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How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind doesn’t listen.
—Victor Hugo
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Robert Montgomery, Salvage Pradise, 2021, dimensions variables
There is a profoundly strong moment in the works of Robert Montgomery. The artist stages large parts of his work in the public space. This idea of radical publicity perhaps finds its most outspoken expression in his altering of billboard advertising spaces. From December 4 to January 29, the Scottish-born, London-based artist who stands out by bringing a poetic voice to the discourse of text art, presents the vitality and richness of his work at Danysz Gallery - Paris.
Transcending the confines of contemporary cities with messages of hope, his works speak to the post-modern anxiety. They are the closest you will get to soul searching while on the run; “This is the best way we have found to live…,” stays on your mind. In a moment you will have decks, team meetings, an anxiety over someone that should DM you back. Presently you have yourself. As if stemming from a long-forgotten place of contemplation, like a ghostly whisper rooted in ancestral times, the artist’s poems subvert your well-known present.
They are provocative—they call to action. And then they’re suddenly gone. Robert Montgomery’s messages have a function of “poetic subjects.” The French philosopher Guy Debord described the need for the construction of situations and their transformation into a superior passional quality as a “methodical intervention based on the complex factors of two components in perpetual interaction: the material environment of life and the comportments which it gives rise to and which radically transform it.”
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Robert Montgomery, One Day, 2019, 100 x 100cm
Robert Montgomery is interested in how the spectacle in contemporary society affects our heart. Debord describes how the media and capitalism collaborate to overtake our senses with images that sell things and ideas. Montgomery believes that the voice of poetry can be an antidote to the voice of the spectacle. His poems are not intended to distance themselves, but rather to create a dialogue in which we can find ourselves.
“The real point of art,” says the artist, “is to touch the hearts of strangers without all the personal trouble of having to actually meet them.”
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Robert MontgomeryA Hundred Years, 201412 volts LED lights, birch wood, laminated birch wood and copper190 x 137 cm
74 3/4 x 54 inEdition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs -
Robert MontgomeryAnnunciation Painting (Enemies of the Icebergs and the Stars), 2019Ara acrylic and glaze on canvas190 x 120 cm
74 3/4 x 47 1/4 in -
Robert MontgomeryHammersmith Poem/Malevitch Painting (Modernism is A Psychic Wave), 2017Acrylic and oil on canvas101 x 101 cm
39 3/4 x 39 3/4 in -
Robert MontgomeryMantra Painting (Money is A Supersition), 2019Ara acrylic and glaze on canvas150 x 150 cm
59 1/8 x 59 1/8 in
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Robert MontgomerySentinels, 2012Oak, green polymer and 12volt LED lights150 x 340 cm
59 1/2 x 134 inEdition of 5 -
Robert MontgomerySalvage Paradise, 2021Recycled PVC, wood, copper and 12v LED300 x 480 cm
118 1/8 x 189 inEdition of 5 -
Robert MontgomerySodium Vapor Halo Arch, 2016Watercolour56 x 76 cm
22 1/8 x 29 7/8 in -
Robert Montgomery, Monuments, 2013
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Robert Montgomery, Mantra Painting (Money is a Superstition), 2019, 150 x 150cm
Poetic Disruptions
The artist has chosen public installations to create a dialogue with the viewer in a setting that is conventionally imposing and monological. This, however, is not an attempt for a post-Duchampian irony. Montgomery’s aim is to rewaken spirituality that is genuine and tends to engage with society and politics.
Verse after verse of translucent and intuitive poetry, Montgomery invites us to reflect on ways to salvage paradise, rebuilding it from wreckage and going back to a natural sense of peace through an awe-inspiring melancholic yet hopeful lyricism.
“I think melancholy is really interesting, because it is the creation of beauty from sadness… It's only when we begin to destroy the planet that we realize we were living in paradise.”
—Robert Montgomery
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Robert Montgomery, studio (detail)
Pleasure, Pain and Beauty
Montgomery’s poems might seem familiar to the contemporary audience used to fragmented one-sentence messages, i.e. – Twitter (or the "digital realm" as the artist puts it). However, the fragmented nature of his poems is illusional. Robert Montgomery’s messages are carefully composed into a form of subtle intervention. His texts are not reassuring. There is an element of doubt and we find ourselves searching for an answer. For what we take from each of his poems is individual and might be different each time we see the work.
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“Now it’s a phrase applicable to no one,
Lying just where you left it, scattered through
Old lists, old programmes, a school prize or two,
Packets of letters tied with tartan ribbon –
Then is it scentless, weightless, strengthless, wholly
Untruthful? Try whispering it slowly.
No, it means you […]”
—Philip Larkin
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Robert MontgomeryWoodcut Panel (One Day), 2019Pure gold leaf, tarnished gold and gold paint on carved wood100 x 100 cm
39 3/8 x 39 3/8 inEdition of 5 -
Robert MontgomeryThe Sea Has No Name For America, 2018Fire poem performance, Bombay Beach BIennale, California
Giclee on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag
109 x 162 cm
63 3/4 x 42 7/8 inEdition of 5 -
Robert Montgomery, Echoes of Voices
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Robert MontgomeryThe Trees will Riot, 2019Ara acrylic and glaze on canvas150 x 150 cm
59 1/8 x 59 1/8 in
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Robert Montgomery, Whenever You See the Sun, 2011, dimensions variable
For Salvage Paradise, the artist who works in a conceptual post-Situationist tradition, recreates the wealth and complexity of his universe with light installations, paintings, woodcuts, watercolors, photographs of his fire poems (works with fire as a nod to Celtic tradition) and digital works.
"In his work Robert Montgomery proves why and how poetry is of the utmost importance today, maybe more than ever. Poetry helps us link our inner world and dreams, terrors, desires… to the world around us. Poetry is sharing our inner world with the world. This is the magic of Robert Montgomery’s art."
—Barbara Polla, Writer & Art Curator -
Robert Montgomery, The Trees Will Riot, 2019, 150 x 150cm
Robert Montgomery was born in 1972 in Scotland. He was initially inspired by the graffiti artists of East London, the concrete poetry of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin, but also the philosophy of Guy Debord, and the art of James Turrell. He was the British artist selected for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2012, the first biennale in India, and the Yinchaun Biennale in 2016. He has had made public installations across Europe including major outdoor light installations on the site of the old US Air Force base at Tempelhof in Berlin. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas and the Albright Knox in New York. He has had solo museum projects at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, Oklahoma Contemporary in Oklahoma City, and the Cer Modern Museum in Ankara. He has worked with low consumption LED lighting and solar power since 2010 and he was one of the official artists for ArtCOP21 in Paris in 2015. His work is hugely popular on the internet, the piece “The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You” has been shared online more than 20 million times.
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Watch Robert Montgomery's fire poems
Credits: Barbara Polla & the artist -
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