The Company I Keep - Esther

Sometimes… I need the company of art.

So said my pre-teen (& beyond) hero Adam Ant. Like many of Adam’s utterances in interview & song, the concept was beyond my understanding back then. It took me a long time & a specific context to understand this one at all. I didn’t think about the lyric very much until the last few years, when I was forced to part with the company of art in my hometown.

Aberdeen, Scotland is grubby magnificence. The majority of buildings with any age to them are made of granite. People from other towns, unable to deal with all those shades of grey, often think it “dull.” But it’s solid. Stoic. Once pneumatic tools were developed, it turned out there was a lot you could do with a lump of rock, no matter how hard it was. The result is a city full of staggering detail: domes, spires, pillars, statues & fancy gable ends.

Not least within this grandeur rests our Art Gallery (founded in 1884), a peculiar specimen in pink granite. It is attached to Aberdeen City War Memorial, a pillared granite scoop cradling my most-adored statue, a lion, proud & scowling & an almost miraculous piece of work.

My beloved lion

There is more grandeur within the Gallery itself, albeit on a more sedate scale: a central hall (once a sculpture court) has more granite, more pillars, a Wonderland checkerboard floor & a surrounding mezzanine. It was always an odd space, a place to wander & discover & be inspired. We have some Stanley Spencers, a particularly creepy Ken Currie, Alison Watt, Paul Nash & Francis Bacon. We have a fine collection of Scottish Colourists & Post-Impressionists as well as the mostly-tedious Applied Arts & Crafts.

Pink Kemnay granite exterior

The layout was haphazard, perhaps identifiable as “Old Stuff” & “Newer Stuff,” with an often-unmemorable “Temporary Exhibition.” The last Memorable Temporary Exhibition was in 2014 by knitting designer Kaffe Fassett, a show I attended many times & a fantasy in yarn. The only drawback of the Kaffe Fassett show was it took place in what passes for high summer in NE Scotland. Viewers therefore found themselves on the point of collapse from heat stroke since they were surrounded by walls & floors festooned with knitwear.

Then suddenly there was no opportunity for another Memorable Temporary Exhibition. Our Art Gallery closed in 2015. The company of art was withdrawn.

View from the Gallery 

I viewed the planned major renovations with a deep suspicion. I was unhappy to hear about the removal of the marble staircase & fountain & was appalled by what looked from street level like a shipping container dumped permanently on top of the building. The renovations would modernise the Gallery, they said. More work would be displayed, they said. It would be “better,” they said. Well I wasn’t taking their word for it. Whenever I passed the building in its scaffolding prison I would curse, literally shake my fist & warn the local councillors of the dire consequences to befall them should they ruin it. Of course the rage merely masked the feeling of loss of one of my most beloved places & the best of company.

The (extended) deadline for opening approached. I was nervous.

***

As I advance there’s a fluttering in my stomach. My mind goes blank trying to recall what it was like before. The outside accessibility is better, a wider, longer ramp dominating the entrance. I push my way through the glass doors. A stylish logo is scratched onto the glass. The Gallery barely had a brand before but the logo works. Unsuccessfully blinking back tears on entering the familiar central court, I look up to the new skylight at the light pouring in. I find myself almost tiptoeing round the ground floor rooms (those pesky Applied Arts again) before heading up the first new & enormous staircase.

Three floors, one photo

The works we didn’t know we had & paintings that had been tucked away or badly hung in the past are finally displayed to properly appreciate them. Gwen John, Bridget Riley, Muirhead Bone. Staggering treasures that have led us to the time & place we are now.

But the real surprise is that shipping container on the top. A second floor has been added & the shipping container is in fact made in part of slatted windows providing us with cityscapes never before seen. Outdoor viewing balconies afford us new sights & perspectives of our city. I look down at the pavement where I used to shake my fist & rant. I smile. Not only is there still free admission, they haven’t ruined it after all. 

"Shipping container" windows

Across the world, our relationship with the objects we love in public spaces & the places that house them is a wonder in itself…we acknowledge their creation, the owning, the past loving, the holding by hands before ours, the feet that trod here. These objects, like old friends drifting in & out of our lives, perhaps meaning something different from one visit to the next, become more special, more cherished as time goes on.

As we walk along the walls we are seen by a thousand painted eyes looking out from their gilt frames, eyes that meet our gaze & hold it.

& they welcome us back into their company, as if they expected our presence sooner. They look down on us & follow our path, knowing we’ll meet again.

The Gallery dome & in the distance domes of the Library & Theatre from the viewing platform

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