Dear J.J., I read with interest...

2006 - 2011

Published posthumously in 1967, Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman presents many surreal situations. An eccentric scientist who can prove the world is sausage shaped, a version of hell that seems remarkably like the Irish midlands, and a visit to an underground control station that turns out to be the location of eternity all feature. Flann also describes the atomic theory, where prolonged physical contact between man and his physical surroundings result in a kind of atom exchange. This results in a bond between man and bicycle, and the development of a close metaphysical and sometimes erotic relationship. Local police attempt to keep this phenomenon under control.

An unofficial monument to the book located on Carauntoohill, Ireland’s highest mountain, was reported in a letter by J.J. Toomey of Bishopstown, Cork to The Irish Times, in 1986. It featured an image of a bicycle upon a steel pole at the summit, surmounted by a man apparently dressed as a policeman. Toomey noted in his letter that the monument had since disappeared.

In 2006, a four-man expedition set out to find any of the monument’s remains, possibly scattered around the mountain top.

Through mist and fog, no evidence could be found. A collection of photographs and contextual material about the project was first exhibited at Ritter & Staiff, Frankfurt in 2006. On the opening day of the exhibition, a letter was posted to Toomey, describing the attempted recovery. Three weeks later, on the last day of the exhibition, he replied.

He detailed other responses sent to his letter in the Irish Times. Most notable was an account from Michael Kellett of Raheny who identified himself in the photograph below as lifting the bicycle up the Devil's Ladder ascent on 23rd May 1983, assisting a couple from the English Midlands who purchased the bicycle at the base of the mountain in Killorglin for £15. The monument subsequently disappeared from the summit about two months later.

Exhibition elements:

A reproduction of a page from the Irish Times, 23rd April, 1986
Epson digital print, 155 x 112 cm

Three colour photographs
Each 100 x 74 cm

Three photographic enlargements of a photograph posted by Sabine Schmidt to JJ Toomey in July 1986.
Each 56 x 46 cm
Courtesy JJ Toomey

Three books in a display case:
Irish Walk Guides: South West, by Sean O Suilleabhain, (4th edition, Dublin, 1989)
The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien (6th edition, London, 2001)
Friends by Helme Heine (1st edition, London, 1982)

One pair of walking boots.
Courtesy Michael Kellett

One canvas bag.
Courtesy Michael Kellett

Slide projection with voiceover.
Seventy-one 35mm slides, duration 15 minutes 50 seconds

 

 

Incidentally, Joseph Beuys received a copy of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman from Irish art critic Dorothy Walker while making one of several trips to Ireland in the 1970s. The book subsequently influenced a performance he made at Documenta in 1982. His final performance work, in Naples in 1985, was entitled "Is it about a bicycle?" a direct quote from the book.