Rose Finn-Kelcey review – flying puns, smart pranks and prayers for 20p

Arts Collective, Northampton An overdue celebration in her home town of this funny, direct, critical, satirical conceptualist shows her spiky social commentary is as fresh and relevant as ever Rose Finn-Kelcey wanted to make art that was neither pompous nor condescending. Those are pretty rare ideals in conceptualism, where pomposity and condescension come with the territory, but Finn-Kelcey was a pretty rare artist. This show in Northampton’s brand new £5m art centre – a very colourful retrofit of the historic municipal offices and town hall annexe, filled with artist studios – is a homecoming. Finn-Kelcey was born here in 1945 and grew up on a nearby farm, but spent the 1970s onwards causing a big old feminist ruckus with all sorts of art pranks, installations, performances, videos and photography in London before her death from motor neurone disease in 2014. Continue reading...

Review Arts Collective, Northampton An overdue celebration in her home town of this funny, direct, critical, satirical conceptualist shows her spiky social commentary is as fresh and relevant as ever R ose Finn-Kelcey wanted to make art that was neither pompous nor condescending. Those are pretty rare ideals in conceptualism, where pomposity and condescension come with the territory, but Finn-Kelcey was a pretty rare artist. This show in Northampton’s brand new £5m art centre – a very colourful retrofit of the historic municipal offices and town hall annexe, filled with artist studios – is a homecoming. Finn-Kelcey was born here in 1945 and grew up on a nearby farm, but spent the 1970s onwards causing a big old feminist ruckus with all sorts of art pranks, installations, performances, videos and photography in London before her death from motor neurone disease in 2014 . Her approach to conceptual art is summed up neatly and perfectly by Power for the People, a 1972 work that saw her hoist two huge flags up on Battersea power station, back when it was still a power station, keeping London lit and heavily polluted with coal.

The flags, emblazoned with huge stark sans serif letters, are punny, silly, smart. That’s Finn-Kelcey: talking about collectivity, togetherness, societal thinking, all while exposing the way those things are policed and restricted by people in power. The work is documented here in a big photo, the flags flapping in the wind, the power station belching fumes into the London sky. Another photo shows an installation of swinging saloon bar doors installed in a Texas park. Like any feminist punk icon, Finn-Kelcey saw society’s restrictions as expressions of power and repression, and she wasn’t going to let them go unchallenged.

Her other big topic was spirituality. Neither work is all that great, both a bit ugly, a bit obtuse. Way better, and the best work in the show, is It Pays to Pray, a fully functional prayer vending machine. Finn-Kelcey was a funny, direct, critical, satirical, intelligible artist who cared deeply about people, spirituality and power. Explore more on these topics Share Reuse this content Arts Collective, Northampton An overdue celebration in her home town of this funny, direct, critical, satirical conceptualist shows her spiky social commentary is as fresh and relevant as ever Rose Finn-Kelcey wanted to make art that was neither pompous nor condescending.

Those are pretty rare ideals in conceptualism, where pomposity and condescension come with the territory, but Finn-Kelcey was a pretty rare artist. This show in Northampton’s brand new £5m art centre – a very colourful retrofit of the historic municipal offices and town hall annexe, filled with artist studios – is a homecoming. Finn-Kelcey was born here in 1945 and grew up on a nearby farm, but spent the 1970s onwards causing a big old feminist ruckus with all sorts of art pranks, installations, performances, videos and photography in London before her death from motor neurone disease in 2014. Continue reading... Rose Finn-Kelcey review – flying puns, smart pranks and prayers for 20p