This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 22, 2011 - Irish artist Ross McDonnell has reconstructed Isolation Room in the nether regions of the Lemp Brewery for "Mine," a work that explores a chapter of St. Louis history in an extraordinarily poetic form.
McDonnell transported Isolation Room, the gallery cube maintained by curators Dana Turkovic and Daniel McGrath, from its home in south St. Louis and refashioned it as a projection screen in one of the Lemp's underground cold storage spaces.
The film is abstract and atmospheric, with flares of color and the occasional burst of light; the accompanying soundtrack of an Arvo Part choral piece enhances the work's eerie sensibility.
To get to "Mine," one must descend several flights of stairs and be shown around the dark, vaulted expanse with a flashlight; it feels like spelunking.
The title thus takes on multiple meanings, referencing the mine-like character of the room, the actual caverns that run underneath it, and the former owner of the brewery, Adam Lemp, whose name remains emblazoned upon it though he lost it during the Prohibition era.
McDonnell's work is a marvelous meditation on history and memory, processes of loss and recovery.
Ivy Cooper is the Beacon visual arts reviewer and a professor of art at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.