Morag Keil is a simple artist. It’s disconcerting, really. You get so used to conceptual contemporary art tying itself in theoretical knots that to just ‘get it’ for once leaves you feeling like you’re missing something.
But what you see is what you get in this young Scottish artist’s show, helped no end by her self-penned exhibition guide, which is the first honest, no-bullshit, self-effacing and useful thing I’ve read in a gallery for years.
Scattered around the ICA is the detritus of everyday modern life. Keil’s Instagram photos become a path along the floor, bags filled with shoes and cups – all covered in mould – lie on a row of tube seats, a film walks you through an eerily empty department store, a model mock-Tudor house sits on the floor. It’s all so basic, normal, familiar. It’s doing your make-up on the tube, dreaming of buying a house. It’s hopes and ambitions, shopping and privacy.
Even the improvised ‘sex machine’ – a device that makes a rod thrust forwards over and over – might seem a bit over-intense, but it’s really just about, you know, having a wank. A representation of a private moment.
Her everyday thoughts spill out too. A sculpture of a sheep holding a bucket of toy cars comes across as a bit pointless, but it’s just an idea, a late-night brainfart of ‘what if the sheep rose up against human tyranny?’. Stupid, sure, but relatably stupid.
The paintings dotted around the show depict more everyday scenes: messy drawers, home desktop computers. There are old art ideas about reflections and light here, but really it’s just… stuff. Stuff from life, stuff we do and have.
It’s all a bit dwarfed by the space, shy and racked with doubt, and maybe it’s not immediately striking, but it’s almost painfully familiar. Keil’s work is a battle between our public and private selves, between looking at gossip sites and literary journals, between succeeding and failing, between capitalism and independence. It’s not necessarily hugely impressive, but it’s very, very real, and sometimes that’s enough.
