Robert Montgomery

Born Scotland in 1972, he lives and works in London.  

Robert Montgomery is a Scottish artist who studied art at Edinburgh College of Art (BA & MFA). From 1995 to 1997, he lived at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas and his work was included in the museum's permanent collection. On his return to London he developed a unique practice as a visual poet in the footsteps of the post-situationists. He has exhibited at the Transmission Gallery in Glasgow, the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh (2007), the Nuke Gallery in Paris and Analix Forever in Geneva, as well as in a number of venues in England. He also works with light. His large installations of light messages can be seen circulating on a truck in Istanbul during the 2011 Biennial, on a boat in Venice, also at the time of the 2011 Biennial, or frozen on the roof of a building in Williamsburg, New York, or at Berlin-Tempelhof airport.

Robert Montgomery's proposal for Toulouse is rooted in the city's ancient history, that of the Cathars, who abhorred all killing, opposed capital punishment and abstained from eating meat. The Cathars believed that there were sparks of divine light in humans themselves. According to them, the light, the spirit, was imprisoned in the physical body and in the world, and therefore the purpose of human life on earth would be to transcend matter, or else to redeem it, to spiritualise it, to transform it. It was this particular position of the Cathars, that of the negation of material goods, fundamentally 'polluted' according to them, which led to their condemnation by the Catholics. And it is on the basis of this ancient history that Montgomery created a work for Toulouse that speaks to us of peace, in homage to the Cathars, but also to Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, who was recognised as a fervent pacifist and who, to the great displeasure of the Catholics of the time, tolerated the Cathars on his lands. Peace also has its history.

Following in the footsteps of the post-Situationists, Robert Montgomery produces unusual work as a poet-artist, and also uses light. One of his most famous light pieces, THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE BECOME GHOSTS INSIDE OF YOU AND LIKE THIS YOU KEEP THEM ALIVE (dedicated to his deceased friend Sean Flynn), illuminates two gardens, one in Geneva (Switzerland), the other in Bodrum (Turkey). Like a number of other pieces by the artist, this light sculpture recycles solar energy in order to light itself. Montgomery’s work is made with his own words. Once set out in the street (on walls, a cornice, a vehicle), the poet’s texts become darker and more engaged politically. They oppose consumerism and soulless capitalism by encouraging us to use words to fight against images. Montgomery’s proposition for Toulouse is rooted in the history of the city in medieval times, when the Cathars rejected both capital punishment and the consumption of meat, opposing killing in all its forms. The Cathars believed that there was a spark of divine light in every human being. Their rejection of material goods led to their condemnation by the Catholics. Harking back to this distant historical episode, for Toulouse Montgomery has created a work (posters in public space) that speaks of peace and pays homage to the Cathars, but also to Raymond IV, a fervent pacifist who angered the Catholic church by tolerating the presence of the Cathars on his land.