The installation Six Virgins and a Bear was
unceremoniously ejected soon after being installed at the Fernhill
Gardens Sculpture
in Context Exhibition of 1992.
Although I submitted sketches and clearly indicated my intentions, once
I had made and constructed the installation, the curator immediately
had the gardener dismantle it.
I was summoned, and, without further explanation, told to remove the
offensive figures immediately from the garage where they
had been
hastily stacked.
Furthermore, I was requested not
to attend the opening later that evening.
I realised right then, that I had made a work about impotence.
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The work was subsequently re-installed at a Gutter
Gallery show in Browne's Medical Supplies on Dawson Street, although
it was just not the same in a non-pastoral setting.
Later,
the unhappy band of figures ended up at a
group
show in Pleasants Factory, off Camden Street.
Stuck for space, I eventually donated the badly shellacked Virgin Mary
figurines to Orders of various local religious institutions, indicating
that they should be kept outdoors.
The bear figure found a happy retirement home in my back garden where
it enjoyed the company of my children for many seasons before finally,
it decomposed, and there remained only a mangled, plaster-flaked, chickenwire
skeleton.
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