Rodney Dickson, The Most Noble of Causes
Suzie Walshe
"Pure and simple: it was a noble cause" is what Ronald Reagan said of the Americans’ presence in the Vietnam War. Rodney Dickson’s new show at the Engine Room Gallery in Northern Ireland is all about the aftermath of this "noble cause."
With work that often deals with issues of conflict and political tension, the fact the show is set in East Belfast–an area that still carries political strain and evidence of a violent culture–could be of a distinct relevance.
Dickson was born in Northern Ireland and as a teenager during the 70s–the most violent period in the troubled country’s history–he realised the futility and horror of war. Ten years later, when he first visited Vietnam, he felt empathy for the suffering and loss of the Vietnamese people. This developed into an enduring relationship, perhaps even a subconscious effort to understand his own past. His work gives an honest commentary on this experience.
Walking into the Queen Bee installation you are faced with an authentic Vietnamese bar. The Queen Bee Bar and Tea Room is the type of bar US soldiers frequented during the war to pick-up Vietnamese women. Set in 1970s-Saigon, the installation, lit only by flickering neon beer signs, fairy lights and burnt-out candles, comes complete with Vietnamese merchandise. Once a week, the installation is used as an actual bar where four beautiful Vietnamese hostesses, flown in for the performance, serve bottles of American beer and Vietnamese vodka while an all-girl Japanese punk band (High Teen Boogie) blast out songs that leave the very walls of the gallery vibrating for days.
After each performance, the Queen Bee is left with neon lights still buzzing, smashed glasses and half-empty beer bottles everywhere. Both the paintwork and the suggestive posters peel off the walls and beer-soaked cigarette butts are piled high in ashtrays. The room both smells and tastes strongly of the morning-after.
As you walk through the bar, you can see the way the audience has participated in creating the work itself; the whole room is filled with evidence of their presence despite the fact they have long since departed. The focus is on the desertion and abandonment of a place, and the atmosphere left behind.
Rodney’s idea originated from a story he was told by his close friend Miss Mai who, along with her family, had to seek refuge in an abandoned Snake bar (much like the one in the exhibition) during the war. This piece, like a great deal of Rodney’s work, seems to be more influenced by people, their personal history and experience, than the work of other artists.
In the next room, a series of paintings titled "Close to Paradise" are the product of Dickson’s collaboration with Vietnamese writers and artists during his time there, and is closely linked to his own personal concern towards the futility of war and the remembrance of those lost. By using Vietnamese water-based paint and Japanese lacquer on bamboo blinds, the works integrate traditional Vietnamese methods with a modern application. The paintings feature isolated portraits and poignant Vietnamese text scrawled onto rice paper.
The paintings are almost more of an installation–each one tells a different story. They speak of love, loss and the possibility of future happiness, and seem to be silently having a conversation all their own, exchanging both their stories of devastation and shared hope of reconciliation. You get the feeling that this conversation began a long time ago, and will continue long after you leave the gallery.
The aesthetic orientation of all of the work seems to be closely linked with a need to be socially observant and engaging, and it succeeds in being both engaging and interactive with the viewer and its surroundings.
For instance, the juxtaposition of the "Art of War" drawings with the location of the gallery; such images of war and propaganda litter the streets of Belfast. By bringing this type of imagery into the gallery space, he is changing the way we look at them and, more importantly, the way people in Belfast (where such images are often celebrated and have become a part of everyday life) view them. He is questioning their purpose and function, therefore changing the way we think about them. It underlines the hypocrisy of war and shows how it is frequently glamorized–a fact we often fail to notice.
If the Vietnam War and its after-effects were indeed "noble," is the current war in Iraq also "noble?" War may be the theme of this exhibition, but the message behind the work is anti-war. All we really need to decide now is whether we, the audience, are listening to this message.
