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Resemblances, Sympathies, and Other Acts - Solo exhibition

This one-person exhibition, held at CCA Glasgow (2011), consisted of five works, all of which were exhibited for the first time. Although the works were all extremely varied in form, they shared Millar’s poetic inquiry into the history of culture, both ancient and modern; for Millar, the culture of the past is something not simply to be admired but rather felt, as it continues to bear an influence upon the present.

The most important new work was Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man (The Willows) – a life-cast of the artist as a corpse, fabricated by a film special effects technician. Although the work was suggested by the two masterpieces of its composite title – a photograph by Hippolyte Bayard, and a short story by Algernon Blackwood – the sculpture’s visceral effect was intended to be far more disturbing than that of its sources. The work had a strong impact in Glasgow, and became the lead story in the city’s Evening Times newspaper (31/03/11). Another life-cast was Bronze Fly, which was suggested by the talismanic bronze fly that Virgil used to banish such insects from Naples. Ritual acts could also be found in the other works: The Writing of Stones, a video in which a chorister from King’s College, Cambridge sings an extract from Roger Caillois’s eponymous book; A Firework for WG Sebald, in which a rocket was lit at the site of the German writer’s death, only for his face to emerge in the resultant smoke; and Incomplete Open Cubes (Burnt), in which Sol Lewitt’s minimalist sculptures became the site – and subject – of ritual transformations.

The exhibition was reviewed in numerous newspapers and magazines including The Herald (2011), and Scotland on Sunday (2011), and was considered one of the exhibitions of the year by the critic of The List (2011).