Rosie Reed

For our fifth (almost) monthly post introducing our trustees and asking them to delve into our archive, we meet Rosie Reed:

Please introduce yourself, why are you a trustee at Matt’s Gallery?

I run a programme of exhibitions and dinners titled The Amber Room. In 2023, I approached Robin and Tim to ask if I could organise an event in their Etc. space. This led to many conversations and an eventual collaboration across Etc. and the foyer. We set up a temporary kitchen in the back office and created a dining room installation which hosted aseries of dinners seating 22 people each evening. Thirty-four artists made every component from the glassware and napkins to the cutlery, plates, centrepieces and surrounding artworks. I loved working with Robin and Tim, so I was delighted when Robin called me afterwards and asked me to join the board. Being a trustee at Matt's Gallery means a great deal to me, as I have followed and been inspired by their exhibitions and artist roster since I was astudent. I am learning a lot, and I hope that as part of their board I can help to continue thegallery's brilliant programme and important legacy.

What have you chosen from the archive and why?

Brian Catling (1948-2022) was an artist whose practice encompassed sculpture, painting, performance, video and poetry, he was the acclaimed author of 'The Vorrh Trilogy' and he was a teacher. Brian opened his first show, 'Lair', at Matt’s Gallery on Monday 14th of September in 1987 at 10 Martello Street. The invite flyer was on top of the first ‘Brian Catling’ archive box that I opened.

Brian was head of The Ruskin when I studied there, from 2010 to 2013. As I leafed through the archive of his long and impressive career, pulling out postcards, invites, letters, catalogue transcripts and photographs, Robin asked me what kind of teacher Brian had been. He was an inspiring teacher, I thought. The essence and influence of Brian Catling has always stayed with me. My mind flickered to the first time I met Brian — his deep cackle at a video I’d made in my application portfolio, whilst he watched it in my interview. Then to the image of him in a blue pinstripe suit, a cigar in his mouth, talking us through beginners anatomy in our first week. I said to Robin that I thought he was a very present teacher. He was a very present artist too, said Robin.

I was thinking about Brian’s presence as I pulled out his book ‘Soundings: A Tractate of Absence’, published by Matt’s Gallery in 1991. In it he writes of a series of works ‘They have been transient and time specific, directing their energy and deriving their form from the atmosphere of place and individual physical properties. The memory of the viewer is the museum of curation, most of the work being un-movable and un-ownerable, umbilically soldered by intention to place... Most of the work resists the drama of a single image.’

In an era of over saturation and scrolling, art is so often quickly consumed as a flattened image on a screen, and I found myself feeling moved by the printed photographs of Brian’s durational performances 'At the Lighthouse', 1991 and 'Were', 1998. I particularly enjoyed leafing through what Robin called his “family snaps”, which showed people arriving by minibus from Mile End station at dusk to view 'Were', the performance continued until midnight; personal takes of a bulb-lit, floor-based sculpture in a cloud of smoke, Brian lying on his back with a blue object in one hand and a cigar in his mouth; a crumpled figure made of clothes stuffed with paper slumped face first into a white armchair; and the drinks had afterwards. This patchwork of images built an intimate picture of these exhibitions — you had to be there. I love that to be in the presence of Brian was the only way to experience so much of his practice. The legacy of this work is in its feeling.

After a morning spent discovering Brian Catling’s archive I felt strongly reminded of why I think art is important. It isn’t for the one appealing image on a screen, it is for the physical connections to people and place, the visceral responses it evokes, the moments and memories it conjures and the real relationships it creates. At Brian’s memorial at Swedenborg House, it was suggested that everyone (250 plus of us) howled like a pack of wolves in his memory because he didn’t suit a silence, and to me that felt like his last performance, one that I will never forget.

Images:

1 Rosie Reed and Robin Klassnik in the Matt's Gallery Archive, photographed by Tim Dixon

2 Catling materials in the archive, rephotographed by Dixon

3 Catling materials in the archive, rephotographed by Rosie Reed

4 Documentation of Brian Catling, 'At The Lighthouse' 1991, and top left, 'Were' 1998,rephotographed by Reed

5 'Luna Prayer' 1989, rephotographed by Reed

6 Top: 'Were', bottom: Klassnik with fly posters on the Regents Canal, rephotographed by Reed

7 A minibus brings visitors from Mile End tube station to the gallery and back via Eric Street to see 'Were', every half hour from dusk to midnight, photographed by Klassnik.

8 BTS, 'Were', Catling photographed by Klassnik

9 'Were', photographed by Klassnik

10 Catling, 'Portrait of Robin Klassnik' 2014 (postcard), rephotographed by Reed

11 The 'Catling' box in our archive, photographed by Dixon