A Fast Moving Car
Iain Irving : Projects, Greenwards, Aberdeenshire, November/December 1997
Claire Barclay, Dalziel + Scullion, Jane Fawns Watt, Sandy Grant, Steve Hollingsworth, Angus Hood, Rowan Mace, Eva Rothschild, Jane Strachan and Toby Webster.
A Fast Moving Car related to that moment, particularly when driving when you are looking at something but are thinking about something else.
When you are a child you play with toy cars and imagine that you’re driving. You might travel around the world if you wanted to, all the way to the North Pole before lunchtime, then a quick trip across America and maybe around the Moon by tea. Children are good at seeing other things. When you’re an adult you drive real cars and still imagine you’re somewhere else. Speeding at over seventy you can cover a lot of ground: re-running that film you saw last Friday, remembering that holiday, writing that essay, digging the garden, decorating the bathroom, rehearsing that apology, planning the future, putting together your next exhibition, or just thinking. Adults are also good at seeing other things. A Fast Moving Car was thought of somewhere between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and my house. I started thinking about art: imagining works I had seen, and works that I’d like to see; imagining what they make me think of. Douglas Coupland once said, driving is like enforced meditation, and I suppose it is. It gives you time to think and contemplate. Driving lets your mind wander. I guess art does that too. Then suddenly, you’re moving lanes, overtaking trucks, and negotiating roundabouts. Driving needs concentration. And I suppose art is like that as well. A Fast Moving Car is a show about other things – the things you can’t see, although you can if you put your mind to it. The artists have made paintings, photographs, neon sculpture, sound pieces and outdoor installations. These are things you might normally see at an art show. You bring the other things.
Iain Irving, Text from, ‘A Fast Moving Car’ press release, November 1997.
