Life and art: no imitation, no limitation
Ted Gooda reflects on her experiences of Horsham’s current Shelley-related exhibitions.
Shelley at Horsham Museum
In this 200th anniversary year since the death of Horsham’s famous poet, the town is doing much to celebrate Shelley’s life. Two important exhibitions are running simultaneously right now: a historical display at the museum, and a pop-up art gallery curated by artists taking inspiration from aspects of Shelley’s philosophical beliefs. With a few hours to spare in Horsham this week, I decided to take advantage of both.
The museum has a number of documents, books, images and artefacts on display pertaining to the poet’s experiences, and of his family history in the area. What it emphasises is the tragedy and the brevity of Shelley’s life. It is a catalogue of love and loss.
But what also comes through very strongly is Shelley’s bravery: bravery in thought. His name is synonymous with the idea of ‘radical’, and for good reasons: his anti-establishment stance; the rejection of the comfort and security of his family’s wealth and heritage; his unconventional relationships; his vegetarianism centuries before it became a serious ethical choice; and his deeply uncomfortable (for the time) insistence on the necessity of atheism.
‘Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty’, the title of the exhibition in Unit 45 of Swan Walk, presents a challenge in its title that is followed up in this visitor’s experience of the gallery. One installation, for example, invites viewers to hang a balloon in response to the question, ‘what are you crying for?’
Curated by Dr Mikey Georgeson, the exhibition celebrates the ‘far-reaching radical legacy’ of the poetry of Shelley. The title line is taken from Shelley’s poem Ozymandias and explores the power of creative acts in relation to the short-term hubris of tactics for power.
The artworks are gathered together under the umbrella of how we transverse the universe, inspired by Shelley’s philosophical consideration of the complexity of being separate from and part of the cosmos simultaneously. To what extent are we really part of the world’s whole? How does one navigate the spiritual and material world? And how does this intersect with something Shelley himself never experienced: a digital identity? Visitors are invited to consider their relational connection with the landscape, and with each other. This broad theme is interpreted in different ways by the exhibiting artists, but all invite us to see the world afresh. Mikey Georgeson’s works are irreverent, raw, playful and provocative, sometimes personifying colour and paint. Mary Grant’s work is dominated by intense skies and their light-filled possibility. Colleen Conti presents dynamic, energy-filled landscapes. The work of Mike Georgeson, (my old art-teacher, incidentally, of whom I have nothing but fond memories) suggests further different ways of seeing.
What unites both the historical and artistic exhibitions is their sense of passion and intensity, of grabbing hold of life itself and being unafraid to confront the big questions it poses.
Why not pop in while you are shopping this month?
While I was there, one of the artists encouraged some young adults into the gallery to demonstrate the wonders of vinyl playing on a record-player. The youths seems astonished by this archaic technology, but also fascinated by its tactile physicality.
Now, I wonder what Percy Bysshe Shelley would have made of that.?