed for the Boston

group, who have achieved this success without

abandoning their unique left-field sound.

Their cartoon surrealist vignettes?which seem mostly to be about sex or UFOs?could

only have come from America. Comparisons with films like Repo Man or Wild at Heart seem more appropriate than most musical ref

erence points. The pace of the performance was relent

less: in a show lasting an hour and three

quarters they must have played more than 30

songs. There was no let up, barely a pause for

breath, in a manner reminiscent of the Ra

mones. The quality of the songs took some

thing of a dip in the middle, but the opening and

closing sections were frequently awesome.

It was the coolness of the group's appear ance that sealed it for me. In front of a plain white backdrop and a drummer hidden in the

comer were Joey Santiago, producing some

monumental lead guitar while looking as if he

was on his way to a law lecture at Harvard; the

bulky lead singer, Black Francis, moving ef

fortlessly between tuneful falsetto and the most

frantic screaming I've ever seen on a stage; and

the bassist, Kim Deal, with shades and a fag

hanging from the comer of her mouth. A very

impressive performance. I contrived to miss the opening of Adamski's

set in an unbearably hot Queen's snack bar. I

arrived to find an incredibly enthusiastic crowd,

who could only have been having so much fun

by ignoring the muddy sound quality, the fre

quent mike failures and the appalling dancing of the backing singer. Some of Adamski's in

fectious enthusiasm managed to shine through,

along with an ability to come up with unpreten tious pop music with its heart in the right place.

But, overall, a disappointing experience.

28 NOVEMBER FORTNIGHT

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