Brian Teeling has been busy. The multidisciplinary Dublin artist, who began with photography and has expanded to sculpture, installations, publishing and more, is currently part of the exhibition Skin/Deep: Perspectives on the Body, at Photo Museum Ireland. Another exhibition of his, Blunt, Pain at the Receptor, recently showed at Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford.
For Skin/Deep he has created another iteration of his series Wet Dream, first exhibited at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2019, of which there are multiple parts, including a publication. Because the series is generally “really dark, introspective, sexual”, for this interpretation, Teeling has counterbalanced that by “thinking about the humour in Balenciaga’s Trompe l’Oeil” fashion designs.
As the work has evolved, so has his approach to the spaces it’s shown in. “For me, any time I get into an exhibition space it’s, like, now we have this opportunity to do something, let’s do something different,” Teeling says. “I’m thinking less about the obvious photography thing, because I’ve got ideas coming out the wazoo. It’s an installation akin to what I did in the Dean Art Studios, which was a toilet installation. I’ve created a bedroom, but there’s no bed there. The room is blacked out; there’s a rug [printed] with a photograph of the bedroom floor, and a curtain that’s a photograph of the curtains.”
At the Dean studios in Dublin – now Flux – Teeling’s installation in the men’s toilets, titled C-space, was lit with red lights and featured reflective surfaces. Another book, In the Glow of a Frozen Frame, in collaboration with the art writer Jennie Taylor, focused on the Crawford Art Gallery’s building and surroundings. The Drift///Parallax, designed by Keith Nally, was a triptych publication exploring “the presence of absence” in portraiture.
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This presence of absence and absence of presence comes up a lot in Teeling’s work, which can be muscular and atmospheric, intimate and haunting, sometimes all at the same time. His 2021 portrait of Declan Flynn, who was killed in a homophobic attack in Fairview Park in Dublin in 1982 – a tragedy felt most acutely by his family, but also by the LGBTQ+ community in Dublin – represented him as memory, an empty bench in the park.
Teeling is “scouring the HIV Ireland archive” for an exhibition he’s curating next May in what was the Science Gallery space at Trinity College Dublin. “It features over 20 LGBTQ+ artists, selected from an open call and an invitational … The exhibition is focused on the community and HIV and Aids. When HIV and Aids came around, a lot of the language was quite biblical: shame, plague, apocalypse, judgment.
“I got kind of obsessed with [the Italian artist and intellectual] Pasolini and Coil – weird band, love them. They have this song, Ostia (The Death of Pasolini). In the lyrics there’s ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’.”
That became the exhibition title. “It’s a reference to the biblical references of Tate & Lyle,” Teeling says. “They put a reference to Samson’s riddle on the golden-syrup can, a dead lion with bees coming out from the carcass. They recently redesigned it into blandness. So I was just thinking about that strength, the people who came before us, the lasting legacy of that. There is a sweetness to it, a real beauty to it. It came from this strength of community.”
A copy of his replica of the Irish Princess T-shirt made famous by Sinéad O’Connor recently popped up in the latest series of Bad Sisters, Sharon Horgan’s Apple TV+ drama. “Every time I see someone wearing one of my T-shirts, even one of the old ones, it makes me happy seeing them on people’s backs,” he says. “I’ve always wanted my work to be really accessible. Obviously, I love when an institution or a collector buys a work – great. But I love the little mementos, memorials, the T-shirts that feature archival graphics. I want them to be a celebration of the past in a non-nostalgic way.”
Teeling currently has three T-shirts on sale to raise money for Medical Aid for Palestinians. “I just thought I’d do something positive. It’s Christmas; it’s hyper-capitalist; people need presents. I may as well raise some cash for Palestine.”
Asking what Teeling is interested in or looking forward to becomes a quick-fire round. “My Bloody Valentine, hello?” he begins, referring to the recently announced gig at 3Arena in Dublin next year, “and Leagues and Dave from Foggy Notions for doing that”, he says referring to its organisers.
Teeling keeps going. “I have such a high regard for James Merrigan. He’s one of the most interesting art critics on the island and is genuinely brilliant.” Merrigan writes at fireartsale.org.
“Rúben Amorim, Manchester United’s new manager, I hope he does well – best of luck to him.
“CP Company [the fashion brand], I want to be head-to-toe looking like a sentimental but also violent hooligan.
“Turmeric chai tea with oat milk: that tastes good.
“Apprehensions at Imma: that’s going to be a really, really important show – Hamad Butt’s work is beautifully poetic. I bought a rare copy of his book Familiars, so I’m very pleased with that.
“ML Buch at the Workman’s on December 1st: that’s going to be one of the gigs of the year. Do not miss that.
“I’m looking forward to seeing [the Luca Guadagnino film] Queer.
“I’ve been listening to a lot of Scott Walker. I like singing Scott Walker in the shower.
“That’s about it, I think.”
We speak a few days before the general election, an event that has also been playing on Teeling’s mind.
“It frustrates for me that we’re hearing virtually nothing about the arts during the election campaign. And we trade so heavily on it. If I hear ‘green wave’ one more time I’m going to do a green wave of puke on someone’s head. Get to it. Arts Council funding should be doubled. No ifs or buts. Why aren’t we doubling funding? Put the money into the arts and you’ll see how far it goes.”
Skin/Deep: Perspectives on the Body is at Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin, until February 9th; Brian Teeling’s T-shirts are for sale at mscltr.bigcartel.com
