Step inside now step inside is a new work presented by Brian Duggan at the Hugh Lane Gallery. It is a site-specific installation for the Golden Bough Room; an oblong-shaped room on the ground floor of the gallery.

A few weeks ago, the night before the show opened, I noticed a poster for it on Camden Street. It was a large, sepia-coloured poster, of a photograph of a man wearing a hat and goggles, driving an old one-seater car (one of those cars with a leather strap around the bonnet), with a tiger sitting on the bonnet. They are speeding around inside one of those Walls of Death (or motordromes) that were prevalent in the 1930s and ’40s in America. The poster itself has an old circus “roll up roll up” style to it.

The poster is aesthetically very different to the aesthetic of the exhibition. Upon entering the Golden Bough Room, one can hear the sound of a motorbike or car whizzing around; there is some conversation going on in the background of this sound piece, but I couldn’t make it out. There are three semi-circular neon light scultpures. Each is wall-mounted and is reflected by a mirror. This reflection completes the circular arrangement of lights. Each arrangemnt resembles a small, glowing wall of death.

On the curved part of the gallery wall there is a large neon sculpture of a motorcyclist. The piece gleams luridly down on you. To the right hand side looms a large, semi-circular timber construction. It is the outside of a wall-of-death. It is a nice closed off counterpoint to the overtness and openness of the semi-circular light sculptures. With a second glance the small light sculptures could also be sparks off this rampaging bike.

I read the small blurb that sits outside the room entrance and the artist simply states that the show is about:

“… risk, and the belief that unfamiliar tactics can circumnavigate it, is a model for understanding the positions we find ourselves in… “

I am not familiar with the artist’s previous work and I don’t think one should be to enjoy a presented piece. However, according to the Hugh Lane website:

“The installation signals a new departure…”

I think the work presented is a graceful self-reference. I think the work is, apart from that, accessible, bold, fun, and strangely moving. It can be approached on a very human level, but it is not without intellectual and artistic rigour. It got me curious, so I attended Duggan’s lecture the Hugh Lane. He spoke about his work in a straightforward way. I was thinking, at that time – and even at the time I viewed the work originally – that for a young artist to have a solo show in one of Ireland’s most prestigious galleries is a very big deal. And for him to produce a work so lacking self importance is impressive. He said, during the half hour lecture, that the neon biker speeding around the room could represent Hugh Lane himself; in that, what he did over a hundred years ago in setting up the then Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, was, in many ways, dangerous and very risky.

The exhibition runs until the September 13 and was curated by Michael Dempsey. -Adrian Duncan