IS NO

Drawing exhibition and performance/installation at Arnolfini Gallery.

22 October – 27 November 1988

---

This exhibition was formed of a series of MacLennan’s drawings – titled The On – alongside a 34 hour performance/installation that took place over the opening weekend. In line with the exhibition, Arnolfini published a catalogue of MacLennan’s works from 1975 onwards, Alastair MacLennan: IS NO, edited by their Exhibitions Organiser Steven Snoddy, with a monograph by Slavka Sverakova.

Of the exhibition, and of MacLennan’s drawing practice more generally, Snoddy wrote:

“Alastair MacLennan is best known for realising his ideas through “Actuations” but concurrent with his live work he has also been drawing consistently as a parallel and integral process of developing images and themes. The drawings can be seen as extensions and developments from the performance and they also stand as completions in their own right […] MacLennan’s drawings function as a record of living in Northern Ireland. Some arise instinctively from deeply felt emotion while others rely more on more external looking and observing. They mirror his identity and speak his conscience.”

Text from ‘Alastair MacLennan: Is No’, ed. Stephen Snoddy, 1988.