Magical exhibition at the VG&M closes

Do you believe in other worlds?

Peter Fekete praises the work of the Victoria Gallery & Museum, The University of Liverpool in mounting a beautiful exhibition, Andrew Fekete: Out of Time, that went a huge way to capturing the magical essence of his brother's work.  "Much of the real success of the exhibition," says Peter Fekete, "was down to the sensitive presentation of the exhibits."  Matt McCall, the author of the captions, chose to bring out the spiritual dimension of the work, quoting from the Diaries of Andrew Fekete for his selected  theme. 

In mounting the exhibition, Matt also expressed his excitement when seeing the works for the first time:

"I finally got to see the artworks in the flesh so to speak a few days ago. It was a surreal moment seeing those images transplanted from screen to page. I got really rather excited over a few of them - spotting faces and heads in Totem of the Ancestors was brilliant."

Detail from Totem of the Ancestors

Originally due to end in April 2017, the exhibition was extended by the Victoria Gallery & Museum to July 2017.

On extending the exhibition, Paul Gallagher, the Director of the VG&M, explained, "I am delighted and honoured to have played even just a very small part in the delivery and continued appreciation of Out Of Time."

"The environment, the intelligence and the sensitivity in which the works were approached means that we've got an exhibition that really has it all." Liz Fekete, speaking on the Video produced for the VG&M.

At the Private View

Detail from St. Catherine’s Church, Valetta, Aragon

At the Private View, the work of Andrew Fekete was introduced by Prof. Doug Clelland, Emeritus Professor of Architecture of John Moore's University, Liverpool.  

Doug first got to know Andrew Fekete, when he was a lecturer at the Central Polytechnic.  "I have taught over 10,000 students in my time," he said, "but with no other student did I have such a friendship."   Prior to Andrew's tragic early death in 1986 from an Aids related illness, he and Doug used to go on long walks together around London, studying the architecture of the city,  walks that Doug in his speech acknowledged to have been a profound experience.

Impressive

Peter Corbett, an international award winning artist and poet, speaking on video after the Private View of the Exhibition, said:

"The work itself is very detailed in terms of a kind of imaginative space, which has created a world apart from the physical, which is quite hard to do actually.  That psychospace is actually really, really powerful.  To produce work of that quality before the age of thirty-two - usually an artist matures over many years - to produce that kind of quality of work at that age is quite impressive."

The Quest for Gold

An anthology of Andrew's writings, The Quest for Gold, has been published by the Liverpool University Press.  Collated by his brother Peter, the book comprises key works from Andrew Fekete’s opus and diaries, and deals with his development as an artist, his visions and his experiment in Jungian alchemy – the intentional creation of visionary experiences to manifest unconscious archetypes to consciousness.

Detail from one of the Diaries - Drawing entitled, "The Fourth Face belongs to the Devil."

Some of the fifty plus diaries were also on display in the exhibition.  Matt McCall expresses his feelings about them:

"The diaries. What beautiful things they are. Truly excellent. I found a number of sketches from 70s Liverpool that brought back memories of my own childhood, albeit a few years later. They really are remarkable artefacts and records of a time now lost forever. Thank you for letting me see them."

Thanks...

Peter Fekete expresses his thanks to the staff of the VG&M, not only to former director, Matthew Clough, whose idea the exhibition originally was, to Paul Gallagher, former director of the VG&M and to Matt McCall, who curated the Exhibition.

"At the end of the day, he was one hell of a classy guy and he had a lot of style and this exhibition is him. He would have enjoyed the class of this." Liz Fekete