Kate MacGarry is delighted to announce the second exhibition of works by Rose Finn-Kelcey (1945-2014) at the gallery. Finn-Kelcey first came to prominence in the early 1970s as an artist central to the emerging communities of performance and feminist art in the UK. Following on from her first exhibition with the gallery in 2020 and a solo presentation at Frieze Masters in 2023, this show focuses on three performance works: Suit of lights (1986-1990), Bull’s eye (1985), and One for sorrow, two for joy (1976).

Bull’s eye (1985), performed as part of The british show in Sydney, presents the artist as matador, bull and croupier. It focuses on the cliched and cultural figure of the matador, gambling with both life and money. “Over many months Finn-Kelcey insinuated herself into the lore and costume of the bullfighter and the flamenco dancer, a role which appealed to her liking for perfect control and grooming, for a male/female ambiguity, for the glittering Suit of lights, and for the ritual which engenders its own sense of perfection, and, unwittingly of the absurd. With a ring through her nose, she became the bull too, attacker and attacked at once.” (Guy Brett, 2013).

Suit of lights (1986-1990), a performance for video titled after traje de luces, is named after the traditional clothing which bullfighters wore in the bullring, based on the flamboyant costumes of 18th century dandies and showmen who ‘dressed to kill’. A long utilitarian red cape was used to entice the bull to charge. Although the Spanish tradition of bullfighting is today controversial, Finn-Kelcey both pays homage to and critiques the bullfight and its brutal imbalance of power whilst engaging in the lore and power of the glistening, ornate costume.

One for sorrow, two for joy (1976) was presented over two days and nights in the window of Acme Gallery in Covent Garden. It features the artist alongside a pair of magpies, which she called her ‘alter egos’. Finn-Kelcey interacts with the birds as female ‘species’ on display, with their calls broadcast to passing onlookers. The performance was a direct response to Joseph Beuys’ habitation with a coyote, I like America and America likes me (1974). It also signaled her early interest in making transitory and ephemeral work, and the search for her role as a female artist in a male-dominated art world.