Gavin Mottram’s Video Exhibition Footering at Ireland’s Horse Gallery

Gavin Mottram’s (Film/Video MFA 17) video work is on view in the exhibition Footering at The Horse gallery in Dublin, Ireland, through April 14. The Scotland-born, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist incorporates 16mm digital video film with performance elements in his most current work

An alum of Glasgow School of Art and CalArts, Mottram has worked in various capacities across Los Angeles in multiple artist workshops and cultural spaces including Gemini GEL, REDCAT, and The Hammer Museum..  

“Footering,” a Scottish slang word meaning “messing around,” draws inspiration from the process of media distributing symbolic information and “how it is subsequently internalized and re-performed,” The Horse press release said. “The result is a collection of footerings that play with the language of media and wryly respond to its ever-increasing integration with daily life.”

The exhibition incorporates multiple forms of technology like monitors, projections, smartphone apps, and QR codes, allowing the audience to interact with the piece directly, similar to how they interact with the world. Mottram experiments with repetition, mirroring, glitches, and reversals, all serving as a playful critique of media and institutions. The installation is an attempt at “confronting solemnity with foolishness, formality with abjection, reality with illusion, inklefecharty with frackmannatude,” the press release said.

Footering is Mottram’s debut work in Ireland and with the gallery. Founded in 2021 by CalArts alum Matthew Wilkinson (Art BFA 18), The Horse serves as a contemporary art space that provides a platform for emerging, experimental, and underrepresented artists. 

—by Ishika Muchhal