Matt Mullican's installation

Visiting the current exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, For The Blind Man In The Dark Room Looking For The Black Cat That Isn’t There, I am looking forward to seeing what lies behind such an ambiguous title.

The lower gallery is home to an installation by Matt Mullican, comprised of a vast collection of works including sketches, prints, flags and photographs. I make a start, attempting to find connections between the individual pieces, in order to understand the work and gain some kind of meaning from it. But, it seems, there is no pattern. This is not working. “You fool!” I hear the gallery assistant’s raised eyebrows taunt.

After much perturbed head scratching, I retreat to pick up an information booklet and am guiltily spoon-fed the curatorial intentions of the show. The premise, it tells me, is that “art is not a code that needs cracking”. Rather, the point is that there is no point. I should explore the exhibition in a continuous state of not knowing, learning to enjoy the nothingness along the way. Great! Suspend analytical thought! Envelop me in ignorance! Repeating my new mantras I embark upon the rest of the exhibition.

The work, I soon find out via several video pieces and some shiny objects on a plinth, is in general inaccessible and ambiguous. The exhibition as a whole is underwhelming but for a few diverting moments of humour and wit. Nestled mid-stairwell is an audio piece by Belgian surrealist artist Marcel Broodthaers, entitled Interview with a Cat, 1970. As the title suggests, the piece is a recorded discussion between the artist and his cat on the subject of modern art:

Artist: Is this one a good painting? …Does it correspond to what you would expect from the most recent transformation, which leads away from Conceptual Art to this new version of a certain kind of figuration, as one would say?

Cat: Miaow

The theory is that the state of “not-knowing” can be more rewarding than the actuality of arriving at an understanding of what it is that you are looking at. Unfortunately, the reality of the exhibition succeeds in proving just the opposite. The most frustrating thing is that the work just doesn’t quite come up to the mark. In effect, the role of the viewer is made redundant. Kept “in the dark”, the viewing experience is an empty one as we cannot get beneath the superficial surface of the work.

In truth, the exhibition would not work at all without the accompanying booklet to inform you that this is supposed to be an enjoyable, rather than frustrating or daunting, experience. And even then, it seems to miss the point that while “confusion has always been at the heart of wisdom”, if we know from the outset that there is nothing to understand, then we cannot be in a state of “not-knowing” and the whole exercise is a bit of a dud.

I leave with much to contemplate. The show has offered some interesting ideas (at the expense, it seems, of interesting art). From a rather thin premise for an exhibition some substantial questions arise about the value of a work of art. At the turn of a new decade the show reflects a new beginning, proposing new ways of viewing and enjoying modern art.

For The Blind Man In The Dark Room Looking For The Black Cat That Isn’t There runs until January 31st.

www.ica.org.uk