›Faint tootles on the desert air (William Feaver) 
Sitting down and picking an exhibition on the spot, not 
from choice but from what happened to have been submitted
for a place in the queue, is not a natural selection 
process. We sat and looked for what we could all agree was
more than competence, or pet idiosyncrasy. After some hours 
I fancied I heard faint tootles on the desert air, to be 
followed by a puff of dust and the miraculous arrival of 
reinforcements.

But no, the dwindling went on and the possibilities 
decreased. The remarkably few likelies were herded together 
and left for later. Their variety, sifted through, thought 
over, reconsidered, became a stimulus. They began picking 
one another off: not so much what wouldn't go with what, as 
what didn't have he stamina somehow. Like musical chairs 
contestants, each began bagging a perch. Each removal, up 
to an unforeseen but eventually agreed sticking point, made 
the exhibition more certain of itself.

Our final choice is not indicative of the state of art now, 
Irish or otherwise; for it is of course far from 
representative (that was clear from the entry); and a good job 
too, in that sweeping reductions are disproportionate. It 
emerges, I believe, a memorable exhibition in every particular.

We thought of putting all the unselected in another room 
roping it off and labelling it the "Rest of the Iceberg" in
recognition of the fact that it takes a vast amount of art
and aspiration to form a buoyant culture. The iceberg's bulk
is the floating basis from which the exposed proportion 
protrudes, bits of which, before they melt, are the peaks..


William Feaver