Robert Barry: Words and Music @ The Common Guild

It’s perhaps no coincidence that The Common Guild, housed in a building owned by Douglas Gordon, has decided to exhibit Robert Barry, one of Gordon’s biggest influences. Barry’s use of text and minimal gestures has had a profound effect on a whole generation of artists that includes Martin Creed and Ian Hamilton Finlay, as well as the aforementioned Gordon.

In this, a new work made specifically for The Common Guild, Barry has made what he calls a ‘word space’ in direct response to the gallery, plastering the walls, floor, ceiling and windows with words that relate to their surroundings. An uppercase, sans serif font in silver foil, the text strikingly resonates with the cool domesticity of the gallery, a grand tenement building in Glasgow’s wealthy Park Circus. The play of light and colour reflecting off the lettering slightly disorientates, at times giving a false sense of depth and transparency.

Formally, there is a delicate dialogue between the gallery and the work, with the two intermingling in a play of mutual reflection. Nonetheless, the words chosen give the exhibition a slightly twee flavour. MEANING, ENCOUNTER, DESPAIR, BEYOND are just a few of the words used, each seeming to allude to a depth of meaning and profundity while simultaneously remaining completely anodyne.

Included is a new video work in which Barry has filmed the American artist William Anastasi playing the piano – badly. The image of the seated pianist is obscured by similarly insipid words in the same font as those on the gallery’s surface. The image is poorly framed and the monitor chosen by Barry creates a homely feel that runs counter to that of the installation.

There is something strikingly dated about the earnestness of Barry’s work that might leave the younger, more cynical viewers blushing. Under the aloof, minimal façade lies a true belief in the power of words.