Visual Artists' News Sheet - 2015 May June

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet issue 3 May – June 2015 Published by Visual Artists Ireland Ealaíontóirí Radharcacha Éire

MA in Art & Research Collaboration The MA in Art and Research Collaboration at IADT is a unique taught Master of Arts programme delivered over two years, incorporating practice-focused, art research projects developed in collaboration with a range of partners, such as the IFI, IMMA and Dublin City Arts Office, The LAB. It is open to artists, writers and curators, among others, and supports experimental interdisciplinary enquiry into art practice and its related subject areas through practice and research.

Applications should be received by IADT’s Admission Office by:

Friday 8th May

A possible Second Round will take place by 26th August 2015. Subject to places remaining available, late applications may be accepted. Please note that as this is a new programme it is subject to validation. For entry requirements and application details see: www.iadt.ie or contact maeve. connolly@iadt.ie. For further information please contact celine.blacow@iadt.ie.

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Editorial

Contents

WELCOME to the May / June 2015 Visual Artists’ News Sheet. The Get Together is back! See page 36 for details.

VAI’s fourth national networking and information day (Friday 15 May, IMMA, Dublin) takes the theme of ‘Maintaining Creativity’. Hear artists speak about their motivations; learn how to take full advantage of opportunities; discover the experience and expertise of other artists.; participate in speed curating; contribute to Ireland’s first strategy for the visual arts; browse at the Artists’ Book Shop and Visual Artists Café; and meet friends old and new. Book your place now at visualartists.ie/get-together-2015.

Art writing is a strong theme in this issue. Nathan O’Donnell and Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll reflect on conducting critical writing workshops. Foaming at the Mouth, a series of spoken word events presenting textbased artworks is profiled. Áine Phillips discusses editing the recently-published Performance Art In Ireland: A History.

Reviewed in the Critique section are: ‘Smoke And Mirrors’, Garter Lane, Waterford; Stephen Skrynka, Rua Red, Tallaght; Sue Morris, Siamsa Tire, Tralee; Mick O’Dea, Triskel, Cork; Frances Crowe and Maria NoonanMcdermott, Solas Art Gallery, Ballinamore; and ‘The Call of the Wild: Videonale 15’ Kunstmuseum, Bonn.

Our columnists proffer polemic and tackle urgent issues. Orla Whelan, an initiator of AtHomeStudios considers the dynamics of being an artist-parent working from home. Morgan Quaintance shares his bruising once-off experience of being a writer for hire. Irish curator Georgina Jackson – now Director of Exhibitions and Publications, Mercer Union, Toronto – stresses that artist-run centres are spaces for ongoing critical thought and action. Rob Hilken, VAI’s Northern Ireland Manager, reflects on recent visual arts highlights.

Tipperary comes under our regional spotlight, featuring reports from artists Jenny Fox and Lorraine Cleary, Tipperary Arts Office, Source and South Tipperary Arts Centre.

Two major architectural additions to Ireland’s visual arts infrastructure are profiled: Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre’s new building and the Dublin School Of Creative Arts , which has recently moved to the DIT Grangegorman campus.

Conference coverage comprises accounts of ‘Thinking Through Institutions’, the closing event of Megs Morley’s curator in residence programme for Galway and the ‘Growing Audiences’ seminar considering the legacy of Derry City of Culture. Continuing the focus on artist film, which started with profiles of the Experimental Film Club and Wild-Screen in our previous edition, Sarah Pierce interviews the curators of Plastik, an international festival of artists’ moving image recently held in Galway Cork and Dublin.

‘How is it Made?’ coverage spans the practices of artists and curators. UK artist Mark Wallinger discusses curating ‘Horse’ at Void, Derry. Kevin Killen profiles his recent neon works. Brendan Fox explores the themes and forms of his project ‘Less Greater Equal’. This issue’s ‘Art in the Public Realm’ case study looks at the Down Community Arts intergenerational art project Life Text. Residency profiles include accounts of Parity Studios at the UCD School Of Physics and the Van Eyck Academy, a “post-academic multiform institute”.

Details of upcoming sessions in VAI’s Professional Development Programme – workshops, peer reviews and seminars etc. – are on page 34. And there’s more: exhibition and public art roundups, news from the sector and various current opportunities.

May – June 2015

Cover Image. Méadhbh O’Connor, Unknown Shores, 2014, O’Brien Centre for Science UCD

5. Roundup. Recent exhibitions and projects of note.

5. Column. Morgan Quaintance. The More Real You Become?

6. Column. Orla Whelan. Athomestudios.

7. Column. Georgina Jackson. The Conversation Continues.

8. VAI News. VAI projects and events.

8. News. The latest developments in the visual arts sector.

10. Regional Focus. Tipperary Arts Office, Jenny Fox, Lorraine Cleary, Source, STAC. 13. Residency. Sustained Engagement. The residency programme at the UCD School Of Physics.

14. Profile. Activating Art Writing. Nathan O’Donnell and Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll, editors of Paper

Visual Art journal, reflect on a series of critical writing workshops they are conducting.

15. How is it Made? Watching Liquid Run. Maolíosa Boyle and Mark Wallinger discuss curating ‘Horse’

(Void, Derry 21 February – 18 April 2015).

16. Profile. Let’s Get Verbal. Emer Lynch and Tracy Hanna discuss ‘Foaming At The Mouth’, a series of

spoken word events presenting text-based artworks.

17. Profile. Dialogue Between Spheres. Sarah Pierce interviews the curators of Plastik film festival.

18. Residency. Co-Operative Enthusiasm. Pádraic E. Moore reports from the Van Eyck Academy.

19. Critique. ’Smoke And Mirrors’ Garter Lane; Stephen Skrynka, Rua Red; Sue Morris, Siamsa Tire;

Mick O’Dea, Triskel; Frances Crowe and Maria Noonan-Mcdermott, Solas Art Gallery; ‘The Call of

the Wild: Videonale 15’ Kunstmuseum, Bonn.

23. How is it Made Capturing Passing Moments. Kevin Killen discusses his show ‘Certain Moments’ at

University Of Ulster Gallery, 5 March – 2 April).

24. Conference. Change From Within? Jonathan Carroll discusses ‘Thinking Through Institutions’, a

symposium held at the Huston School Of Film and Digital Media, Galway.

25. How is it Made? Shadow Carrier. Brendan Fox discusses his project ‘Less Greater Equal’.

26. Conference. Is Legenderry Dead? Sara Greavu considers the legacy of Derry City Of Culture.

27. How Is It Made? Antidote to Oblivion. Áine Phillips, editor of Performance Art In Ireland: A History,

discusses the making of the book.

28. Profile. Future Intent. Director Ann Davoren introduces ‘Uillinn’, WCAC’s new building.

29. Profile. DIT at Grangegorman. VAI talks to Kieran Corcoran, Head of the Dublin School of

Creative Arts at DIT, about the new campus at Grangegorman.

30. Art in the Public Realm. Artist as Go-between. Tonya Mcmullan, Project Officer for Down

Community Arts, profiles Life Text, an intergenerational art project.

31. VAI Northern Ireland. Clunk and Boom. Rob Hilken reflects on some recent highlights of visual arts

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activities and initiatives in Northern Ireland.

32. Public Art Roundup. Public art commissions, site-specific works, socially engaged practice and

other forms of art outside the gallery.

33. Opportunities. All the latest grants, awards, exhibition calls and commissions.

34. VAI Professional Development. Current and upcoming workshops, peer reviews and seminars.

Production: Editor: Jason Oakley. Assistant Editor: Lily Power. News / Opportunities: Emer Marron, Adrian Colwell. Invoicing: Bernadette Beecher.

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Contributors: Morgan Quaintance, Orla Whelan, Georgina Jackson, Niamh Moriarty, Melanie Scott, Annette Moloney, Emoke Sweetman, Jenny Fox, Lorraine Cleary, Jason Oakley, Emer O Boyle, Lorraine Hanlon, Nathan O’Donnell, Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll, Maolíosa Boyle, Mark Wallinger, Emer Lynch, Tracy Hanna, Sarah Pierce, Pádraic E. Moore, Anne Mullee, Carissa Farrell, Gemma Carroll, Sarah Kelleher, Andy Parsons, Noel Kelly, Kevin Killen, Jonathan Carroll, Brendan Fox, Sara Greavu, Áine Phillips, Ann Davoren, Kieran Corcoran, Tonya Mcmullan, Rob Hilken.

Contact: Visual Artists Ireland, Ground Floor, Central Hotel Chambers, 7–9 Dame Court, Dublin 2 T: 353(0)1 672 9488 F: 00353(0) 1 672 9482 E: info@visualartists.ie www.visualartists.ie Board of Directors: Linda Shevlin (Chair), Naomi Sex, Mary Kelly, David Mahon, Maoiliosa Reynolds, Niamh McCann, Donall Curtin, Richard Forrest. Staff: CEO / Director: Noel Kelly. Office Manager: Bernadette Beecher. Publications Manager: Jason Oakley. Assistant Editor: Lily Power. Advocacy Programme Officer: Alex Davis. Professional Development Officer: Monica Flynn. Communications Officers: Niamh Looney, Emer Marron. Book-keeping: Dina Mulchrone. Membership Services Officer / Listings Editor: Adrian Colwell. Northern Ireland Manager: Rob Hilken (rob@visualartists-ni.org). West of Ireland Representative: Aideen Barry (aideenbarry@gmail.com).

The views expressed in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors, Editorial Panel or Visual Artists Irelands’ Board of Directors.

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Column

Morgan Quaintance The more real you become?

Last year I was approached to write a catalogue text for the New Museum’s 2015 Triennial exhibition. Lauren Cornell, the show’s curator alongside Ryan Trecartin, explained ‘Surround Audience’ as an ambitious project featuring 51 artists from over 25 countries, who are all, in their own ways, responding to the various socio-cultural shifts caused by pervasive use of the internet in Western, late-capitalist society. I replied: “This sounds like a really fantastic opportunity. I’d absolutely love to produce an essay for the triennial! What sort of word length are you after, and am I right in reading the deadline as 15 September?”

In truth, the prospect of writing another text on ‘art and the internet’ left me completely cold. I’d done enough work on what I felt was the myopic field of post-internet art, and wanted nothing more to do with the apolitical vacuity of art produced by a monocultural, middle class in-group with stiflingly similar values and lifestyles, banal behavioural norms and terrible work. But I needed the money ($1,500 or approximately €1,379).

I duly received a rough exhibition outline from the New Museum – first line “In 2015, our lives are increasingly surrounded by the effects of a hyper-visible and communicative society – one that is continually chattering, ranting, posing and gazing back at us from multiple angles” – and a folder full of potential artists that I could focus on.

This should be easy, I thought. Just focus on stuff to do with performing identity, social media as sociopathy, artists doing things in front of web cams, and maybe pull in that quote you used in the GIF piece for Frieze magazine a while back. You know, the one you took from Susan Sontag (Americans love Sontag) to introduce the concept of camp digital dandies in the information age.

But I’d forgotten something. Writing about work I don’t like in a positive way, and writing about stale ideas as if they’re the freshest things on the shelf, are two of the hardest things for me to pull off as a writer. I just can’t do it. So I sat at my desk, scrolling through images and artists’ statements. This one uses the web as a way to author representations, that one is interested in how gender is performed online, another has authored a vacant media persona who chairs an online, contemporary art based chat show. It was was all so unsubtle, so unsophisticated.

Still, I buried my misgivings and wrote the essay. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done, I said to my partner. Don’t get me wrong, I worked at it for weeks. I got together some decent quotes and factored in pertinent reflections on the state of culture in the information age, blah, blah, blah. But underneath it all, undulating beneath the surface, was my dissatisfaction, my distaste for the whole pursuit.

Proofing began a few weeks after I submitted the text. Suggestions for changing bits and pieces of the essay started to filter through. This is going to be painful I thought, but initially I was game: “I tried to reformat the first two paragraphs, but as I suspected, it didn’t really work out in the end. I hope that’s okay. I removed the Jayson Musson section and put in a reference to significant artists instead, which I think works better”, I wrote. More edits followed. In an email from their in-house editorial team I received a text that was a mess of track changes and multiple comments.

It was clear that a protracted back and forth was going to ensue. I was no longer game. I was, however, over in New York. Exposure to the gentrified reality of the city, its money-hungry art scene and the corporate covetousness of some young artists had drained my already scant interest in the project to zero enthusiasm. I wrote back to the editors and informed them that they were welcome to use my essay as it stood, but that I didn’t have the time to rework the entire thing according to their requirements. I still expected remuneration for the labour I’d put in and the text I’d delivered. To their credit they paid me.

So what’s the moral of the story? I’m not sure there is one. I suppose you could glean something about the quandary that critics find themselves in when money’s involved. Maybe it’s about being true to your critical instincts: don’t compromise yourself and all that. There’s one thing that stays in my mind about the whole episode though. It seemed to sum up the gap in critical sensibilities between the UK and the US. A few days before I left New York I met Lauren, the curator of ‘Surround Audience’ and commissioner of the essay, for a drink by the New Museum. I’d seen some episodes of the American version of Ricky Gervais’s black comedy The Office, and thought it a dire, unsubtle and unsophisticated commercialisation of a remarkable television series.

“I can’t stand that American version of The Office,” I said to Lauren.

“Really?” she said, “I love that show”.

“Are you serious! It’s so exaggerated and all the realism has gone. It’s just like a crappy sitcom with canned laughter.”

“Yeah, but Steve Carrel is so funny.”

Steve Carell is not funny, I thought; post-internet art is dead and I’m never writing a commissioned essay about it again.

Morgan Quaintance is a London-based writer, musician, broadcaster and curator. He is currently undertaking a residency at IMMA, Dublin and is the visisting IMMA/ACW Fellow at NCAD.

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Roundup

mances, workshops, seminars, lectures

AFTER HOURS

he saw the world ...

and book launches. ulsterfestival.com

David Fagan, ‘He saw the world and was left wanting’

Dublin-based artist David Fagan’s solo exhibition, ‘He saw the world and was left wanting’, featured a selection of audio-visual pieces produced for Siamsa Tíre, Tralee (1 Apr – 1 May). The works, which include varying recorded and live-feed formats, explore viewer engagement with both place and time.

The show was curated by Emer Lynch. siamsetire.com

SMOKE AND MIRRORS Garter Lane Arts Centre presented ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, an exhibition of new work by Waterford artists Kate Bowe O’Brien, Tom Dalton, Sarah Edmondson and Darragh Lyons (13 Mar – 29 Apr). The show investigated notions of constructed and deconstructed realities, the real and the fabricated. garterlane.ie

BRIAN BALLARD

‘After Hours’ installation shot

Platform Arts, Belfast held ‘After Hours’ (6 – 21 Mar), an exhibition by Fiona Chambers and Aideen Doran. ‘After Hours’ combined sculptural, video and installation works resulting, the press release noted, “from a collaborative investigation into the collapsing distinctions between labour and leisure in late capitalism. This work considers the dual role of the artist as both a producer and a labourer in an information economy, exploring the potential of the artist’s labour to resist the imperative of productivity and to subvert the purposes of technology”. platformartsbelfast.com

HORSE ‘Horse’ was a group show held at Void, Derry (21 Feb – 18 Apr). ‘Horse’ explored the representation and role of the horse in contemporary and historical society along with its relationship to man. The show featured work by 28 artists gathered from a combination of invited artists, historical collections and an open call submission. ‘Horse’ was curated by Mark Wallinger and Maolíosa Boyle.

Brian Ballard, Light Through the Trees, 2014

derryvoid.com

IF YOU AREN’T ALL MINE Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin presented ‘If you aren’t all mine’, the second solo show in the gallery by Alan Phelan (19 Feb – 20 Mar). The show was the first Dublin presentation of his 2014 film Edwart & Arlette. The film was developed from Phelan’s first gallery project ‘Handjob’, which acted like an open notebook of ideas from which the script of the film was developed. oonaghyoung.com

I SEE a DARKNESS

Paul Nugent, Lamp I & II, 2015, oil on gesso

Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin presented ‘I See a Darkness’, a group show featuring the work of Eleanor Duffin, Lorraine Neeson, Paul Nugent, Niamh O’Malley and Nicky Teegan (19 Feb – 14 Mar).

The press release noted: “This exhibition, which started as an idea to broadly explore the history and mythology of the black mirror, as both theme and object, has crystallised into a collection of visual incantations by five artists”. The show was curated by Davey Moor and travelled to Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise in March. kevinkavanaghgallery.ie

A retrospective of Brian Ballard’s work took place in Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, Limavady (6 Mar – 25 Apr). The exhibition was curated by Marianne O’Kane Boal and showcased a selection of work produced by Ballard over five decades. All strands of the artist’s practice were on view: abstract paintings, figure studies, still life, landscape and portraiture.

NO WAIT

John Conway, Cell 3, 2013

roevalleyarts.com

EQUATIONS

Katherine Boucher Berg, Notebook, 2014

‘Equations’ was a solo show by Katherine Boucher Beug held in the Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin (26 Feb – 2 Apr).

The exhibition comprised three dimensional works, large canvases and subtle watercolours. oliversearsgallery.com

‘No Wait’ was a solo exhibition by John Conway held at University Hospital Waterford (5 Mar – 16 Apr). Conway is the artist in residence with the Waterford Healing Arts Trust. The exhibition contained new work by the artist including a series of illustrations and watercolours, as well as screen-based work, sculpture and appropriated hospital equipment. The opening night performance was influenced by brief engagements with patients through the residency and thoughts on palliative care.

PICTURE YOU, PICTURE ME ‘Picture You, Picture Me’ is an ongoing collaborative and explorative portrait project between artist Emer Gillespie and her daughter Laoisha, who has Down’s Syndrome. Photographs from the project were presented at Riverbank Arts Centre (7 Feb – 12 Apr). The artist explained: “As a consistent subject in my work, this series has naturally evolved from [Laoisha’s] curiosity and urge to stand on the other side of the camera, taking more control over me as the subject, and of the images taken”. riverbank.ie

DOUGLAS HYDE

waterfordhealingarts.com, artsandhealth.ie Indian matchbox at the Douglas Hyde Gallery

BIFPA 2015 Belfast International Festival of Performance Art took place as part of the Ulster University Festival of Art 2015 (9 – 14 Mar). The festival included perfor-

The Douglas Hyde presented the work of Rose Wylie in Gallery 1 (6 Mar – 13 May). The press release noted: “Every image is rooted in a specific moment

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Column

ROUNDUP

Orla Whelan

of attention, and while her work is contemporary in terms of its fragmentation and cultural references, it is perhaps more traditional in its commitment to the most fundamental aspects of picture making: drawing, colour and texture”.

An exhibition of ‘Indian Matchbox Labels’ ran in Gallery 2. The press release described how “early Indian matchboxes carried beautifully designed labels showing images of Hindu deities and legendary scenes; over time they took on a multitude of themes, ranging from the mundane (keys, lamps, fruit, farm animals) to the exotic (lotus flowers, glamorous beauties, fighting tigers and elephants)”.

Athomestudios AtHomeStudios are a collective of artists practicing from studios based in their homes. There are many advantages to working from home: the low cost, convenience, increased productivity, comfort, privacy and connection to daily life. But there are also disadvantages, such as: isolation, lack of peer critique, absence of social and networking opportunities, and a perception of invisibility.

Myself and five other artists formed AtHomeStudios in 2013 as a proactive step to address some of these concerns. It provides opportunities for peer critique, collaboration and a space to share ideas. The group meets regularly in one of our studios, with each person bringing work to present. AtHomeStudios works to create meaningful exchanges and relationships between the artists, who are supportive of each other’s practices, and to offer advice and feedback on work and ideas.

The AtHomeStudios members are: myself, Janine Davidson, Vera Klute, Sandy Kennedy, Kitty Rogers and Seoidin O’Sullivan. Each member is a practicing artist and parent. Our individual practices are distinct and varied and include work in film, installation, sound, painting, drawing, sculpture, new media and collaboration. The shared ethos of the group is a commitment to working on our own individual terms and an interest in issues surrounding being an artist and a parent.

AtHomeStudios originated as part of The Mothership Project (a network of Irish parenting visual artists and art workers) in 2013, from one of four themed meetings hosted by different artists. The other meetings focused on: being a parenting artist in the reputational economy of the arts, creating alternative childcare structures, and time and money. I hosted a meeting at my home in Drimnagh, where I proposed to establish dispersed group studios for fellow artists working from a studio that is based in their home that were interested in connecting with other artists. As a painter and a mother of two children aged nine and six, having a studio at home has been a practical solution enabling me to balance my two roles, to work in the studio in the morning and evening (when not teaching night classes) and frequently late into the night. However, the problem of invisibility and lack of contact with my peers became a reality.

AtHomeStudios was set up as a practical solution. Our different commitments – including school and creche timetables, teaching roles and our partners’ schedules – can make it quite difficult to arrange a meeting. However, when it does happen it has been rewarding and insightful to get to know the other members’ practices and to receive valuable feedback.

Additionally, in an attempt to develop the scope of what we do, AtHomeStudios have been looking at ways to critically examine some of the issues about which we are passionate, but which do not directly inform our individual work, including the invisibility of parenthood in the art world and gender equality. We are currently developing an exhibition and a series of talks scheduled for 2016. We see this as an opportunity to explore issues that artists face when they become parents, such as: the necessity of maintaining visibility and a profile within a reputational economy while being less ‘available’ than before; the difficulty of attending talks and residencies; the negative perception of motherhood in the art world; and the precariousness of sustaining a non-profitable practice while negotiating the time / money equation of childcare. Most of all AtHomeStudios is an attempt to open these topics up for discussion.

AtHomeStudios have been looking at a number of interesting groups operating elsewhere that address similar issues. I was introduced to the work of Cultural ReProducers (Chicago) last year, when I was contacted by Christa Donner, who asked me to contribute a profile of AtHomeStudios to a forthcoming zine that she was publishing.

The zine, entitled Propositions, Manifestoes and Experiments, is a think-tank exploring the intersection of contemporary art making and family life through text and image from 28 international artists.

Cultural ReProducers is a creative platform and web resource initiated in 2012 by artist and mother Christa Donner, along with an evolving group of active cultural workers (professional artists, curators, writers, etc.) who are also parents. In addition to maintaining a website full of interesting projects, they regularly host art events aimed at artists (rather than children) and provide free childcare and a family friendly environment so that all artists can attend. They are committed to “making the art world a more inclusive and interesting place by supporting arts professionals raising kids”.

Their manifesto states: “The art world, as it is currently structured, doesn’t know what to do with mothers. Or children. Or fathers actively raising their kids. This impacts on all of culture: the making, curating, reviewing, experiencing and feeling of it.”

AtHomeStudios will continue to develop as a model of peer critique and as a supportive network. We also hope that, through future projects and exhibitions, AtHomeStudios can stimulate debate here in Ireland about issues to do with parenthood in the art world that have been largely absent from critical debate.

Orla Whelan is an artist based in Dublin. athomestudios.wordpress.com culturalreproducers.com themothershipproject.wordpress.com orlawhelan.com

tients’ work was a video work by Glenfield titled The Waiting Room, exploring tensions experienced by patients in the waiting room faced with life-changing health problems. ruared.ie, deidreglenfield.com

THE DOCK

douglashydegallery.com

MAKE READY

May – June 2015

The Project Spaces at IMMA, Dublin hosted ‘The Beholder’s Share’ (26 Mar – 26 Apr). ‘The Beholder’s Share’ examined unrealised and existing projects from the IMMA Collection. The focus of the exhibition was the role that the viewer can play in imaginatively completing an unrealised work. Exploring the documentation, stories and latent potential of projects by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Christo, William Furlong and Sol LeWitt, the show also included selected unrealisable proposals by fourth-year students from IADT’s BA in Visual Arts Practice. ‘The Beholder’s Share was curated by students on the Art and Research Collaboration (ARC) MA programme at IADT in collaboration with the IMMA National Programme. imma.ie

Jason Thompson, Autopsy2014

Exhibition poster for ‘Make Ready’, Library Project

‘Make Ready’ was an exhibition of Peter Maybury’s studio output over a 20year period held at the Library Project, Dublin (5 – 22 Mar). The exhibition is not a retrospective but “provides an overview of the nature and output of [Maybury’s] practice, one which he regards fundamentally as a joint-venture”. Each undertaking is a collaboration, whether with artists, musicians, architects, printers, programmers, curators, writers, readers or the audience. An accompanying book serves as reader to the exhibition, expanding on the nature of and strategies at work in Maybury’s practice.

The Dock, Leitrim held two exhibitions from 6 Feb – 28 Mar: Jane O’ Sullivan’s ‘A Passionate Silence’ and Jason Thompson’s ‘The non-random survival of randomly varying replicators’. Both shows were curated by Alice Lyons and Thompson has been nominated for the John Moores Painting Prize (2010) and the Liverpool Prize (2014). The press release described his paintings as “colorful and energetic paintings and drawings are inspired by mechanical, botanical and anatomical diagrams”.

While O’Sullivan’s work “uses multifarious materials, such as textiles, found costumes, zines and books”. thedock.ie

WHAT CURES THE QUIET UNEASE?

BENEATH THAT DARKNESS

Niall de Buitlear, Untitled, 2014

‘Beneath That Darkness There Was Another’ was a solo show by Niall de Buitléar held in Pallas Projects, Dublin (25 Mar – 11 Apr). The exhibition, which consists of painting, sculpture and laser-engraved panels, continues the artist’s ongoing development of a personal abstract vocabulary while introducing new media and materials. The works have been developed through the layering and accumulation of simple forms into more complex constructions. pallasprojects.org

library.photoireland.com

DROP A LINE

Mikko Kuorinki, Study 2, 2014

LYING IN WAIT

Deidre Glenfield, still from The Waiting Room

The exhibition ‘Lying in Wait’ took place in Rua Red Café (8 Mar – 21 Apr).

This show was an Arts and Health initiative led by artist-in-residence Deirdre Glenfield at the National Centre for Arts and Health, Tallaght Hospital.

It was curated by Alison Baker Kerrigan. ‘Lying in Wait’ comprised a selection of the artworks produced by adult patients attending Tallaght Hospital over the last six months who engaged with the arts programme run by the National Centre for Arts and Health.

Exhibited in conjunction with the pa-

‘What Cures the Quiet Unease?’ was a group show in PS2 featuring work by Peter Evers, Anna Johansson and Mikko Kuorinki (12 – 28 March). The show was curated by Alissa Kleist. The press release noted that the show “questions how the formation of contemporary identity is affected by the rapid changes and uncertain conditions transforming how virtual and physical spaces are negotiated”. A performance by Mikko Kuorinki took place on the closing day of the exhibition. pssquared.org

THE BEHOLDER’S SHARE

Exhibition poster for ‘The Beholder’s Share’

Deidre Houston, work from ‘Drop a Line’

Deirdre Houston’s exhibition ‘Drop a Line’ ran at the Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo (27 Feb – 30 Mar). A series of oil paintings and print / drawings referenced the book The Elements of Drawing by artist and teacher John Ruskin (1857), where he encouraged artists to try to recover what he called the “innocence of the eye”, to represent nature with the freshness and vitality of a child. The work centred on the dramatic Sligo landscape. hawkswell.com

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

7

Column

ROUNDUP

Georgina Jackson

MIND/MATTER

Gallery, Sample Studios, Cork (20 Mar – 2 Apr). The press relase noted that both artists “interrogate assumptions made about the world we live in through their art practice [and] employ a similar artistic method – creating their work through researching and actively experimenting with materials querying human perception”. The show was curated by Roisín Power Hackett.

The conversation continues ...

In a recent work by French artist Laurent Montaron at Mercer Union, the artist installed a large 18-foot telegraph pole along the length of the gallery wall. At one end the outdated mechanisms of transmission – steel structures and glass insulators – recalled a shift in communications from proximity to distance and the elsewhere. At the other end, a periscope was inserted, echoing mechanisms employed by soldiers in World War I to see across enemy lines. The juxtaposition of technologies, one offering the means to speak across extensive distances, the other an ability to literally see in front of you, underlines the questions of context and location. These questions have come to the fore in my move from Dublin to Toronto to take up the role of the Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Mercer Union, an artist-run centre for contemporary art.

As a curator working for 10 years in Dublin, as well as in Moscow and Pittsburgh, the role of context – geographical, social, historical and political – has been an underlying concern of my practice. There was a long list of things I didn’t know about Canada before I moved here, notably the fact that is the second largest country in the world, and that Toronto is now the fourth largest city in North America. Toronto is also one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Indeed the concept of multiculturalism was key to the construct of Canada’s identity in the 1960s and for centenary celebrations of Canada’s Confederation held in 1967. There has been a rich history of artist-run centres across Canada since the 1970s and, while artist-run centres have declined in the United States due to lack of funding, the funding structures across three different arts councils (the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council) have ensured decent funding in these areas, though these are now threatened by Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.1 My first task was to look around me at the spaces, meet curators and artists, ask questions and visit lots of studios to see the diverse kinds of practice that exist in the city and across Canada. I had a litany of questions. What are the current modes of contemporary art practice? What is missing from current discourses in contemporary art in Toronto? How can an artist-run centre support and foster critical practices against the backdrop of a robust commercial market? What role can an artist-run centre play in the fostering of critical conversations? How can a community be formed in and around a space that exists amongst many others?

The programming commenced with ‘Push and Pull’, the first exhibition in Toronto by three young artists living and working in the city. Bridget Moser presented a new film work and a site-specific performance which sat somewhere between internallyvoiced conundrums, stand-up comedy, experimental theatre, performance art and prop comedy, while Nikki Woolsey and Michael Vickers presented new sculptural works.

This project demonstrated my interest and curiosity in what was already happening within the city without institutional recognition.

This exhibition was followed by Sarah Pierce’s ‘Lost Illusions / Illusions perdues part two’, the second part of an exhibition in three parts across three locations: a gallery within a larger arts centre in Banff, Mercer Union and a research space and gallery in Montreal. Pierce’s ‘lost illusions’ were those from the recent past and the present. She gathered divergent occurrences, remnants and institutional histories, including a key case of censorship at Mercer Union in the early 1990s.

The third exhibition explicitly explored communities and the conversations between different peer groups, questioning what it means when we gather together. ‘Taking [a] part’ project was a five-week exhibition which unfolded from a series of threeperson exhibitions in the back gallery and shifted into an unfolding and altering group exhibition in the front gallery. For each group of three I invited one artist and then they in turn invited a peer and so on. Each Friday there was a finissage and artists’ talk which gathered diverse and intergenerational groups together to discuss practices and communities.

It was no coincidence that this project coincided with the launch of a monthly critical conversation series under the title of fORUM. The series began with Monika Szewzcyk who presented her series of texts on ‘The art of conversation’, published through e-flux journal. A metronome played out while the group discussed the texts. Subsequent fORUMs have explored death from laughter, the relationship between mimeticism, theatre and film, artists’ engagement with public service TV (Maeve Connolly) and contemporary art’s capacity to realise post-capitalism (Suhail Malik and Nick Srnicek). The idea of contemporary art as a space to gather diverse disciplines and explore key ideas was central to the inception of this series.

The role of an artist-run centre is to offer a space for critical thinking, a space of exchange and experimentation, a space of representation but also a space to question representation, to think through the historical, social, cultural and political. This conversation continues…

Georgina Jackson is Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art in Toronto, Canada.

Note 1. Back in 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sparked a culture war in a federal election campaign claiming that “ordinary people don’t care about arts funding”.

Exhibition poster for ‘mind | matter’

sample-studios.com

The Higher Bridges Gallery, Fermanagh held ‘mind | matter’ by Tinka Bechert´ .

(3 – 29 April). The show was inspired by Bechert’s fellowship in the Neuro and Cognitive Sciences at the HWK Institute for Advanced Study in Germany.

The press release described how the artist took research models as sources for drawings, paintings and installation work, hinting at “discrepancies between the subjectivity of individual experience and the apparent objectivity of scientific research, while acknowledging the deep human need for reason and wonder as a common driving force – both in the arts and sciences”. tinkabechert.com

FOOL ME TWICE Group show ‘Fool Me Twice’ was held at MART Gallery, Dublin (1 – 11 Apr). The exhibition title came from the role of the ‘fool’ in the silent movie era, particularily from Charlie Chaplin. The press release described how the participating artists played “a similar role to the fool by aiming to challenge the parameters of the socio-political boundaries we live within”.

TAYLOR GALLERIES

curated by Japan-based curator Yumi Song and Northern-Ireland-based artist and curator Shiro Masuyama. The artists featured were: Ursula Burke (IE/NI), Zoë Murdoch (IE/NI), Shiro Masuyama (JP/NI), Chiharu Mizukawa (JP), Jun Kawada (JP), Kouichi Tabata (JP/DE), L＋ (HK), Nobuhiro Kuzuya (JP), Nyubo Abe (JP), Ryo Shimizu (JP), Satoru Aoyama(JP), Shingo Aruga (JP), Taihei (JP), Takashi Hokoi (JP), Tohru Matsushita (JP), Yuji Shimono (JP) and Arafudo Art Annual (JP). millenniumcourt.org

OCULAR MANTRA

John Doherty, Beetle II, 2014, acrylic + pencil on gesso

Taylor Galleries, Dublin held two exhibitions, ‘Lacuna’ and ‘Contours’, from 17 Apr – 9 May. ‘Lacuna’ was a group show that featured work by Mark Cullen, Cliona Harmey, Kyle McDonald, Chloe Nagle, Lesley-Ann O’Connell and Rachel-Rose O’Leary. ‘Contours’ was a solo show by John Doherty. taylorgalleries.ie

WELCOME DISTURBANCES

Niall McCormack, Sheltered House, 2011

The Molesworth Gallery, Dublin presented ‘Ocular Mantra’, an exhibition of new work by Niall McCormack (16 Apr – 8 May). The press release noted how the artist’s “....uniform yet meticulously-rendered structures evoke a sense of disquiet, perhaps even foreboding. They speak of isolation and the contradictions of living together but being apart – a house not as the clichéd home but rather as an instrument of separation or of incarceration”. molesworthgallery.com

mart.ie

FIELDS OF WAR

‘Welcome Disturbances’ installation view

Paul Woods, Verdun Fort Douaumont

‘Fields of War’ was an exhibition of paintings by Paul Woods held in the Tipperary Excel Arts Centre (27 Feb – 1 Apr). Warfare and conflict are the main themes in the artist’s work and this exhibition followed the trail of the main battles fought on the Western Front. The press release stated: “The paintings themselves are depicted in an abstract expressionist style, which bonds well with the original sourced archival photographic imagery. Many of the photographic images sourced for the painting process come from aerial photography and topographical views of the landscape in war”. paulwoodsart.com

HECKEL ‘Heckel’ was an exhibition by Nollaig Molloy and Ruth Kerr held in Tactic

‘Welcome Disturbances’ was a group exhibition of new work by Cindy Cummings, David Stalling, Sofie Loscher, Maeve O’Connor, Emma Finucan, Siobhan McDonald and Mark Cullen (30 Jan – 11 Apr). This exhibition showcased the diverse practices of recipients of the UCD Science Artist in Residence Award and included a programme of talks, presentations and performances.

The project was curated by Sheena Barrett and Emer O Boyle.

MINING THE IMAGE ‘Mining the Image’ was a solo show

by Margaret Irwin West held in the Leinster Gallery (16 – 25 Apr). The exhibition, curated by art historian, curator and lecturer Dr Eimear O’Connor HRHA, features Irwin West’s’s work from the 1950s to the present day. The exhibition explored recurring themes in the artist’s 70-year career as an artist, art teacher and printmaker. leinstergallery.com

CONTRAPUNTO

ucdartinscience.com

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

Jordie Fornies, The Counterpoint

Shingo Aruga, Conjoined Twin, 2014

‘When the Wind Blows’ was a group show that ran at the Millennium Court Arts Centre (14 Mar – 2 May). The exhibition was a cultural exchange between Fukushima, Japan and Portadown, Northern Ireland, and was

The Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin held ‘CONTRAPUNTO’ by Jordi Forniés in the Octagonal Room, City Assembly House (12 – 30 Apr). The press release noted that the title refers to “a musical term that describes the combination of two or more melodic lines in such a way that they establish a harmonic relationship while retaining their linear individuality”. oliviercornetgallery.com

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

VAI NEWS

NEWS

VAI News

News

GET TOGETHER 2015 Get Together 2015 (15 May 2015, IMMA, Dublin), VAI’s fourth national networking and information day takes the theme of ‘Maintaining Creativity’. Hear artists speak about their motivations. Learn how to take full advantage of opportunities.

Discover the experience and expertise of other artists. Participate in speed curating. Contribute to Ireland’s first strategy for the visual arts. Browse at the Artists’ Book Stall and Visual Artists Café. Meet friends old and new.

The day will feature a range of panel discussions. For ‘Artists Speak’ 16 visual artists at various stages of their careers will speak about their practices, their inspirations and overcoming challenges.

Each panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A. The participants include: Michelle Browne, Cian Donnelly, Richard Forrest, Sally O’Dowd, Clodagh Emoe; Brian Fay, Martin Healy, David Beattie, Donald Teskey, Brendan Earley; Linda Shevlin, Lesley Cherry, Charlotte Bosanquet, Mary A Kelly, Janet Mullarney; Alice Maher, Mairead O’hEocha, Maud Cotter, Hannah Starkey and Vanessa Donoso Lopez.

‘Intergenerational Conversations’ will comprise a set of informal conversation pieces between artists of different generations inspired by the idea of exchange and knowledge production. This partnership event involves Bealtaine, CREATE and Visual Artists Ireland.

‘The Artist’s Life Panel’ will focus on the specifics of how to make a sustainable livelihood alongside a visual art career. It will look at the how artists and gallerists position their work and the strategic decisions they make in the pursuit of opportunities to help sustain an income while maintaining their creative values.

‘Work: Practise Practice’ will focus on the paths taken by artists, thinking about how to create supportive environments. The presenters (Joanne Laws, Shelly McDonnell, Jacinta Lynch, Deirdre Morrissey, Faye Hosbon) will look at self-organisation as well as collectivelygenerated supportive institutions such as self-funded galleries and studios, selforganised events and commercial or social enterprise.

126 Gallery, Galway introduce Footfall, a national research project devised to explore the position of small arts organisations in Ireland. The aim was to develop new ways to articulate the value of the work done by smaller organisations.

Other features of the day include The Visual Artists’ Café, a range of stalls from arts organisations, galleries, college and artist-led spaces. This year the VAI Artists’ Books Stall will feature a wide range of artists’ publications, zines, sound works, catalogues and books on art.

VAI will announce the winner of The VAI Artist Award, our new award for visual artists working in Ireland. The award is not financial but is intended to

be recognition by artists of one of their own. VAI member artists nominated and then voted (any artist working on the island of Ireland was eligible).

The ever-popular Speed Curating returns this year. The curators are: Aedín McGinn, Luan Gallery; Ángel Luis González Fernández, PhotoIreland; Ann Davoren, West Cork Arts Centre; Anne Kelly, NCAD Gallery; Belinda Quirke, Solstice Art Centre; Matt Packer or Aleisa Kleist, CCA Derry; Davey Moor, Monster Truck; Donal Maguire, National Gallery of Ireland; Elaine Grainger, Talbot Gallery & Studios; Grace McEvoy, Block T; Jerome O’Drisceoil, Green on Red; Josephine Kelleher, Rubicon; Maeve Mulrennan, Galway Art Centre; Maoliosa Boyle, Void; Mary Conlon, Ormston House; Mary Cremin; Olivier Cornet; Oonagh Young; Peter Mutschler, PS2; Peter Richards, Golden Thread; Rayne Booth – Temple Bar Gallery + Studios; Ruth Carroll, RHA; Sheena Barrett, The Lab; Trudi van der Elsen, Ennistymon Court House.

Tickets – Visual Artists Ireland members / students: €20 / non-member rate:€50. Speed Curating (VAI members only): €3 per curator/appointment. Information and booking: visualartists.ie/gettogether-2015/book-your-tickets T: (01) 672 9488

VAI Professional Development Visual Artists Ireland operates a wide range of professional development training events throughout the year.

Upcoming VAI Professional Development events taking place in the Republic of Ireland include: Art Handling and Transport; Peer Critiques on Sculpture, Drawing and Curation; Child Protection Training; Developing Proposals; Collaboration and Partnerships for ArtislEd groups; Sustainability; Writing About Your Work; and Visual Artists Café information and networking events. Sessions will take place across the country in Dublin, Clare, Tipperary, Galway, Kerry, Laois and Meath. Full details can be found on page 34.

Our upcoming Professional Development programme in Northern Ireland includes: a Visual Arts Café in Bangor; VAI Helpdesk sessions in Belfast; and the ‘The Art Book Today’ symposium, also in Belfast. Full details can be found on page 34.

If you are interested in training please do get in touch with us directly or forward an expression of interest in a topic/s through the Professional Development Training web page. Visual Artists Ireland has an ongoing open submission process for artists and arts professionals interested in being part of an available panel of tutors contributing to the VAI Professional Development Training Programme. visualartists.ie visualartists-ni.org

eva curatoR announced EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial in Limerick, has announced that Koyo Kouoh (Cameroon / Senegal) will be the curator of the 38th edition of EVA in 2016. Responding to the context of the 1916 Easter Rising centenary, EVA 2016 will be entitled ‘Still (the) Barbarians’ and will investigate the postcolonial condition of Ireland as a point of departure from where artistic reflections, critical redefinitions and political transformations are articulated.

Artists’ projects will be selected through an open call for proposals that is now open. Applications are invited from individual artists or groups in any medium and can be for the presentation of existing works or production of new projects. Selected artists will receive exhibition fees and production budgets as appropriate. The online application process is now open and closes at 12pm on Monday 15 June 2015.

Please eva.ie or contact info@eva.ie for further information.

Of her appointment and approach to curating EVA Kouoh commented: “Ireland, which I consider the first and foremost laboratory of the British colonial enterprise, has always been a fixture in my thinking on the psychological and political effects a system designed to humiliate and alienate can have on peoples’ souls. The coincidence of EVA 2016 with the centenary celebrations of the Easter Rising provides a welcome opportunity to engage artists and thinkers in this exciting discussion.”

Koyo Kouoh is the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, a centre for art, knowledge and society in Dakar and the curator of FORUM, the education programme at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London and New York. She served in the curatorial teams for documenta 12 (2007) and 13 (2012), and recent projects include: ‘Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the work of six African women artists’, WIELS, Lund Konsthal, 49N6E FRAC Lorraine (2015 – 2016); ‘Precarious Imaging: Visibility surrounding African Queerness’, RAW Material Company (2014).

In collaboration with Rasha Salti, Kouoh is currently working on ‘Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy’, a three-year research, exhibition and publication project to be held at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow in June 2015 and September 2016. She lives and works in Dakar and Basel. goldenfleeceaward.com

GOLDEN FLEECE The Golden Fleece Award is an independent artistic prize fund established as a charitable bequest by the late Hel-

en Lillias Mitchell. The Award aims to support and promote the diversity of contemporary Irish creativity in the arts and crafts. Its mission is to help Irish artists of innovative talent working in all the traditional arts and crafts needing support at strategic stages of their careers. The winner of the 2015 Golden Fleece Award is Seliena Coyle, jeweller. The Merit Prize 2015 goes to David Eager Maher for painting and drawing and Kate O’Kelly for ceramics. Commendations 2015 went to Rachel Joynt and Bridget O’Gorman, both working in sculpture. goldenfleeceaward.com

SEAN LYNCH AT VENICE The Minister of State for New Communities, Culture and Equality, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD, was joined by artists, curators and invited guests at the Dublin launch of Ireland’s representation at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice. Ireland at Venice is led

by Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council.

Sean Lynch has been selected as the artist to represent Ireland with a new artwork entitled Adventure: Capital. The Commissioner for the Irish Pavilion is Mike Fitzpatrick, Director of Limerick’s European Capital of Culture 2020 bid and Head of School, Limerick School of Art and Design, LIT. The Curator is Woodrow Kernohan, Director of Eva International – Ireland’s Biennial. Fitzpatrick described Sean Lynch’s work as a “transcendental journey through history and myth, from the Gobán Saor to castaway minimalist sculpture … Lynch’s ethnographic methodology playfully challenges hegemonic structures and entwined flows of capital, migration, and forms an exceptionally unique form of complex narrative mediated through film and object”.

CENTRE CULTUREL Irlandais The Centre Culturel Irlandais is delighted to announce the recipients of its 2015 – 16 programme of residencies. 22 artists will spend one to three months in Paris to develop their proposed projects. This year CCI will partner with the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCoI) for the first time to award a design residency.

Artists in residence have been appointed on an annual basis since the Centre Culturel Irlandais was inaugurated in October 2002. Through the residencies and its diverse cultural programme, the Centre Culturel Irlandais showcases Ireland’s dynamic contemporary culture on an international stage.

Recipients of the visual artist residencies are: Susan McWilliam, Alan Phelan, Padraig Spillane, Corban Walk-

May – June 2015

er and Tom Watt. Special projects residencies are awarded to Corinna Askin and Softday (Sean Taylor and Mikael Fernstrom). The design residency was awarded to Joe Hogan in association with DCCoI. centrecultureirlandais.com

2016 COMMEMORATIons An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD and An Tánaiste, Joan Burton TD, joined the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys TD, and the Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD, to launch the Ireland 2016 Commemorative Programme at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks on Tuesday 31 March. At the launch, Humphreys stated: “Artists played a vital role in the lead up to 1916. So it is fitting that artists will play a central role in the commemoration of the Rising. The arts have a way of exploring our history and imagining our future in a way that breaks boundaries and brings an alternative perspective”. ahg.gov.ie

NEW CHAIRPERSON FOR PALLAS Pallas Project/Studios are pleased to announce that Caroline Cowley has been appointed as the new chairperson of the Pallas Projects board. Caroline takes over from Helen Carey, who is to remain on the board of the organisation. The board of Pallas Projects expressed its huge thanks to Helen, who has been instrumental in guiding the organisation over the past number of years. pallasprojects.org

NI spaces join tate network Golden Thread Gallery and the MAC, Belfast, along with the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Derry-Londonderry have been chosen by Tate to join Plus Tate, the contemporary visual arts network, which is expanding to 16 institutions. They join the original cohort of 18 partners, plus the 4 Tate galleries, to double the size of the group. In 2010, Plus Tate was launched with the objective of sharing collections and expertise and building a network which would use Tate’s resources to strengthen the contemporary visual arts ecology in the UK. The expansion comes in the wake of the Warwick Commission Report, which highlighted the importance of building strong arts organisations outside of London.

Suzanne Lyle, Head of Visual Arts, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, commented: “The Arts Council commends Golden Thread Gallery, the Mac and the Centre for Contemporary Art in being chosen to join this prestigious programme based on their shared quality, vision and commitment. This exciting

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

9

NEWS and impressive initiative offers these leading Northern Ireland galleries the opportunity to expand, network and strengthen the contemporary arts sector within the region for all to enjoy.”

The enlarged Plus Tate group will meet together for the first time in July 2015 to set the agenda for the next phase of development to 2020. tate.org.uk

NYC IRISH ARTS CENTRE refurb Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys, TD, has announced a grant of $1.25 million towards the redevelopment of the Irish Arts Center in New York, which provides a dynamic platform for Irish artists and performers. This grant is made from the Emigrant Support Programme of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Speaking in New York, Minister Humphreys said: “This redevelopment project will provide the centre with a landmark base that those that are directly involved, and indeed and the rest of the community, Irish and Irish American, can be deeply proud of..” ahg.gov.ie

GALWAY ARTS GRANTS Under the Community Support Scheme arts category, Galway County Council supports events and activities

of professional, community and voluntary organisations which stimulate public interest in the arts, promote the knowledge, appreciation and practice of the arts, or assist in improving the standards of the arts in County Galway.

In 2015, the Tyrone Guthrie Residency Award went to Katarina Baker, Sadie Mackey and Lisa O’Donnell. Individual Artist Bursaries went to Miqueal Barceló, Niamh Fahy, Lasirfhíona Ní Chonaola, Rosie Gurran, Geraldine Mills, Louise Manifold, Margaret Irwin West, Anne Marie Kennedy, Úna Quigley, Jennifer Cunningham, Cath Taylor, Dr. Francis Heery, Brian Twomey, Nuala Ní Fhlathúin and Lisa O’Donnell.

COMPLIANCE & GOVERNANCE An Arts Council one-day conference on Compliance and Governance takes place on Monday 29 June. The Conference promises to give organsations funded by the Arts Council key information. Topics to be addressed include: the Charities Act and Charities Regulatory Authority; the new Companies Act and its implementation; new financial reporting requirements with best practice considerations and recommendations; and a practical overview of the Governance Code.

126 FOOTFALL REPORT 126 Gallery announced the publication of the Footfall Report, written by arts writer and researcher Joanne Laws. Focusing on the Irish context, the report outlines why artist-led organisations are established, how they are run and the type of work they do. Those perceived to benefit from this work and the inherent ‘value’ of such activity, is discussed. Drawing on emerging discourse in the field, possible methods for measuring ‘non-economic’ value are presented. The perceived strengths of artist-led organisations are identified and this is followed by a discussion of the central issues of sustainability and artistic labour. The report concludes with thoughts on whether there is a need for further organisational forms within the artist led sector in Ireland.

Footfall does not aim to represent the agenda of artist-led organisations in Ireland but rather to generate an inquiry into the value of the labour invested in running them.

126.ie

ARTISTS’ LABOUR AGREEMENTS CARFAC and RAAV have signed Canada’s first union agreement for visual artists. Artists across Canada have voted in record numbers to ratify Canada’s first scale agreement for visual artists at the National Gallery of Canada. The

agreement sets out mandatory minimum fees and working conditions offered to artists by the gallery. It means that any living Canadian artist who exhibits or has their artworks used by the National Gallery of Canada must be paid the rates that have been negotiated as a minimum. Artists remain free to negotiate above these minimums, but they can never be offered less.

In September 2013, we at Visual Artists Ireland launched our Payment Guidelines for Professional Visual Artists, which have since been endorsed by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.

Venues and artists are now able to calculate equitable levels of payments and correctly budget for a variety of artistic programmes that are undertaken in not-for-profit spaces.

Song of the Empty Cage (Lapwing Publications, Belfast, 1997). They hang forlornly, as I write this appreciation, on a wall in my apartment in Madrid.

E.J. was, as his friend Noel Molloy, the performance artist, so elegantly stated, ‘a great artist, a master of print, calligraphy, painting and curating, a friend whom I consider a brother’.

I echo that sentiment and know that I will miss his presence when next I roam around the market in Limerick or sit in the Outback beside an empty chair. But I will also raise a glass in his honour and give thanks that I was privileged to know such a talented artist and good man. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dilis”. 1

EJ Peters: An Appreciation Artist E. J. Peters passed away on 13 March 2015. The poet John Liddy, writing in warm tribute, recalled: “His knowledge of and love for language, particularly Irish and Dutch, was extensive, and his great gift was his ability to make letters beautiful. One such masterpiece can be found in the pages of issue 7 of The Stony Thursday Book (1978), dedicated to the work of Kate O’Brien. Other works he selflessly produced for me were his illustrations for

CERAMIC COMMISSION AWARD The Mill Cove Galleries have announced the Ceramic Commission Award Winners 2015. The selected artists are: Martha Cashman, Barra Cassidy, Darren Francis Cassidy, Pat Connor, Maria Connolly, Cillian Gibbons, Michele Hannan, Jane Jermyn, Lucy Meagher, Kira O’Brien, Elizabeth Petcu, Nicole Portlock, John Rainey, Sara Roberts, Eileen Singleton and Grainne Watts.

IMMA

Note 1. John Liddy, I’ll miss E.J., but it was a privilege to know him, Limerick Leader 20 March 2015

millcovegallery.com

LEFT / Karla Black /

Easily Asked / 2014 / polythene, powder paint, plaster powder, thread / 196 x 161 x 143 cm / 77 1/8 x 63 3/8 x 56 1/4 ins / Courtesy Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne RIGHT / Stan Douglas /

Hastings Park, 16 July 1955 / 2008 / Digital C-print mounted on Dibond aluminum / 59 1/2 x 88 3/4 inches, 151.1 x 225.4 cm / DOUST0358 / Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York

1 May – 26 July

5 June – 20 September

Karla Black

Stan Douglas Mise en Scène

New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson

Also showing: Gerda Frömel / Diogo Pimentão / IMMA Collection: Fragments / Etel Adnan

Irish Museum of Modern Art T 01-612 9900 E info@imma.ie W www.imma.ie

Admission Free

Official Hotel Partner

10

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Tipperary: Resources & Activities Loving the Trip

Negotiating the Boundaries

Jenny Fox, I’ll Fly Away, 50 x 70cm

I studied fine art in NCAD and carried on my practice after graduating, but it wasn’t until almost 10 years later, when my children started school, that I became properly focused on my work again. Their routine gave me a routine and a desire to make the most of my time. More importantly, this coincided with our move from Dublin city centre to Cloughjordan in North Tipperary in 2007, and so it has been here that I have begun working full time and seriously as a visual artist.

In Dublin my studio spaces had been small or damp or expensive or a bit of a hike to get to, but since moving here I have my studio at home. For me working from my home is great. It means, rather obviously, being at home for the kids, while at the same time being able to work when I want. It provides an immediacy which works very well in a hectic house; if I need to jot something down or on some crazy whim I can simply nip inside and do it. I never have to commute; I can go straight into the studio and get stuck into work with no messing around – a fantastic luxury. Being a full time mum is really important to me, but, as it turns out, so is being an artist. Having a decent space at home absolutely facilitates this dual drive.

A downside of the area, however, is that there aren’t very many galleries nearby. The closest is Damer House in Roscrea, which is a lovely space. A little further away, the Source Arts Centre in Thurles is another great space, and between them they programme some interesting shows to visit. Dublin, Limerick, Cork and Galway are all within an hour and a half’s drive so I have no problem setting off to see a show.

There is no question that the advantages of living and working here outweigh the disadvantages by a long shot. Cloughjordan has some huge benefits.

A large number of people who work in the arts live here; many of these are women and many are mothers. This has provided a most welcome, unexpected and vital support system for us all.

Among us are plenty of other painters and visual artists, ceramic artists, a glass artist, early years visual theatre directors, a circus practitioner, a puppeteer, a theatrical director, writers for all ages, a sculptor, actors, a contemporary dancer and an arts

manager, all working professionally in our respective fields in a village of around 700. Many of us have become good friends and aside from chatting about the usual we provide very practical support for each other. A lot of our work issues overlap, so we can help each other to stay motivated and keep up morale. We discuss ideas, plans (and dreaded funding applications) and of course we enjoy each other’s successes or provide an understanding shoulder for a moan or an occasional tear! Without these friends it would seem somewhat relentless and lonely, I think.

The proximity to other artists has also provided opportunities for some interesting collaborations.

One such collaboration I had was with another painter who lives here. We held a joint exhibition in the ballroom of Cloughjordan house here in the village, called ‘Wide Open Spaces’, creating large scale works to explore the breadth and scale of the North Tipperary countryside. In Clonmel, another collaboration with a ceramic artist (and next door neighbour!), ‘This Turquoise Isle’, touched on the same ideas of land and place and was held in the Narrow Space Gallery.

With regard to my own work, the themes that have surfaced since moving to Tipperary have centred around notions of place and physical space and examining the ideas of belonging or fitting in.

The space and light of the country landscape make me regard my own place within it, creating a feeling of being very small in a large open space but not feeling adrift or ungrounded … as though time, somehow, has stopped. I produced a body of work exploring these ideas for a show called ‘Walking with the Wind’, which was exhibited at Source Arts Centre in late 2013. These themes created further impetus for my most recent show, ‘Distant Thoughts and Faded Songs’, held at Draíocht, Blanchardstown

My practice considers the physical environment in relation to the viewer’s movement within it. The environment we inhabit is constructed from both visual and sound elements, inviting our senses to interact with it. I’m engaged in a process-based practice that embraces both digital and anachronistic mediums. Emphasis is placed on the creation of immersive spaces that acknowledge the importance of the viewer’s role. A focus is placed on the in-between space and its relation to the viewer’s experience of space as a real-time phenomenon.

I recently graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design and I’m currently studying for a Masters in Interactive Media at the University of Limerick (UL), to be completed at the end of August.

In September I received notification that I had been highly commended for the 2014 programme of the Undergraduate Awards in both the Visual Arts and the Media and the Arts categories. Prior to starting in UL, I worked as a gallery assistant in Ormston House, Limerick.

Currently I live in the Glen of Aherlow area of Tipperary, where I have converted an out building into a darkroom. However, due to stormy weather in recent years the space has become too damp to work in. During the summer period, I hope to convert a space in my house into a darkroom. In the coming months I will be moving into a shared studio in Limerick and I’m looking forward to working in the presence of other artists. Unfortunately, at the moment there are no artists’ studios in the Tipperary Town area. As I live in the Glen of Aherlow, situated near the border of Tipperary and Limerick, I tend to see myself as an artist that negotiates the boundary betweenthese two counties.

In the autumn of 2013 work began on the construction of the new Aldi store in Tipperary Town, on the site of the old Tower Ballroom. The demolition of the Ballroom brought about a major architectural change in the landscape of the town and struck a nostalgic cord with many members of the Tipperary community. This was the meeting place of times gone by, a place where numerous

dances were held over the years and where many people met their life partners. Those involved in the development decided to preserve the clock tower portion of the building due to its importance in the history of the town.

During this process I began documenting the change in the clock tower structure, using Super 8 film and 35mm still photography. The clock tower was the initial inspiration for my graduate showpiece, which was realised in the form of an installation constructed from the stylistic qualities inherent to the medium of film and the element of sound.

During college experience I developed an interest in working collaboratively. I also became more interested in the process itself than the finished piece of work. My practice began to emerge on those grounds. It is the elements of film and photography that excited me as opposed to the finished prints.

In May 2013 I worked collaboratively with three other artists in conjunction with the Hunt Museum on an inflatable sculpture project. This was exhibited in the gardens of the Museum during the Riverfest weekend. It was a means to introduce the public to a non-traditional type of sculpture. We also did workshops with children and helped them make their own inflatables. I will be involved with the project again in May of this year.

In a recent collaboration I had the opportunity to shoot a short film with some foreign students currently studying in UL. The film was shot on a set that I had constructed in Tipperary and the students were in awe of the Tipperary landscape with its astounding views of the Galtee Mountains.

In April of this year I will have a piece of work on show in the Bourne Vincent Gallery as part of a group Steam Punk exhibition. This will run for two weeks and then move to the Hunt Museum in May. Who knows what the future holds; as an artist, the only guarantee is that it will involve hard work, motivation, self-discipline and some satisfaction.

Lorraine Cleary, Clocktower

Lorraine Cleary, Clocktower

Lorraine Cleary lorrainecleary.blogspot.com filmfillsagap.blogspot.com

at the beginning of this year.

My move to Tipperary has provided me with a huge source of inspiration and support, and while I’m still working, and sometimes struggling, to develop and resolve my artistic ideas, I am still loving the trip to Tipp!

Jenny Fox jennyfox.net

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Tipperary Arts Office Opportunities for artists and audiences to engage with the visual arts in Tipperary are facilitated by the Arts Office in a range of ways. Direct support for artists is provided through the Tipperary Artists’ Awards, which are advertised annually and seek to support artists to develop their practices, reach audiences and undertake professional development.

The latter is also supported through partnership approaches with neighbouring local authorities and with Visual Artists Ireland. Three successful collaborations have taken place in the last six months. An annual Bursary Award to the Tyrone Guthrie centre also provides an opportunity for artists seeking space and time to develop work.

The annual arts programme provides artists with the opportunity to share their practice. For example, six visual artists will participate in this year’s Bealtaine programme during May. Michael Fortune will initiate ‘The Dresser Project’, a researchbased public engagement project which Michael plans to undertake in counties Mayo, Waterford, Carlow and Tipperary in 2015. Clonmel-based artist Miriam Robinson will lead an event as part of National Drawing Day and Bridget Teehan, Theresia Guschelbauer, Mary Dillon and Enda Griffin have all developed a series of workshops engaging with a range of audiences through their work. The Tipperary Artist in Primary School scheme, which places artists in an educational context, provides direct access to the arts for children across a range of art forms (predominantly in the visual arts). 98 projects have taken place since 2000.

‘Sounding Lines’, by artists Maree Hensey and Claire Halpin, is an example of how artists can participate in broader development initiatives.

Commissioned by the Arts Service, ‘Sounding Lines’ was part of a European Partnership Programme entitled ‘Green and Blue Futures’, which aims to develop sustainable models for managing Europe’s ‘green and blue’ infrastructure (waterways etc.)

The aim of the ‘Sounding Lines’ project was to develop local community connectivity to the River Suir, fostering audience interest, knowledge and ownership of the river and its built environment.

The artists engaged with a range of river users, including rowing clubs, schools, day care centres and fishermen. They focused on historic ‘places of significance’ from local folklore and social history to develop an interactive sound map of the river into a multimedia online map, which remains live at soundinglines.wordpress.com.

The artists also developed a multimedia artwork trail along the first 2.5km of the tow path from Kilsheelan towards Carrick on Suir, which was presented at a public event in August 2014 as the culmination of the research project. Patricipants were given the opportunity to experience artworks from the community workshops, sound recordings from the natural environment of the river, oral recordings, archival recordings, video projections and installations. We are currently finalising this project through the commissioning of a curatorial response to the work, concentrating on the artistic collaborative process. This is being developed by curator Annette Moloney in consultation with the artists.

Where possible the Arts Office aims to work in partnership with others to support the development of the arts in Tipperary. One such partnership is with the Source Arts Centre in Thurles on the Curated@ Source residency, also led by Moloney. Suitably located in the birthplace of the GAA, this year-long curatorial project explores connections between sport and art. A programme of exciting exhibitions

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Source Arts Centre and events are planned at Source in the coming months, which will maximise the potential of this custom-designed visual arts space and will also extend out into Thurles town.

Therry Rudin and Patricia Hurl have been independently leading a very robust visual arts programme at the Damer House Gallery in Roscrea for the past two years (facebook.com.

DamerHouseGallery). The excellent programme of exhibitions and residencies planned for the coming months includes ‘Saibhreas’, an exhibition of work by midlands artists, curated by Muireann Ni Chonaill, and ‘Homelands’, an exhibition showcasing work by Irish and international artists in collaboration with the LOOP Festival in Barcelona.

Another independent artist-led initiative worth visiting this summer is OAK2, curated by Pauline O’Connell and led by Eavaun Carmody at Killenure Castle, Dundrum. OAK2 features work by a range of Irish and international artists.1 O’Connell stated: “This cross section of art practice accounts for a variety of work ranging from traditional sculpture to video and installation, work that relates to the rural context in varying conceptual and textural ways.”

Switch is also an artist-led initiative in the area (s-w-i-t-c-h.org/archive). Organised by Triona Ryan and Harald Turek in partnership with the Arts Office, it places film, lens based work and the moving image in a public context. 45 artists from 14 countries have been shown in vacant retail spaces in Nenagh town since 2008. A back-projected technique was used to show video and moving image works as part of this initiative, providing an accessible alternative viewing platform for visual art. The 2014 event included a three-day masterclass with Helsinkibased Switch artist Santtu Koivu. The 2015 event is planned for November.

These artist-led initiatives use alternative spaces and approaches to present artwork to a range of audiences and are successful in broadening dialogue around the work, particularly in rural contexts, by creatively utilising the resources available as a platform for the arts. While this is just a glimpse into some of the events taking place in Tipperary, I hope it gives a flavour of the vibrancy of the work being presented across the county with artists centre stage, leading, collaborating and participating. The broad infrastructure for the arts in the county supports this work, with galleries, arts centres and festivals providing platforms and venues for presenting the visual arts.

Melanie Scott, County Arts Officer.

Note 1. The artists featured in OAK2 were: Michael Canning, Michael Warren, Eileen Mac Donagh, Daphne Wright, Marie Foley , Niall O’Neill, Sonja Landweer, Margaret Tuffy, Cecilia Bullo, Cecilia Moore, Bob Frazier, Martin Lyttle, Tom Fitzgerald, David Fitzjohn ( Wales ), Michael Fortune, Rachel Parry, Aoife Banville and Holger Lang (Austria).

‘Sounding Lines’ , photo by Maree Hensey and Claire Halpin

Debbie Guinnane, site-specific performance, Her, Subject, to Ellipse, 2014 , elliptical exercise machine, wet sculpting clay, milk, and honey

During 2015 the visual art programme at Source Arts Centre in Thurles will explore the links between sport and art. The project has been made possible through an Arts Council of Ireland Curator in Residence Award, and is developed in partnership Tipperary County Council, North Tipperary Sports Partnership and the Source Arts Centre. As a freelance curator and collaborator it’s not too often that you see a call out along the lines of ‘Curator Wanted’, never mind opportunities that are located in Munster and based in a contemporary arts centre.

Through two main exhibitions and a linked programme of events the curatorial residency looks at human effort and how this is reflected in contemporary art. Working under the title ‘endurance | resilience’ the visual art programme aims to examine how and why individuals and communities get involved in regular physical activity and training, from endurance sports and Fit4Life groups through to weekly GAA training. What is it that drives people to put on technical gear and head out for training on a wet, dark Thursday night? In many ways human effort can act as a metaphor for social resilience and surviving times of economic or personal uncertainty. For some the effort of being able to get out of bed in the morning can be as much of an achievement as training for a ‘Couch to 5K’ run or an ultra marathon.

The exhibition aims to explore public participation in regular sports training and physical activity through the eyes of contemporary artists.

During 2015 we’re looking forward to working with artists and linking with a number of sports in the gallery, including climbing, long distance open water swimming, the routine and rigor of gym workouts and endeavour through athletics. These explorations of human physical endeavour become the artist’s focus and are tested through a number of mediums including installation work, interactive multi-media, performance, drawing, photography and artists’ films.

The first exhibition in the residency kicks off in May and features Dan Shipsides, Roisín Lewis, Debbie Guinnane and Justin McKeown. The exhibition is titled ‘Fitter, Happier, More Productive’, based on the lyrics from the 1997 Radiohead album Ok Computer. The lyrics in the song are a cross-examination of the pressures and strains of surviving a week of commuting to work and the resultant time poverty.

The exhibition includes the installation of a functional climbing wall made from repurposed school desks; drawings based on long distance, open water swimming; performance work using familiar gym

equipment; and interactive artworks activated by public participation in the gallery.

In May the residency will host an event as part of the Bealtaine Festival, where local active retirement groups are invited to Source for a guided tour of the first exhibition along with a special screening of Deep End Dance, a short film shot above and under water, featuring 81-year-old Madge Bolger and her choreographer son David.

In September the second exhibition will feature artists Roddy Buchanan and Fergus Byrne. As well as making use of the gallery, the residency is also developing an off-site screening in Thurles, linked to the Switch outdoor video art project led by artists Triona Ryan and Harald Turek. In Autumn this strand of the residency will include screenings of artists’ films connected to sport, endurance and resilience in a number of locations, and we’re interested in hearing from artists who may have works to add to the programme. We are also working with other visual art organisations in Tipperary to explore the potential for a short series of professional development events.

The gallery at Source Arts Centre is trapezoid in shape and forms part of the award-winning building compromising the Arts Centre and the Thurles Library next door. Since the start of the curatorial residency all the gallery walls have been sanded down, re-filled and completely repainted, leaving the space much improved for artists and inviting for visitors.

Another key element of the residency is the development of public engagement. Thurles is the birthplace of the Irish Gaelic Athletic Association, founded in 1884. Within one block of the Source Arts Centre is the local GAA Museum, while Thurles Leisure Centre shares the same site as the Arts Centre. Taking the familiar subject of sport as a starting point, the residency aims to explore wideranging views around social change. This process involves the curator donning training gear, meeting with walking groups and local athletics clubs, and finding welcoming ways of inviting local audiences to come and engage with the sport and art.

Annette Moloney is a socially-engaged curator and collaborator based in Limerick. Her art practice includes exhibitions, critical writing, talks, professional development and mentoring as well as public art projects. She is a proud member of the Munster Rugby Supporters’ Club. curated@sourcearts.ie thesourceartscentre.ie

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

South Tipperary Arts Centre Established in 1996, the South Tipperary Arts Centre, Clonmel has been the main arts provider for the region, serving a population of around 100,000.

We programme a mixture of high quality arts and cultural events, including visual arts, performing arts, music and literature by local and national artists and performers, utilising both our gallery space and our upstairs studio. We recognise that our arts centre is for the whole community in Tipperary and our motto is ‘art for all’.

We run approximately 12 visual arts exhibitions each year as well as Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter education programmes, and arts and culture workshops for adults and children. This year’s programme features a very exciting mix of visual artists. We will have exhibitions by Tony O’Connor, Belfast artists David Sweet and Emma Colbert, and a film and installation by conceptual artist Stephen Sheehan.

However, due to financial constraints, the Centre can only go so far in providing for the needs of the community. With an outreach officer and a music officer we would be able to re-establish a host of community projects including art and craft classes, photographic workshops and competitions, as well as music and mural projects for the wider community in South Tipperary.

We now rely on the CE Scheme for all our staff, including our new manager, with additional help from volunteers needed to manage the Centre. In the past we have received funding from the Arts Council, Tipperary South Riding County Council, FÁS and Clonmel Borough Council (Clonmel Corporation), for which we are very grateful. However, now that South and North Tipperary have merged into one county there is no longer a Borough Council in Clonmel, so any funds available must be shared with all the relevant bodies around the whole county, making it very difficult to get any necessary funding at all.

To overcome the lack of funding for essentials such as marketing, we have really focused on social media. We create content that is informative, visual and engaging, increasing awareness amongst our followers regarding schedules, upcoming events, workshops, etc.

Over the course of the past two years events at the STAC have been featured in the Clonmel Nationalist, South Tipp Today and Tipp FM. We have been featured twice on the Irish TV programme Tipp County Matters.

Our workshops and exhibitions have included professional, amateur and community artists,

South Tipperary Arts Centre gallery space

covering visual art, craft and music for both adults and children. In 2013 the equine exhibition and workshops, led by award-winning professional artist Tony O’Connor, proved a huge success, with the exhibition completely selling out. O’Connor is once again holding an exhibition in the centre, which opens on 9 April 2015. Based in Cork, O’Connor studied Fine Art at Crawford College and was awarded a Higher Diploma in Art Education. He has also won awards in Ex Arte Equinus International Art Competition and was judged Best Creative Equestrian in 2013 and 2014.

O’Connor’s success in creating such natural and refined paintings brings to mind the classical images associated with the great masters. The depth of his professional knowledge illustrates his deep love of his craft and absolute passion for the equine form. It is with much delight that we welcome Tony’s exhibition to the Centre, as South Tipperary is synonymous with all things equine.

“With a disciplined approach in his study of horse anatomy, Tony puts a great emphasis on technical execution. As with much of his work the void of background and simplicity of the pieces serve to highlight the natural physical perfection of these animals. The horse and the beauty of its majestic form and spirit are the basis of his canvas.

The result of his inimitable combination of an innate aptitude for draughtsmanship and his lifelong passion for horses is a body of beautifully evocative paintings that capture the unique power, grace and nobility of the equine form. Anyone who appreciates classical elegance cannot but be drawn in.” 1 In August we have a very exciting portrait exhibition by international professional artist Claire Lamb, who will paint portraits of locals from her two home towns of Clonmel, Co. Tipperary and Woodstock, New York. Lamb – a multidisciplinary artist, writer, educator and theatre designer – is part of Clonmel’s diaspora and is returning to Clonmel with this series of portraits entitled ‘Hometowns’ to be exhibited at the Centre from 4 – 29 August. This forms part of a project in which Claire has been painting portraits from her local area in New York.

The project will culminate in the STAC exhibition featuring portraits of people from South Tipperary.

Emoke Sweetman, Manager and Maureen Purcell, Voluntary Artistic Director, South Tipperary Arts Centre. facebook.com/SouthTipperaryArtsCentre southtippartscentre.ie Note 1. whitetreestudio.ie

May – June 2015

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

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REsidency

Sustained Engagement VAI PROFILES PARITY STUDIOS, THE ARTISTS’ RESIDENCY PROGRAMME AT THE SCHOOL OF PHYSICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN.

Installation view of LOUD SILENCE, an exhibition by Emma Finucane and cognitive scientist Fred Cummins at UCD College of Science

Art and Science collaborations have been a hot topic for some time.

Even a cursory glance at the relevant critical literature throws up an array of provocative issues. The promotional blurb for Stephen Wilson’s Art and Science Now asserts that “some of the world’s most dynamic art is being produced not in museums, galleries and studios but in the laboratory”. While Sian Ede’s Art and Science is introduced in terms of how “scientists weave incredible stories, invent wild hypotheses and ask difficult questions about the meaning of life … contemporary scientists frequently talk about ‘beauty’ and ‘elegance’; artists hardly ever do”.

So, with a buzzing mind, I recently met with artist Emer O Boyle and Associate Professor of Astronomy at UCD Lorraine Hanlon, co-founders of the artists’ residencies in the College of Science.1 Founded in 2012 the residency offers a stipend of €5000, studio space, monthly ‘crits’, full access to UCD researchers and other departments, courses and campus facilities.2 The programme includes public exhibitions, talks and performances.3 The selection panel for the residencies changes each year and always includes two external art world professionals, critics, curators and artists. The next call out for residencies, commencing February 2016, will be in October of this year and will be announced via the VAI website, e-bulletin and VAN. The programme’s warm and spacious workspaces, aptly dubbed Parity Studios, are situated in the School of Physics, part of the old UCD science building. The décor in this space is a retro-fantastic hymn to mid twentieth century aesthetics: exposed concrete, contrasting wood panelling and a preponderance of mustard yellow and burnt orange colour schemes. The studios are flooded with natural light and retain the original solid oak laboratory benches along with other intriguing vestiges of their former uses: all manner of redundant switchboards, junction boxes and other mysterious technical fittings.

My visit began with O Boyle giving me a walk-through Parity Studios, while outlining the origins of the programme. Back in 2009, a friend working at the university told O Boyle about an opportunity to design scientific posters for the corridors of the School of Physics. O Boyle submitted an alternative proposal and was lucky enough to get the commission. In the course of working on the project she formed a close working bond with Lorraine Hanlon, Associate Professor of Astronomy, who was also at that time Head of the School of Physics.

As O Boyle put it, this first project was rooted in the “human experience of physics research” and revealed “an appetite for more

collaborations”.4 Hanlon and O Boyle, alongside Professor Philip Napier, Head of Fine Art and Sculpture at NCAD, went on to develop a collaborative undergraduate project, titled ‘Tunnelling Art and Science’.

As O Boyle further explained, after running this project for a couple of years, “it became clear that the wide range of subject matter looked at by science – and its ‘embededness’ in all aspects of society – made it obvious that we really could benefit from having collaborations at professional as well as student level”.

Following the tour, O Boyle, Professor Hanlon and myself conversed further about the residency and considered parallels between contemporary art and science. Hanlon elaborated on the origins of the programme: “We didn’t really know how things might evolve. We got the funding for the 2012 pilot residency from the College of Science, but we had to negotiate hurdles such as how we are going to pay people, HR etc. Having seen the success of the undergraduate module and the first year of residencies, Professor Joe Carthy, College Principal and Dean of Science at UCD gave a 10-year commitment to the development of the programme.

I was curious about what had ‘sold’ the idea to the institution.

Hanlon explained: “The Principle saw it as a really powerful means of communication – a means to widen understanding of science amongst the public and artistic community, and to widen the modus operandi of scientists”. Hanlon also emphasised that while the department’s new home and facilities are an impressive ‘temple of science’ “without some kind of grass roots engagement with the most important constituent, the people, it’s kind of hollow. When the principle saw how the artists were talking and working with scientists, he could see the potential. As Professor Carthy stated: “We don’t really understand where it might go, but there’s a feeling that it might be very profound”.

Impressively, the residency’s scope extends well beyond its base in the College of Science. Currently, Michael McLoughlin is working with the College of Social Sciences and Dominic Thorpe is linked with Arts and Humanities. During her 2012 – 2013 residency Emma Finucane developed a project with the School of Nursing and Midwifery. Parity Studios also includes a space, dubbed the ‘decompression chamber’, a facility set aside for artists returning to follow up on connections forged during their time on the programme. O Boyle explained that the “thinking behind having a year-long residency was to encourage conditions for sustained engagement”. For example, Siobhan McDonald, a participant in the 2012 – 2013 pilot residency, has recently been

commissioned to continue a piece of work in the School of Biology and Environmental Science.

Hanlon and O Boyle emphasised the importance of monthly ‘crits’ held in the course of the residency. O Boyle explained: “I picked up on something from a VAI article, back when I was setting up the residency, about how artists in universities can often feel isolated. While we all share the same space, without the crits there wouldn’t be an opportunity to share challenges and experiences, who you’ve been speaking to etc.”

For Maria McKinney, a participant on the current programme, “what makes this residency quite unique is the access to specialised processes, such as high end 3D scanning or nano-imaging. The people who are in charge of this equipment can tell you pretty much anything you might what to know about it”.5 Sophie Loscher, a 2013 – 2014 resident, likewise experienced “incredible access to experts in spectroscopy, solar cell technology, nanoscale magnetism and optics”, and described the scientists at UCD as “accommodating with their time and knowledge”.

O Boyle sees the residency as an open space for exchange: “In order to have meaningful conversations with people from other disciplines, scientists and artists have to drop some of their specialised languages.

There is a freedom in the fact that it is a practice-based programme; it is not academic.” Fundamentally, for O Boyle, “bringing artists and scientists together to engage in this creative process allows for conversations to take place that ordinarily wouldn’t”. O Boyle made the point that “people aren’t aware of just how much making is involved in science, particularly physics. And there’s a relationship between the studio and the laboratory in terms of bridging the gap between theory and practice, failure and experimentation”.

Current resident Fiona Marron valued the opportunities offered by the residency so that she could “move between different areas of specialisation and see the crossovers”. She continued: “One train of thought can be followed up with other experts working in a connected field within a matter of days.” As Emma Finucane, speaking of her time on the 2012 – 2013 programme, put it: “It’s an opportunity to ask questions and listen to different perspectives – a space to talk, listen, learn, reflect and collaborate”.

Siobhan McDonald described her experience of the residency as “one of wonderment in a world of endless possibilities and encouragement”. Méadhbh O’Connor stressed that “artists and scientists are not so different to one another. Curiosity is what binds us. The conversation never dries up,” and how the programme facilitates exchanges of knowledge “free from predetermined expectations – a great privilege in an age that sees increasing pressures placed on society to embark on activities with clear and calculable economic results”.

To close our conversation, I asked O Boyle and Hanlon about future plans for the Parity Studios programme. O Boyle remarked: “There’s a lot of enthusiasm internationally, when I meet artists and scientists, when I talk about how open our project is, and we’ve seen increasing numbers of international applications.” Hanlon added: “We’ve looked at other programmes and there are possibilities for linking with some fantastic programmes in the US. If we could, we’d love to have more international links and artists, and find some way of accommodating an international artist to be here. But it’s really a matter of looking at how we can expand now. We are treading gently, not jumping into anything”.

Jason Oakley, Publications Manager, Visual Artists Ireland.

Notes 1. See ucdartinscience.com for details of the UCD Art in Science programme, including an archive of past projects 2. The artists who have participated in the College of Science residency to date are: (2014 – 2015) Fiona Marron, Vanessa Daws, Maria Mckinney; (2013 – 2014) Cindy Cummings, David Stalling, Sofie Loscher; (2012 – 2013) Meadhbh O’Connor, Emma Finucane, Siobhan Mcdonald, Mark Cullen. Parity Studios artists in residence have engaged with scientists in the areas of neuroscience, cognitive science, marine biology, plant biology, geophysics, paleobotany, advanced optical imaging, spectroscopy and astronomy: Dominic Thorpe (2014 – 2015), College of Humanities and Michael McLoughlin (2015 – 2016), College of Social Sciences 3. Curated by Sheena Barrett and Emer O Boyle, the recent show ‘Welcome Disturbances’ at the Lab, Dublin (30 January – 11 April) brought together work by Mark Cullen, Emma Finucane, Cindy Cummings, Sofie Loscher, Siobhán McDonald, Meadhbh O’Connor and David Stalling. A series of public talks, integral to the exhibition programme, focused on the following topics: Commissioning and Curating at the Intersection of Art and Science; Shifting Ground, Changing Roles – Collaborations and Perspectives; The Ground from which we Speak; Pathways Towards Sustainability; A Collective Conversation; Pathways to New Perspectives 4. ucdartinscience.com 5. All comments from artists are derived from email correspondence with the writer

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

profile

Activating Art Writing NATHAN O’DONNELL AND MARYSIA WIECKIEWICZ-CARROLL, EDITORS OF PAPER VISUAL ART JOURNAL, REFLECT ON THEIR CRITICAL WRITING WORKSHOPS.

PVA Art Writing Workshop at CCA Derry-Londonderry, Session #1, Saturday 7 February 2015, with guest writer Rebecca O’Dwyer. photo courtesy of CCA Derry-Londonderry

Who reads art criticism? The question is important, even if it has been asked many times. Who is art criticism for? Is it for a circle of art-world peers or the general public? You are reading the Visual Artists’ News Sheet, for instance. One can assume you are a reader of art criticism. But which are you, an expert or a layman? If you find that an uncomfortable dichotomy then you’re not alone.

In a masterly 2006 study, Stefan Collini undertakes a rigorous dissection of such simple binarisms.1 What he finds is a much more complex and stratified picture of readerships in the twenty-first century.

The truth is that no individual is straightforwardly either an ‘expert’ reader or a member of that dangerous phantom category, the ‘general public’. Most of us are, happily, something in between. And many of us are interested in art. Surely many more of us would be interested in reading about art, too, if it were known that there are journals out there for the purpose, publishing writers who neither patronise nor ignore their readers. Unfortunately the impression seems widespread (whether justified or not) that contemporary art writing has a tendency to do both.

Founded by Niamh Dunphy and Adrian Duncan in 2009, Paper Visual Art Journal (PVA) – a mainly online journal of contemporary art criticism – strives to publish work that counters this impression. It does so through what Duncan has described as ‘activating’ visual art writing – a process enabled by an ethos of thoroughgoing editorial engagement.2 Over time, the journal has developed working relationships with a number of excellent writers whose writing activates a curiosity in its readers, using language expressively and compassionately to engage with exhibitions and artworks, and to reflect on broader topics pertaining to the visual arts.

Naturally, given the journal’s base in the capital, much of this writing, as well as much of the work reviewed, has tended to be Dublinbased. In fact, extending coverage outside the capital has proven to be one of the journal’s major editorial challenges. To meet this challenge, PVA has delivered a number of city-specific projects (in 2012 and 2013), including the publication of tailored hard-copy journals for Limerick and Cork – as well as Dublin – in collaboration with local artists and writers.

Since joining PVA as editors in the spring of last year, we have been continuing the process, looking for new, distinct voices from across the

country that can respond to works of art in attentive, activating ways.

One of our primary goals is to establish a network of writers nationwide to ensure regular coverage of exhibitions taking place outside Dublin.

This year, with support from the Arts Council, we plan to publish our first hard-copy issue since 2013. Ancillary to this, we set out a programme of workshops in five venues across the country with which we’d had little previous engagement – CCA Derry-Londonderry, Galway Arts Centre, VISUAL Carlow, Wexford Arts Centre, and the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda – selected on the basis of their ambitious exhibitions and educational programmes. In collaboration with these centres, we developed a programme to engage new writers, identify new readers, and explore general impressions about the current landscape of artcritical writing.

The first set of workshops took place over an eight-week period between February and March of this year. From the outset, we envisioned the workshops as practical sessions with a major emphasis on actual writing. With groups in Derry, Carlow and Galway, we read articles and reviews, looked at artworks and led creative writing exercises. But a lot of the time we also found ourselves facilitating discussions about existing platforms for critical writing or the lack thereof, as well as audiences, coverage and the issue of judgement. The many writers, artists and arts professionals who took part were united in their desire to explore the numerous facets of art criticism. We were overwhelmed by the variety of discussions and by the extraordinarily fruitful writing that came out of it.

In keeping with our editorial ethos, discussions were grounded in considerations of language – its use and misuse. One of the key texts we discussed was George Orwell’s 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, in which Orwell argues for clarity of language and clarity of thought, not just as literary devices, but as strategies for the resistance of insidious political ideologies.3 This argument resonated across the groups, leading to some particularly heated and engaged conversations about commitment and ethics, and of course, given the context, about ‘International Art English’.4 Participants were unsurprisingly unanimous in criticising the latter. Some of those who attended had writing experience, some had published reviews, but most seemed to feel as if the profession of art writing was guilty of alienating readers, broadcasting theoretical communiqués in indecipherable jargonistic pseudo-prose.

Now, that this kind of jargon-heavy, overladen, obfuscatory writing presents a problem that hardly needs reiterating. But the fact is that it represents an increasingly vilified and marginalised position within a much broader critical scene. There are many journals and magazines out there – PVA and the Visual Artists’ News Sheet (VAN) being only two among them – aiming to publish clear, engaged writing about art, supported by careful editorial interaction. PVA and the VAN are now part of an increasingly varied ecosystem of art writing, encompassing outlets like Collected, Enclave Review, Critical Bastards, Shower of Kunst – as well as other publications with art-critical content like Gorse, Colony and The Dublin Review.

Unfortunately the impression we got was that many of the writers who attended our workshops were not reading much of this wealth of art-critical writing. Any number of reasons could be suggested to explain this: on the one hand, it is undeniable that the phenomenon of International Art English has bequeathed an aura of exclusivity to the entire field of art writing. But on the other hand, surely some blame must also be laid with that easy habit of journalistic short-hand that decries ‘art-speak’ on all fronts, setting up a dichotomy between ‘difficult’ writing addressed only to specialists and the ‘plain speaking’ that, it’s implied, is all the ‘general public’ can understand. On the contrary, what the various writing outlets and publications prove in disparate ways is that art writing doesn’t need to be over-simplified to be understood. Good writing – about art or about anything – can be clear about difficult concepts. However, if potential art writers are unaware of these platforms, if they are for whatever complex of reasons deterred from reading art criticism, that’s a real problem.

After all, how can writers be expected to write for publications they don’t read? As the workshops proceeded, this quandary became a central concern. How do we build readerships? How do we reach audiences? How do we amplify? These questions far outstrip the editorial concerns of a single magazine. PVA can be part of an infrastructure that operates across regions – but only a part. The question is: how do we build this infrastructure?

As these workshops demonstrated to us very plainly, there are plenty of writers out there with an appetite for engaging with the visual arts, but a demonstrable shortfall in terms of readership. Participants were producing work in a wide variety of styles: personal, polemical, poetic and experimental. PVA on its own would not be able to accommodate the half of what was produced. But we were able to highlight the variety of platforms and outlets that do accept submissions, both in Ireland and internationally, and encourage writers to create work with an aim to publish. But if even these evidently interested parties are unaware of the multitude of platforms out there, it is obvious more must be done. An infrastructure is required, as well as a means of amplification, of reaching readers and of demonstrating the value of writing about art to readers whose default position is one of scepticism.

PVA’s workshop programme – which will continue in the autumn with workshops planned in Wexford and Drogheda – is but one exploratory strand of a much bigger project.

Nathan O’Donnell and Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll are the Dublin-based editors of Paper Visual Art – a mainly online journal of art criticism, established in 2009 by Niamh Dunphy and Adrian Duncan in response to a lack of serious critical writing about the visual arts in Ireland. Now based between Dublin and Berlin, PVA aims to create a forum for the publication of engaged, clear, accessible writing on art topics. papervisualart.com Notes 1. Stefan Collini, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Oxford University Press, 2006. His focus is specific to Britain, but his analysis of readerships is equally pertinent in an Irish context 2. Adrian Duncan, ‘A Proposal for Activation in Visual Art Writing’, Paper Visual Art, December 2011, papervisualart.com 3. See George Orwell, ‘Politics and the English Language’. 1946, in Inside the Whale and Other Essays, Penguin, London, 1962 4. This phrase, referring to the peculiar linguistic permutations of visual art press releases (and in particular those circulated by e-flux) was coined in 2012 and has since become a piece of common pejorative shorthand. See David Levine and Alix Rule, International Art English canopycanopycanopy. com/contents/international_art_english

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

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how is it made? goes back for millennia. The Jutes Hengis and Horsa brought the white horse emblazon to Kent in the seventh century. Ebbsfleet is where the cement industry started in Britain, at the point where the chalk of the North Downs peters out into the Thames – the same downs that host the Epsom Derby.

Installation view, ‘Horse’ , Void, Derry, 21 February – 18 April 2015, photo by Paola Bernardelli

Watching Liquid Run MAOLÍOSA BOYLE AND MARK WALLINGER DISCUSS ‘HORSE’ (VOID, DERRY 21 FEBRUARY – 18 APRIL).

The concept for the exhibition ‘Horse’ (21 February – 18 April 2015) came about during Mark Wallinger’s 2013 Void show ‘One’, curated by Elaine Forde (10 September – 25 October 2013). During this time, myself and Wallinger spent an evening with his friend Juliette Cooper, a horse trainer / breeder. Over dinner I was introduced to the equine world: the rules surrounding horse naming, the design and colour of the jockey silks and the significance of lineage. I was completely captivated and the idea for the exhibition was born.

I’ve always had an interest in horses, having started horse riding at an early age. Wallinger has a life long fascination with horses – one that crosses his passion with his practice. ‘Horse’, the exhibition we curated together, explored the representation and role of the horse in contemporary society, considering its profound relationship to man through countless generations.

Featuring 28 artists, ‘Horse’ combined work from invited artists, historical collections and an open submission call. The exhibition featured a wide range of themes such as the suffragette movement, the traveller tradition and horse identification through myriad mediums including film, photography, sculpture and painting.

Maolíosa Boyle, Director, Void, Derry Maolíosa Boyle: Where did your love of horses come from?

Mark Wallinger: It is one of those passions that happen at such an early age one can only figure out why later in life. I remember running home from infants’ school to see Arkle win the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup. So I was maybe six years old. I have always loved horses and racing and find them extraordinarily beautiful. Lester Piggott was a hero and the relationship of jockey to horse has magic for me as well. When Piggott was on a great horse like Nijinsky in the 1970 King George, it was as if the horse made its own serene progress to the winning post. I have a video of Piggott in slow motion, which demonstrates his otherworldly balance on a horse at full gallop – he is absolutely still.

MB: Didn’t you describe watching Arkle race as “like watching liquid run”? What is it about horses that fascinate you – aesthetics, representation or both?

MW: In fact that was Frankel in the pre-parade ring at Ascot. I’ve never seen a creature move so fluently – it was like water finding its course.

It’s aesthetics and something almost transcendental. Anyone who wonders what the thrill of racing is about should Youtube the Queen Anne Stakes 2012.

Installation view, ‘Horse’ , Void, Derry, 21 February – 18 April 2015, photo by Paola Bernardelli

MB: When did the horse first inform your practice?

MW: For many years I kept the horse and racing as my passion and hobby, but as an artist of course it had to become part of my practice. I wanted to examine and go deeper into this fascination. The racing world is just that – a world within a world. There is an order, a discipline and an aesthetic that is rich and sustaining.

MB: Ireland has very strong connections with the horse racing world and indeed a long history with horses. Do you think it’s important that the exhibition was rooted in Ireland?

MW: I think that the relationship is special. Ireland is a big lush green island with a rural culture in which the horse has always played a part.

Vincent O’Brien, perhaps the greatest trainer there has been, helped create what is now a global domination of the sport.

MB: Your fascination with horses is clear. Are there particular themes within the exhibition that interest you? Did the open submission nature of the exhibition and the context of place and country offer any new or varying insights to you?

MW: I think it was a further realisation of how rich the heritage is in Ireland. There were great works about the traveller community and horse fairs. But also evident was a fond and often surreal attachment to the species. It was a great and unpredictable element of the show.

MB: In terms of representation and symbolism, does the horse differ between Ireland and Britain? I had in mind your public artwork ‘White Horse’ at Ebbsfleet.

MW: I think White Horse is symbolic of England beyond all else. There is a resonant history of white horses created on chalky down land that

MB: The Darley Arabian – the progenitor of most thoroughbred horses – features quite a bit within your own work and also as a starting point for ‘Horse’. Indeed the colour that we chose for the wall that the Stubbs hangs on is Godolphin Blue – the racing colours of Sheikh Mohammad – named after another thoroughbred progenitor Godolphin. Why were Darley Arabian and Godolphin important within your work?

MW: I think the initial impetus that drove me to start making work about the horse was the fact that Sheikh Mohammad had started such a huge bloodstock and racing operation, which cited the progenitors of the breed. He named his stud farm in Newmarket Darley and his racing operation Godolphin. I found this kind of fascinating. It was like a kind of post-colonial redemptive exercise.

At the same time he had created a race turf race track in the desert of Dubai which now attracts the top thoroughbreds from around the world. So the initial work I made about racing was the four life size portraits of horses that stood at the Darley Stud.

The Godolphin Turk and the Darley Arabian were imported to England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 95% of all racehorses are directly descended from the Darley Arabian, which was bought in Aleppo, Syria, by Thomas Darley in 1704 and shipped back to Aldby Park in England as a present for his brother.

MB: Your work Royal Ascot featured in the show at Void and has received many comments from visitors that ‘God Save the Queen’ echoed around the space. This work is incredibly tongue in cheek in its commentary on the Royal Family and its pompous rituals so separate from reality. How do you feel about presenting this work in Derry given the history of this place?

MW: Royal Ascot is a sort of exemplar of how the establishment works in Britain. And in a way it glories in the spectacle that is the sensual, tangible result. Only this weird obeisance and decorum could result in the spectacle of people dressed to the nines, with name-tags attached, cheering at monarchs of an elected democracy. There was a kind of credulous innocence with which the BBC dealt with this and I had noted not only the precise timing of the daily procession’s progress, but also the consistency of the TV coverage – the same cuts to different cameras replicated to a split second each day.

MB: Horse racing has been called the sport of kings, yet much of your practice has had a strong social connection with marginalised people and communities. Do these aspects of your work connect at all or is that important?

MW: In the past I have explored how the racing world exaggerates class divisions in that there really is no middle class. A man enters the room and the toff says ‘you can’t come in here’ and the oik doffs his cap with a ‘sorry sir’ as he backs out of the room.

I used to bet on the horses every day, which was neither healthy nor profitable. But even the smallest town has three constants: a pub, a charity shop and a bookmaker – probably not a sign of prosperity or spiritual wellbeing. Going from apprentice to fully-fledged jockey is akin to a similar process in boxing and similarly is quite often a route out of poverty. At the same time there are racing dynasties and lord knows it’s no accident that the royals and the aristocracy are obsessed with breeding.

MB: You had an exhibition at Void in 2013 when the idea of the ‘Horse’ show was first thought up. What interested you in continuing this relationship with the city and indeed Void for another project?

MW: I had the time of my life in Derry. Working with everyone at Void was a real joy. It has been an enormous pleasure to work with you in making the exhibition and hope we can make another show together before too long.

I want to continue my relationship with Derry. I came back for the Turner Prize last year and was deeply disappointed that the space in the barracks was not retained as a gallery in perpetuity. This should have been the legacy after the year of culture.

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Profile

Let’s Get Verbal EMER LYNCH AND TRACY HANNA DISCUSS ‘FOAMING AT THE MOUTH’, A SERIES OF SPOKEN WORD EVENTS PRESENTING TEXT-BASED ARTWORKS.

Tracy Hanna and Emer Lynch

Crowd attending FATM 1 (18 June 2014, Stag’s Head, Dublin)

Foaming at the Mouth, through a focus on orality, supports the production, presentation and reception of text-based visual art. The first event in this series of four spoken-word evenings took place in June 2014 in the basement of one of Dublin’s landmark Victorian pubs, the Stag’s Head.1 The participants involved in the monthly evenings embraced the opportunity to deliver words live to an audience. With a maximum capacity of approximately 100 people, Foaming at the Mouth packed audiences into the pub’s humid basement, increasing in numbers with every event.

Those who participated in Foaming at the Mouth were mostly from a visual art background: artists, curators and writers. We started to think about doing this project early in 2014 and, following a number of conversations, came to conclusion that Foaming at the Mouth wouldn’t work in an institutional context.

Working as an artist and curator, we initially thought about the parameters of the gallery setting, particularly in relation to the presentation of artists’ readings. We wanted to try setting up a situation that enabled an expanded mode of presentation. A lot of thought was placed on the attitudes and expectations of visitors / viewers towards attending an art performance, specifically how these might be informed by knowing things in advance: place, architecture, knowledge of the person speaking, how the organisers framed events, atmosphere etc.

The contributors to Foaming at the Mouth weren’t tied to the expectations associated with an institutional setting. The work by each contributor was experienced / considered / engaged with by an audience that was excited and very willing to enter into it within the sociable atmosphere of the Stag’s Head pub. It’s difficult to establish this type of atmosphere in an exhibition space. A number of elements came into play in setting this situation up: the heat generated in the basement; the earnestness of the crammed audience trying to see and listen; the pub’s appropriateness as a place to enjoy humour; the mix of people of different ages and backgrounds coming together to enjoy something together and to support each other. Behind the microphone, a space opened up where vulnerability and experimentation were absolutley permitted.

We were interested in working with people whose practices included exciting connections to language. Whether or not those connections were latent or prevalent in their previous work wasn’t important. We had a lot of confidence in those we had invited to be part of Foaming at the Mouth, and we wanted to facilitate and nurture their ideas in whatever way possible. We were excited by what people were proposing, and it really seemed as if the events were a testing ground for these artists and practitioners to try out new stuff.

Lee Welch performing at FATM 4 (3 September 2014, Stags Head, Dublin)

It was a deliberate choice to keep all public communications and supporting information to a bare minimum. We didn’t want to give the act away before the audience got there. Our desire was for the events to be approached with excitement and suspense. Each Foaming at the Mouth event comprised eight to ten separate contributions, each featuring original or appropriated text works using combinations of verbal, visual and tactile elements. A small selection of the presentations given during the series included: a reading by Caroline Doolin from her fictional video script Of oil and origin; a research narrative told by Jessica Foley from a hand-held visual book she compiled; a poem by Matt Packer (performed by comedian Ronan Grace); an excerpt by Eleanor Flegg from her speculative sci-fi novel about a real ceramic pot made by potter Jack Doherty (the pot was with her while performing); an ‘erasure poem’ by Sue Rainsford performed with ink-written pages and water; and multiple text messages sent by Clare Breen to the audience via SMS. We sought to invite both established and emerging practitioners to be part of the project. Via meetings, email and Skype correspondence, we had conversations with everyone about their ideas and gave advice (if wanted) as to what might work best in terms of performance, delivery and execution. The information we gathered before each night helped us to curate the line-ups and to consider how the tone and pace of each evening would be constructed. We were also interested in seeing what people who didn’t have a visual art, or even literary, background would do with words in the format. We invited people like Paul McGee, a video gamer who creates interactive narratives, to be part of the project. Participants like Paul, who have creative experience outside of the visual art field, widened the spectrum of the project, and hopefully pushed its ‘testing ground’ potential.

The few parameters that we gave to the participants included a performance time limit of between one and ten minutes. There also needed to be a live element and a spoken element. Sometimes these remits were stretched a little bit, but we were enthusiastic about working with contributors on changing the status quo if it was necessary for the piece and embodied a response to the context of Foaming at the Mouth. As the series developed over the summer of 2014, form became an important consideration. Participants who had attended previous Foaming at the Mouth events as audience members were able to feed that experience and their observations into developing a piece themselves. A lot of the contributors thought about form in this way – considering how their words might be received by the audience.

This was a particularly strong aesthetic component that contributed heavily to Foaming at the Mouth being ‘visual’ (art) spoken word.

Foaming at the Mouth will resume in summer 2015 with two further live evenings taking place in Dublin. We are also expanding the project to host one event in the Netherlands at an established storytelling venue called Mezrab in Amsterdam. In Dublin, the events will continue to be situated in a bar. The intimate nature of this type of venue has proven to engender a social, convivial atmosphere, which has so far nurtured a supportive testing ground for the project. Foaming at the Mouth has, to date, been an unfunded, independent project. Successful applications to Culture Ireland and to the Arts Council for their annual Project Award have provided us with welcome support as we organise the next iteration of the project. But the economic and geographical expansion brings with it fundamental challenges; essentially the task is to achieve similar planes of raw energy, spontaneity, richness and intelligence that Dublin audiences experienced in 2014.

Tracy Hanna is an artist and curator based in the Netherlands. She is currently studying on an MFA programme at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. She recently had a solo exhibtion in Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda (2014/15) entitled ‘Holes’. Her artwork has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in Ireland and Europe.

Emer Lynch is an independent curator based in Dublin. Recent projects include ‘He saw the world and was left wanting’, a solo exhibition by David Fagan at Siamsa Tíre in Tralee, April 2015, and ‘Fathom and Span’ at Broadcast Gallery, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin with Mary-Jo Gilligan and Achim Lengerer, June 2014. She holds an MA in Visual Arts Practices from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire and recently completed an internship with Project Arts Centre, Dublin as Assistant Curator of Visual Arts.

Note FATM 1, 18 June 2014. Niamh McCooey, Jim Ricks, Matt Packer, Sue Rainsford, Bridget O’Gorman, Jessica Foley, David Fagan, Sinead Hogan.

FATM 2, 16 July 2014. Clare Breen, Aleana Egan, Seán O Sullivan, Jonathan Mayhew, Caroline Doolin, Paul McGee, Shane McCarthy, Michael Holly, Daniel Tuomey and Oisín O’Brien.

FATM 3, 13 August 2014. Sam Keogh, Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty, Blaine O’Donnell, Suzanne Walsh, Lily Cahill and Rob Murphy, The Doctor and McCabe, Kevin Kirwan, Michelle Hall, Teresa Gillespie, Vaari Claffey.

FATM 4, 3 September 2014. James Ó hAodha, Joseph Noonan Ganley, Isabel Nolan, Eleanor Flegg, Lee Welch, Dennis McNulty, Garrett Phelan, Stéphane Béna Hanly, Fergal Gaynor, RGKSKSRG

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

17

profile discussion that can be really generative; we wanted to bring this to an Irish context.

‘Plastic Passion’ at IFI screening with view of Wilhelm Hein’s Material filme II, 1976

Christoph Schlingensief, The African Twintowers, 2005 – 2009, coutesy of Filmgalerie 451

Gibson + Recoder, Light Spill, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, photo by Brian Mac Domhnaill

Cory Arcangel, Arnold Schoenberg, op. 11 – Cute Kittens, 2009

Dialogue Between Spheres SARAH PIERCE INTERVIEWS THE CURATORS OF PLASTIK, AN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ARTISTS’ MOVING IMAGE HELD IN GALWAY (7 FEBRUARY, AN TAIBHDHEARC), CORK (13 – 15 FEBRUARY, CRAWFORD / TRISKEL) AND DUBLIN (20 – 22 FEBRUARY, IFI / TBG+S).

Sarah Pierce: How did Plastik come to be?

PLASTIK:1 Jenny Brady first got in touch with Ben Cook (Director of LUX) about the possibility of setting up a critical forum group in Dublin after attending a school led by Ian White at the LUX / ICA Biennial of Moving Images in 2012. Lux were interested and Cook visited Dublin in February 2013, in order to establish Critical Forum Dublin at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBG+S). It was based on a model that had been running in both London and Glasgow. The curatorial board responsible for putting PLASTIK together were all drawn from that first year of Critical Forum.

Maeve Connolly was also involved from a very early stage and helped put together a conceptual framework that would inform the festival. Our intention was to set up a dialogue between the spheres of film and visual art and to have that conversation take place in ways that we might not be used to here. Key to this relationship was creating a dialogue between the festival’s two main partners: the Irish Film Institute (IFI) and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBG+S).

The history of artists’ moving image practice, in terms of work produced, but also access to materials, is still relatively new here. Of course things are changing rapidly, but it was our hope that, by bringing these aspects into conversation through a festival, we could also consider the ways in which cinema can function as a site for the visual arts. We also wanted to begin to address issues around access, to create a context through which audiences throughout the country could start to access this work, the full spectrum of which we now refer to as ‘artists’ moving image’.

After some deliberation we settled on the name PLASTIK, for the way it evoked cinema’s more sculptural aspects, a gap between the material and the immaterial, aspects often brought to the fore through the engagement of visual artists with the medium.

SP: Can you elaborate on the process of programming a festival of this scale in terms of funding and logistics?

PLASTIK: The first time the possibility of the festival was floated publicly was at a public discussion at the IFI in March 2013, which addressed issues around artists’ moving image. It was a really passionate and productive session, attended by many people who had different levels of investment in these issues. It helped to identify some of the most pressing issues in this area, such as distribution / exhibition, the

need to increase access to and visibility of artists’ moving-image, but also archival issues and the challenges of creating a longer historical legacy for these kinds of works. Other aspects that came up were funding issues, education and training as well the need for a heightened level of critical engagement.

Some of these issues had already begun to be addressed through the emergence of things like the Critical Forum, but the feeling at the time was that a festival devoted to this area of practice, particularly a festival with a strong discursive aspect, could be a good first step in addressing these issues and making them visible. The festival immediately started to gain momentum after that meeting and we were lucky that from the outset we had a really clear idea of what we wanted from the festival and what we hoped it might achieve.

SP: The curatorial focus was on artist films, which are typically shown in gallery spaces, yet you chose to programme much of the festival in cinematic spaces. Why? PLASTIK: We were interested in exploring what the specifics of cinema could bring to a festival like this. We had ideas about how it might help to focus the discussion – having all these people in one place looking at the same thing. But we were also interested in the particular questions that the cinema setting might ask of these works. We were aware that this would not necessarily be the ideal condition for all of the works included in the programme and we were perfectly happy for that to be the case.

We were also interested in testing the limits of what we could do with the idea of the cinema, both in terms of the more performative gestures we saw at play in the works of Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder in Cork, but also through the variety of temporal experiences and kinds of attention the works demanded. The discourse around cinema within the visual arts has in the past been quite dismissive of cinema. The idea of an ‘expanded cinema’, for example, has always contained a kind of dissatisfaction and uneasiness with what cinema can be and do. Of course, some suspicion is healthy, but we were equally interested in what the specific constraints of cinema could offer works like these.

Finally, we were interested in a more traditional festival structure: the idea of a specific series of works and perspectives to be engaged with in succession. A structure like this presents the opportunity to have quite an intense experience with the works, curatorial propositions and

SP: Plastik took place across three cities: Cork, Galway and Dublin.

What differences did you notice in each place? Were there special considerations for programming?

PLASTIK: From the outset we wanted to reimagine the idea of what a touring programme might look like. In a discussion that helped kick off the Dublin leg of the festival, Isla Leaver Yap (LUX Scotland) spoke about the dangers of parachuting programmes into different locations, something we also aimed to avoid by building events from the ground up in each of the locations. In practice this meant independently curated programmes – in Cork by Aoife Desmond and in Galway by Megs Morley – but also in partnership with a whole range of local partners. It also meant expanding the festival beyond the limits of a screening programme. For example, the reading group Aoife and Sarah Lincoln ran in Cork in the weeks running up to the festival and a public discussion in Galway addressing their recent Unesco City of Film status and the impact this might have for artists’ films. These are elements that we don’t normally think about in relation to touring festivals.

SP: The talks programme was a big part of the events. What did you learn through these public moments? Why include a discursive element?

PLASTIK: At previous events Ben Cook and others had spoken about the historical place of artists’ moving image, an issue that is still being decided and debated in film and visual art contexts. We felt that the discursive aspects included in the programme were vital in situating ourselves in relation to these wider debates instead of just watching them from afar. The festival also remains grounded by its connection to the discursive nature of Critical Forum and the possibility of a more rigorous and critical engagement with these kinds of practices.

SP: What was it like to curate as a team?

PLASTIK: There was a process of getting to know each person involved with running the festival. We were aware of the fact that we each had distinct positions in relation to this area of practice and made a decision at the outset to incorporate these diverse perspectives within the festival structure – having a curatorial team rather than one single voice. But we also didn’t want to end up with a festival that felt like it was programmed by a committee. In practice this meant granting a large degree of autonomy to each of our invited curators. We also fought hard, individually, for those aspects of the programme that we were most passionate about. In the end this was visible not just in the overall shape of the festival but in those aspects that each of us fought to maintain.

SP: What’s next? Will the PLASTIK festival happen again?

PLASTIK: The response to the festival was really overwhelming, not only in terms of the sheer number of people involved, but also the degree and the quality of that engagement. It was also truly remarkable for example at 11am on the Sunday morning of the Dublin event to see many of the same faces that we had just left dancing at the Hannah Sawtell show at 2am the night before, all ready and willing to take on what turned out to be a marathon five and a half hour session with David Gatten.

There are still many questions that need to be addressed with regard to how we can continue to foster a productive environment and an audience for these kinds of practices. Ultimately, it was our hope that the PLASTIK festival would feed into this discussion in a very active way, and maybe even begin to address some of these issues and consider new possibilities. It is certainly our intention to continue to take part in these discussions and beyond that there is every likelihood that the festival will return in one shape or another.

Sarah Pierce is an artist based in Dublin. Jenny Brady is an artist working with the moving image to explore ideas around translation, communication and speech. Daniel Fitzpatrick is a film curator, writer and lecturer. Sibyl Montague is a visual artist currently based in Dublin. Fifi Smith is a visual artist and founder of the MExIndex.

Note 1. PLASTIK comprises Daniel Fitzpatrick, Jenny Brady, Sibyl Montague and Fifi Smith. The PLASTIK Festival was made possible through the generous support of the Arts Council

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

residency

Co-operative Enthusiasm PÁDRAIC E. MOORE SHARES HIS EXPERIENCE OF THE JAN VAN EYCK ACADEMY, “AN OPEN, MULTIFORM INSTITUTE FOR ACADEMIC TALENT DEVELOPMENT”.

‘The Girl With The Sun In Her Head’, work by Dario D’Aronco, Vanessa Hodgkinson, Niek Hendrix

The Van Eyck Academy

The Van Eyck Academy

The Van Eyck Academy is a ‘post-academic’ institute located in the city of Maastricht in the south of the Netherlands. Today the academy bears almost no resemblance to the organisation as it was when it was first founded in 1948. It was then established as a Catholic counterpart to the non-denominational Rijksacademy in Amsterdam and named after the fifteenth-century Flemish painter renowned for works such as The Ghent Altarpiece.

At the outset, one of the main objectives of the academy was to equip students with skills that would enable them to work in the service of the church. As a result, there was an emphasis upon draftsmanship, figurative sculpture, stonework and stained glass. In the beginning it was envisaged that the Van Eyck would be a source from which the Catholic faith would spread towards the rest of the country via the work of the artists and architects who were trained there.

A decade after the academy first opened it was decided that the adapted ecclesiastical premises which it then occupied were unsuitable – a purpose built edifice would be required. Construction of the now iconic building (designed by architect Frits Peutz) commenced in summer of 1959 and opened in 1961. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the influence of the church was eliminated entirely until the Academy emerged into something more secular.

In the ancient medieval city of Maastricht, Peutz’s modernist monument, built from concrete and glass, is completely singular. The experience of working at the Academy is significantly shaped by the building, which is bathed in natural light and constructed around green spaces and gardens. Indeed, the building imbues the working day with an almost utopian atmosphere. In the period that followed the academy’s reopening in the new premises, the emphasis on art in the service of the church began to wane.

In 2011 the architectural and pedagogical structure of the Van Eyck Academy were significantly overhauled. After extensive renovations the building reopened in 2013. The renovations to the interior spaces were intended to reflect the inherent aesthetics of the built structure, but also the ethos of the academy. For example all the signage in and around the building and the overall graphic identity of the academy were based around a typeface devised from traces of functional signage that had adorned the walls of the academy since the 70s, originally hand painted by caretaker Pierre Bonten. This vernacular typeface was named Bontepilke.

Every year artists, curators, designers, photographers and writers are invited to apply for a period of work at the Academy. The application process entails candidates proposing a project or particular path of research that they wish to develop within this context. In addition to this, each candidate submits ideas for a prospective study group or collaborative research venture that they might develop with fellow participants whilst at the academy.

These projects, termed ‘In-Labs’ by the Academy, might be developed around individual interests or concerns. Ultimately they are intended to facilitate discourse amongst participants. Successful candidates are allocated a private studio space and receive a monthly

stipend for a period ranging from four months to a year. While working at the academy one can utilise the wealth of facilities offered and can also access the expertise of the staff members. There is an incredible array of facilities available – dubbed ‘labs’ – and participants are encouraged to experiment in fields that will enable their practice to develop.

The Charles Nypels Lab, the printing workshop, houses equipment for relief printing and screen printing; a multimedia workshop, the Werner Mantz Lab, offers facilities and extensive expertise relating to photography, film and video and audio. There is also a workshop for making constructions with wood, metals and plastics – the Heimo Lab. These facilities are managed and supervised by individuals who are experts in their field and offer professional support and assistance.

Participants can schedule meetings with the heads of these facilities and receive feedback and advice on their particular endeavours.

I commenced my residency at Van Eyck in June 2014. I’ve found the experience of living and working here incredibly enriching on several levels. Participants are given financial support, time and space to cultivate existing projects – but they often also develop new ones collaboratively. Most of my fellow participants have already earned a masters degree (there are of course exceptions to this) or have been developing their practice for a number of years before coming to the Van Eyck. Therefore, there is a level of experience and knowledge amongst the participants which ensures that living and working here is an enriching experience.

The Van Eyck is described on the organisation’s website as a ‘multiform’ institute and this is a useful term in communicating the structure and remit of the organisation, where one’s work is individually directed. The Van Eyck is a place where interdisciplinarity and collaboration are encouraged and where the definition of production is extremely broad, including anything that emerges from the participant’s research: the development of artwork, but also the presentation of lectures and the organisation of seminars, screenings and exhibitions.

As a curator and writer, the facility that has proved particularly useful to me is the extensive library, titled the Pierre Kemp Lab, which houses an exceptional collection of books and is also stocked with up to date art magazines and publications. In addition to these infrastructural facilities, participants have the opportunity to meet with visiting advisers who are affiliated with the Academy and are sporadically present. This core team of advising researchers supervise research projects, but also engage in lectures, seminars and presentations.

Meeting with this core team provides participants with an opportunity to discuss their work and receive critical feedback and advice tailored specifically to them.

There are no classes or formally structured events at the Van Eyck.

The week centres around Thursday evenings when researchers present the development of their current projects. These presentations and the discussions that emerge from them are a vital aspect of participation in the residency.

One of the central aims of my time at the Van Eyck was develop my

practice through collaboration with writers and artists, and to present a new body of work, which has emerged from research carried out over an extended period. This main project consisted of an exhibition and publication, which enabled me to collaborate closely with several fellow participants. This project was also intended to respond in some way to the unique history of the Academy as an institution that was once conceived to propagate religious ideals.

The exhibition, entitled ‘The Girl With The Sun In Her Head’, took place in the galleries of the Van Eyck in March and April. The show featured new and recent works by Van Eyck participants Dario D’Aronco, Egemen Demirci, Niek Hendrix, Vanessa Hodgkinson, Joris Lindhout, Stéphanie Saadé and Susan MacWilliam, who was the only nonparticipant to be included in the project. The starting point for this project was the 1952 short story Monte Verità by English writer Daphne du Maurier. The story contains motifs and symbols that resonate significantly with the work of the artists involved in this project.

Ultimately, the exhibition was a testament to the fact that although art is distinct from, and cannot be a surrogate for, religion, both are capable of satisfying similar needs.

Du Maurier’s novella was significantly influenced by real events and this was another reason why it was selected as the starting point for this project. The ‘real’ Monte Verità was a colony of artists and freethinkers founded in Ascona, Switzerland in 1900. Although the structure and ownership of the commune changed throughout its existence, it remained a utopian community where tolerance was promulgated and various forms of creativity nurtured. Some of those who lived, worked and participated in the non-conformist colony included Hans Arp, Hugo Ball, Isadora Duncan, Otto Gross, Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Paul Klee, Rudolf Steiner and Mary Wigman.

Significantly, a school of art was established at Monte Verità in 1913 by dance theoretician Rudolf Laban.

The sort of utopianism that flourished in the last century (and was concentrated in sites like the commune at Monte Verità) will probably never flourish again. Nevertheless, the realm of cultural production remains a place in which idealistic intentions and romantic aspirations can still frequently be found. And although art may not necessarily be able to change the world, it can still be a catalyst for change and a sphere of potential. Indeed, the decision to use du Maurier’s novella as the starting point for this project was intended to encourage those involved to consider the parallels between the ‘real’ community upon which the story is based and the Van Eyck multiform institute. Despite the many obvious major differences between these communities, both were built upon and around openness, dialogue, exchange and the desire to create a space of egalitarian togetherness that defends contemplation and cooperative enthusiasm.

Pádraic E. Moore is a writer, curator and art historian. The various facets of Moore’s practice are shaped by the conviction that visual art facilitates modes of communication and experience that are vital in an increasingly virtualised, technorational world.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Critique Supplement Edition 19: May – June 2015

Stephen Skrynka ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ RUA Red, Tallaght 14 March – 11 April 2015

The title for Stephen Skrynka’s exhibition, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’, seems intent on dramatically grasping the audience’s attention. The mood of the show, however, is typified by a rather joyful colourful mosaic work, which states: IT’S OK TO FAIL.

Stephen Skrynka, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ , installation view, Rua Red, Tallaght, photo by Peter Murray

Stephen Skrynka, Art is worth dying for, glass mosaic and light, photo by Peter Murray

Stephen Skrynka, Dots before my eyes, oil on glass, photo by Peter Murray

Skrynka’s exhibition is substantial and includes paintings, turned wood, kinetic sculpture, video, glass mosaic, audio, old gramophones and a motorbike installed as part of the exhibition’s centrepiece: a round tower of upright carpet spools made to replicate a ‘wall of death’. The latter is so titled not just in reference to the eponymous fairground attraction, but also to the story of Connie Kiernan and Michael Donoghue, two ordinary young men who built a ramshackle but functioning wall of death at the back of their home in Granard, County Longford in 1979. Their wall had the appearance of an overgrown and dilapidated grain silo that shook and creaked when either of them went up it on a bike.

A video segment from an RTE magazine series P.M. (1979) plays on a loop in the gallery. In the clip Pat Kenny meets and interviews Kiernan and Donoghue, who desperately try to supress their giddiness. The footage poignantly illustrates the duo’s utterly unaffected and uncontrived motivation for building the wall. When asked by Kenny about possible ‘performances’ – in other words, how they might make money from it – Kiernan flicks a nod in vague agreement, though it looks as if the idea had never entered his mind.

Ranald Macinnes has written a text to accompany the exhibition, Failing Better, which focuses on the Beckettian / Orwellian assertion that “failure somehow generates success”. To this he links

Donoghue and Kiernan’s “childlike need to dare to fail”. In the video Kiernan placates Kenny’s need for a ‘successful’ conclusion to the story, in order to make his own motivation seem legitimate, although internally his own measurement of success was likely to be very different. Subjectivity determines that success and failure are merely social constructs that vary with context. From Kiernan and Donoghue’s story Skrynka has mined a psychological space where it is possible to measure success privately and internally through self-determination rather than externally through public challenges to convention.

Skrynka’s titles for his circular paintings on glass span a wide radius of self-depreciation, from tragedy in Broken Dream and Shattered Illusion, to resignation in The eternal optimist (accept change, nothing is predictable except change), and fear in Fear of Blackout and Manic Compression. There seems to be a chasm between the artist’s jubilant paintings and their doubtful titles, which use abstract terms, accomplished and very beautiful. Painted with a luxurious satiny paint and an intense colour pallette, their flowing patterns and vortexes are further emphasised by the glass support. Unlike Damien Hirst’s spin paintings, which have a slick and digitally-enhanced look, Skrynka’s process seems slow, deliberate and probably very difficult. In Shattered Illusion, Rust and Crimson and green with cobweb crack, the support pane is bonded to a second pane that has been shattered into the paint, creating organic-looking patterns of liquid colour and broken glass. Like Susan Connolly’s work their success lies in the skill of handling the anatomy of the paint and aesthetics of painting.

Without a hint of cynicism in their joyful philosophising, the glass mosaics are very softly backlit and spell out affirmations such as ‘ART WILL BREAK YOUR FALL’, ‘LOVE WILL BREAK YOUR STRIDE’, ‘MELT YOUR WINGS’ and ‘ART IS WORTH DYING FOR’. They are gloriously unsophisticated and indulgent, the kind of homecraft project that would satisfy anyone’s Sunday afternoon. But the key to these works is that they are self-reflexive rather than didactic. Their unrepentant sentimentality risks critical annihilation but Skrynka’s vital authenticity and sensitive telling of Kiernan and Donoghue’s story brings a credibility and depth that is convincing.

The centrepiece, Wall of Death, is a little ramshackle and appears to have presented technical difficulties in its construction. Close by, the vintage RTE footage plays silently (with earphones) and a tired looking motorbike, similar to the one in the clip, rests on its kickstand. From within the wall an audio soundtrack of a motorbike engine roars loudly at intervals. The imposing scale of the wall and the intensity of the audio conveys the final weight of Skrynka’s narrative – one of private self-reliance and permission to try, and fail, if necessary. ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ looks at how the true significance of life and living is not determinable. Not since I experienced Documenta 13 have I felt that art could really offer such a worthwhile gift.

Carissa Farrell is a curator based in Dublin.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet Critique Supplement

May – June 2015

‘Interwoven Memories’ Frances Crowe & Maria Noonan-McDermott 13 March – 4 April 2015 Solas Art Gallery, Ballinamore Co. Leitrim

Maria Noonan McDermott, Winter’s End, photo by J Richardson

The Solas Art Gallery is embedded in the fabric of Ballinamore. It sits above a shop selling seeds on the main shopping street of the town. When you climb the stairs from the shop to the gallery, the character of the 200-year-old house is still very much present inside the crisp white space now used for showing contemporary art. This combination of old and new and the way the building is used for two purposes adds to the sense that the gallery is working in the community – bringing art into everyday life.

Appropriately enough, the works of Frances Crowe and Maria Noonan-McDermott on show in this space embody the reverse of this idea: bringing everyday life into art.

The first room you enter has 11 paintings by Maria Noonan-McDermott, accompanied by text panels of poetry by the artist. The paintings are hung closely, but two pieces immediately stand out.

Noonan-McDermott’s Winter’s End is a view of cliffs and sea. There is a familiarity to the scene and at the same time a sense of unfamiliarity. It is reminiscent of Yeats’s later paintings, which often seem about to dissolve. This sense of imminent disappearance is created by a multi-layered, fractured surface created by painting with a palette knife, which also echoes Yeats.

Noonan-McDermott’s paintings are created over long periods. The accumulation of tiny flecks of different colours are like sedimentary rock, counterpointed by smooth areas of paint, which look as though they have been polished. A sense of the strangeness in the everyday runs through all the paintings. In a work entitled Lost focus, this sense finds expression in another image that has echoes of the history of landscape painting. The painting is a view of the place where land and water meet. The paint has been dragged across the surface and the process of addition and subtraction edges the image towards a tipping point where it could disappear completely. The notion of the image disappearing beneath layers of paint could allude to the process of

repeatedly conjuring up an image in the mind’s eye.

There is a friction between what can be remembered topographically and emotionally.

Frances Crowe’s fabric works share many of the feature of Noonan-McDermott’s paintings. Both artists try to to give form to memories and make objects which take time, skill and patience. Crowe’s largescale work Interwoven Memories Landscape of Time dominates the front room of the house. The work is a wave-like structure that undulates away form the wall. Its restricted palette of rich browns and reds brings to mind the sedimented layers of sandstone.

Interwoven Memories Landscape of Time is one of Crowe’s most robust and solid looking pieces, yet it still has threads hanging down, suggesting a state of unfinishedness or open-endedness. It also suggests the possibility of unravelling and of the object being added to or taken apart. Many of Crowe’s works seem to allude to the idea of entropy or suggest a state close to collapse. As with Noonan-McDermott’s works this fragility links back to the idea of memory and time.

The spaces upstairs retain much of their character as rooms in a house and this adds particular resonance to Crowe’s installation Carded Memories.

Carding is a process that disentangles wool so that it can be spun into a thread. It is an apt metaphor for the process of sifting through memories and making sense of the past. Cigarette-packet-sized photos lie in the open drawer of an old kitchen table and are painstakingly sewn into a fabric piece suspended from the ceiling. The photographs are of smiling couples, young men and women, children in their Sunday best. They are images that everyone can identify with. They allude to loss and memory. They make the viewer think about the way we document our own lives.

Darkness into light and Negative to Positive are smaller pieces where 35mm negatives are woven into a grid of fabric, echoing the ways in which our lives are interconnected and reliant on complex networks for support. The installation sidesteps sentimentality and is instead a moving exploration of memory and interconnectedness. The installation brings to mind questions about the way we use the objects around us, how the spaces we occupy change though time and how traces of history live on in the present.

Andy Parsons is an artist based in Sligo. He is the co-founder of Floating World Artists’ Books.

Frances Crowe, Interwoven Memories Landscape of Time, photo by Jennifer Richardson

‘The Call of the Wild: Videonale 15’ 27 February – 19 April 2015 Kunstmuseum, Bonn

L to R. Alan Phelan, Edwart & Arlette, 14:52 min.16:9. single channel, 2014 and Constantin Hartenstein, Alpha, 11:22 min, 16:9, single channel, 2014

The Bonn Videonale, an international festival and competition for video and moving image, is one of Europe’s oldest and most respected platforms for both established and younger generation visual artists. The Videonale is hosted by the Bonn Kunstmuseum and offers an extensive insight into current artistic practices.

The 2015 edition, entitled ‘The Call of the Wild’, was the first time a theme had been attempted. It was described as spanning reflection on “the semi-domesticated and the unknown; speech and silence; motion and stillness ... wild space where temporality is uncertain, relation is improvised and futurity is on hold”.1 The insanely all-encompassing diversity of this statement perhaps over-promised in terms of what was delivered. But there’s no doubt that the wide range of approaches, practices and ideas on show prompted moments of reflection amongst the audiences who gathered for the opening press days. Moreover, the curators’ selections offered an exploration of how society holds together despite people’s different interests and looked at ‘acting, thinking and feeling’ as matters both internal and external to the individual, with personal and societal disruption thrown into a melting pot of radical acceptability.2 This conceit was apparent in the layout of the galleries, before one even engaged with the art on show. The presentation was designed so that works were projected onto screens hanging by dropped wires and resting at an angle to the floor. Flat screen monitors interspersed these projections, which created a more personal interaction with the works.

The effect was both clean and dramatic, but it unfortunately failed in some areas, where the more subtle works were overpowered. This was certainly the case in the first room. The Otholith Group’s Medium Earth (2013), a single channel video, suffered from the light bleed of an uncovered entrance and the overpowering loudness of Death Fucking Metal (2014) by Koen Theys. The latter work presented the sad carnival of an ageing death metal band, its blaring soundtrack diminishing the effectiveness of the headphones provided for neighbouring works.

Amid this manic cacophony a balance started to emerge, as the viewer became more inured to the surroundings. The dramatic snow filled landscapes of Cristina Picchi’s Zima (2013) and Kerstin Honeit’s Pigs in Progress (2013), combined with the treacherous built environments of Florian Pugnaire and David Raffini’s Energie Sombre (2012) and Mahdi Fleifel’s Xenos (2013), brought us a sense of the profanity of human interaction with the natural world.

This theme extended into the anthropomorphic works of Jenny Brady, including Wow and Flutter (2013) (shown recently in the RHA), and Elin Magnusson’s Act on Instinct (2013), an analysis of childlessness by choice through the eyes of the artist as woman / deer. Primate Cinema: Apes as Family (2012) by Rachel Mayeri, who stretched the question of cruelty and exploitation of animals in the making

of art, presented the reaction of a troupe of chimpanzees to a television, placed within their compound, showing a programme of humans dressed as apes.

Perhaps the most successful of this thematic group was Neozoon, a German and French coupling, who presented My BBY 8L3W (2014), carefully selected found footage from online videos of young women presenting their pets to their online viewers, and Buck Fever (2012), a video collage of amateur hunters in the USA, also successful as an exploration of the human animal’s peacock needs.

This clearly moved into one of the more subtle explorations in the exhibition, the fragility of the individual. An immature work by Vika Kirchenbauer, Please Relax Now (2014), brought the viewer into a dark room and, with the phrase “Let me be your slutty guide”, requested that the audience expose and touch themselves before the twist to the plot ... yup, you guessed it ... the lights came on! Truly one of those ‘FFS’ moments that stimulated sympathy for the artist rather than shock for the audience.

Ideas around sexual identity continued as the subject of several works. Erkka Nissinen’s Polis X (2012) and Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz’s Toxic (2012) provided throwaway campness and spectacle as their primary entry point into a perceived underbelly of acceptable society. But campness should not be totally ruled out, as both the successful Alpha (2014), by Constantin Hartenstein, and Edwart & Arlette (2014) by Alan Phelan offered humorous access to decoding the male ego. Each of these works looked at challenges set by society, which was perfectly complemented by Tobias Yves Zintel’s Mental Radio (2012), a tender yet unsentimental record of his family’s inter-relationships taken in the context of his brother’s extreme autism. Out of the entire exhibition, this one work caused everyone who viewed it to walk away in profound silence.

These are just some ideas about the wide expanse of the exhibition. There were many other works looking at civil disobedience, explorations of the 1980s seen through the eyes of the twenty-firstcentury generation and the historicisation of radical politics. From more than 1,200 submissions from 76 countries, 38 artists from 19 countries were chosen.

Was it worth seeing? The answer is of course yes. The Videonale provided many entry points and, despite a rather lack-lustre talks programme, it succeeded in opening up a discourse into the current directions of works realised through moving image, with a counterpoint side exhibition of key works taken from each of the previous 30 years. This offered an insight into different directions and gave the audience a chance to explore the evolution of subject and materiality during what can be described as the teenage years of art film / video.

Noel Kelly, CEO / Director, Visual Artists Ireland.

Notes 1. Videonale 15 Catalogue Essay – Curator Tasja Langenbach quoting Jack Halberstam 2. Recalling the differing positions of Durkheim and Marx

May – June 2015

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet Critique Supplement

Mick O’Dea ‘The Tan War’ Triskel, Cork 13 March – 4 April 2015

Susan Morris ‘Luxury Goods’ Siamsa Tire, Tralee 27 February – 27 March 2015

Mick O’Dea, Auxilliaries

Mick O’Dea, Black & Tans Posing in Dublin

As Ireland draws closer to its decade of commemoration – the centenaries of the Easter Rising, the Civil War and the establishment of the Free State – there is certain frisson of anxiety that marks the impending celebrations. Ambivalent reactions to the government’s plans for the anniversary of the 1916 Rising signal a very real doubt and disquiet.

How do we best commemorate these foundational events – momentous, but also bloody and divisive?

Mick O’Dea has been deliberating on this for some years now. ‘The Tan War’, curated by the Vangard Gallery’s John P. Quinlan, is a show drawn from three bodies of work, Black and Tan, Trouble and The Split, and stands as a precursor to a major show destined for the RHA next year. His intensive research into the period between 1916 and 1923 stems from personal and familial connections, but also has something of the rigor and objective scrutiny of academic research.

This is serious work, even-handed and extensive – work that considers recent history in all its complexity and questions how we remember it.

History painting, traditionally, is valorising, commemorating great and noble deeds on a cinematic scale. O’Dea however is more circumspect and thoughtful in his picture making. His work is marked by a formal reserve, characterised by a limited palette and brisk, unshowy draughtsmanship, all of which tempers the gripping sense of immediacy that O’Dea allows to filter through these compositions.

The swagger and the postures of The Cairo Gang (2011), for example, are darkly charismatic.

With hooded eyes and hat raffishly askew, the central figure embodies a film noir arrogance. His companions turn their shoulders to the camera and glower beneath their caps, cigarettes dangling from lips like heavies from central casting. This terrible cinematic allure that these spies, soldiers and outlaws radiated was obviously seductive even then, as Heroes (2011) attests. Barefoot kids imitate soldiers with rifles fashioned from sticks, inspected by a boy wearing spurs made from twists of cardboard.

O’Dea’s palette – tans and ochre, deep greens and slate greys – seems derived from the colours of military uniforms, but also speaks of newsprint: sun-faded and yellowing, imparting a compelling tabloid glamour to this period of history.

However, O’Dea’s broad charcoal marks obscure as much as they reveal, casting deep shadows over faces and refusing us easy access to these men (they are men, for the most part). The deliberate translation of image from painting to photography, and the resulting change in scale, demands from the viewer a particular kind of thoughtful attention: how do we see these faces now? Detached from an accompanying narrative, the links loosened between the face and the event, these paintings bring home the strangeness and the difficulty

of connecting with history, even with events as recent and as traumatic as this. If these images are strangely familiar, maybe it is because we see them through the filter of various media tropes. In a complex and satisfying way, these pictures are as much about how we remember as they are about memorialising.

Gerhard Richter has been mentioned in relation to this body of O’Dea’s work, and the comparison is useful, particularly if we think about Richter’s paintings based on press photos of violent events.

Richter repainted familiar images from mass media coverage, dragging liquid paint across the canvas, rendering the crisp black and white certainties of the press photo into a smeary, indefinite fug of low contrast greys. The formal device of the blur, coopted from the language of photography, revokes the certainties claimed by the photograph, and the viewer is forced to peer at the image to gain clarity and meaning. The ambiguity of the encounter forces the viewer to “remember and rethink her relationship ... with history and its representation”1 O’Dea’s formal approach is not to blur but to obscure with veils of shadow, or to reduce his tonal range in a manner that recalls high contrast values of photos taken in bright light, so that faces are abbreviated to economic charcoal marks. Take June 21st 1921, 11.45 pm (2011 – 2012) for example, based on a photo taken in the last daylight of the longest day of the year. A platoon of guerrilla fighters pose as if for a class or team photo, their faces reduced to minimal planes of light and shade. The man at the front smiles, rifle resting on his knee, as he reclines on daisy-spattered grass. The photo was taken in the last minutes of light, in case the men would have to make a break for cover. The work’s undeniable affective charge comes from the clash of the ordinary and the portentous.

The late historian Eric Hobsbawm, writing in 1994, said: “Most young men and women at the century’s end grow up in a sort of permanent present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in. This makes historians, whose business it is to remember what others forget, more essential at the end of the second millennium than ever before. But for that very reason they must be more than simply chroniclers, remembrancers and compilers.”2 In many respects ‘The Tan War’ fulfils Hobsbawm’s nuanced conception of the modern historian. O’Dea’s deeply considered show brings something of the texture and humanity of those fraught times to life, without aggrandising or sentimentalising his subjects.

In the centre of this exhibition there is a floor piece comprising 3,000 Bord na Móna briquettes laid in a herringbone pattern. It is mesmerising – sheer opulence embedded within the familiar and the banal.

This quasi-parquet flooring is exquisitely beautiful.

A sky light above illuminates the undulations and the tips of the bricks shimmer. The briquettes are stamped with the obligatory Bord na Móna (BNM) sans serif font, worn down in places over time. The variations of brown form a spectrum as rich as the striations of any precious stone or wood. It needs no explanation or interpretation. It is architectural and natural, universal and specific.

The floor is the starting point for Sue Morris’s exhibition ‘Luxury Goods’, a mixed media installation that sets out to use domestic found objects to explore notions of necessity and luxury within the context of austerity in Ireland. The briquette covering speaks to this brief, simultaneously evoking comparisons to both the grand house tradition and the simple mud floor. The work is propelled by a non-specific personal and public nostalgia, and the location of the exhibition in North Kerry, with its traditional bogland connections, is not arbitrary.

Yet the strong aesthetic qualities of the floor piece both connect and divorce the work from all that it evokes; the familiar is made strange.

The briquette floor acts as a staging area before you enter a world of mise-en-scenes, telling a well know tale so common you can no longer distinguish the narrative. The pieces in the exhibition are purposely untitled and the four gallery spaces flow into one another. The works in the additional galleries are composed of domestic ephemera; the everyday is mounted upon the wall and showcased upon plinths. The banalities of sugar, coffee and oats are preserved in delicate vitrines, while golden soda bread is pedestaled upon a matching briquette rug. Porcelain spoons, reminiscent of something your grandmother might have collected, are lined up upon the wall; the pretty flower patterns are embellished with the words ‘food, water, heat, light, housing, transport and clothing’. A text from one of the later collages reads: “Our ideas of luxury will vary from those of other generations and will be concerned with household equipment rather than marble floors and expensive fire surrounds.”

These everyday objects are made strange not just by their change in context but also their inherent familiarity. Their material traces interweave with many of the viewer’s personal histories. They represent the valueless objects we often hoard

Sarah Kelleher is an independent arts writer; lecturer History of Art Department UCC; assistant editor Enclave Review and a PhD candidate, History of Art Department UCC. Notes 1. F. Guerin, The Grey Space Between: Gerhard Richter’s 18. October 1977’ in F. Guerin & R. Hallas (ed.) The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture, London & New York, 2007, pp.113 – 128, 114 2. Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Abacus, London, 1994, p.3

Sue Morris, Luxury Goods, sugar, tea, oats, glass

away: old pairs of spectacles and pill bottles kept at the back of the cupboard, but not for prosperity.

The objects hark back and long for the past, but the nostalgic affects are not twee; they are complicated and difficult to pin down. Another matching briquette rug is laid beneath the wire frame of a tiny bed, with a stack of styrofoam sheets wrapped in tissue to the right, and a teacup and shoes formed from paper at the feet of the bed. We are playing Chinese whispers and the echoes reverberate around the room.

A triptych of homes is displayed in the last gallery. Three tiny needle points of quaint cottages in vivid colours are paired with the artist’s monochrome collages of modern suburbia. The delicate vernacular of the thread and the implied nimble hands are juxtaposed with the dreary photomontages of 1970s-style constructions superimposed with forest illustrations. The collages on the opposite wall take the banal, the remnants of the junk drawer, invoices, bills, tax disc and delivery notices, and layer these forgotten documents with left over stationary, tracing paper, wallpaper, appliance manuals and magazines. The intricate designs and textures from the mid-century wallpaper creep through the utilitarian format of the old documents. A colour scheme of reminiscence, pasted together, faded and curling at the edges.

Nostalgia is used here as a critical tool to engage with the artworks. Nostalgia occupies the space of the collective in a manner similar to the public rhetoric of austerity that Morris takes as her starting point. It is not, however, a longing for a redeemed future. Instead ‘Luxury Goods’ uses the language of nostalgia to question the commonplace. In the terms of Svetlane Boym, nostalgia is both restorative and reflective: “Restorative nostalgia protects the whole truth, while reflective nostalgia calls it into doubt.” (1) Returning to the floor, it is difficult to restrain the urge to walk upon it, touch it, kneel upon the surface, run your hands through the peat and viscerally check its authenticity. These objects are material traces of the past reflecting changing values, roles, customs and habit, but material cultural is inscribed by both its previous and current occupants.

Gemma Carroll is an art writer and critic based in Cork.

Note 1. monumenttotransformation.org

May – June 2015

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet Critique Supplement

‘Smoke and Mirrors’ Tom Dalton, Kate Bowe, Sarah Edmondson, Darragh Lyons Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford 13 March – 29 April

•WEXFORD CAMPUS SCHOOL OF ART&DESIGN•DEGREE SHOW•

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Sarah Edmondson, White Rabbit, 2015, acrylic on panel

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Kate-Bowe O’Brien, Aeriform Shadow (tone 7), photogram (1 of 1) Illford RC multigrade paper

scientific character. Using pieces of glass that distort and manipulate light falling onto photo-sensitive paper, Bowe O’Brien makes photograms that can be taken for macro close-ups of virus cells – as with the slightly sinister Shadowscape (colour 4) – or landscapes of another planet (the Shadowscape series). These images are essentially nothing but light, shadow and the form that results from their distortion and choreography, a magicians trick of misdirection and deception: ‘Smoke and Mirrors’.

Paint, collage, photography and slide film are just some of the materials Sarah Edmondson employs in the making of her evocative vignettes, each a distilation of domesticity and memory. The innocence of the images and their yearning for simpler times is a recurring motif from early-career artists, perhaps unsurprising for those in a time of increasing self-awareness. Here Edmondson festishises milestones of childhood memory: from a pair of little girls dancing in their mothers’ high heeled-shoes (An Innocent Pair), to the the small boy sitting on his father’s knee beside a modestly decorated Christmas tree (Christmas Past). The works are made with layers of collage, paint or drawings, with features and figues sometimes added to stage the scene.

Any mawkishness is curtailed by the fact that nearly all the figures featured remain anonymous, turning away from the lens, masked or cropped to exclude a face. This anonymity, and the sparsely populated dipictions of family scenes, lend an otherworldliness to the works, like frames stolen from a ghost story.

As a body of work ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ poses questions about perception and realities, though this too is tentative. There is a sense that all four artists have just begun to investigate these questions, and that the resulting works represent an initial phase of research rather than offering the paradox of fullyformed questions. This slight wavering is perhaps reflected in the modest scale of all of the pieces on show, a lack of boldness that is a shame given the luxury of the gallery space. Though perhaps this too is the deception, as the questions provoked here will be too vast to be contained by anything.

Anne Mullee is a Dublin-based writer and curator.

OPENING 6PM THURSDAY 21.05.2015 RUNS DAILY UNTIL 6.06.2015 WEXFORD ARTS CENTRE Arts for all, Arts for life

https://phelanlynda.wordpress.com/experiment/

Garter Lane’s handsome and spacious gallery is used in a decidedly tentative manner for this group exhibition featuring four emerging artists associated with the South and South East of the country.

Predominantly small-scale works hug its walls, as if reluctant to be seen. Yet this is a fitting curatorial option for a body of work that deals with alternative representations, subtle transformations and ideas of ‘the hidden’.

The realities explored here range from the minutiae of everyday life, in the snapshots of frigid domesticity explored by Sarah Edmondson, to the chilly images of amoeba-like and abstracted forms devised by Kate Bowe O’Brien. Concealment, transformation and stylisatation of the quotidian resounds throughout, with each artist skewing or recalibrating norms of construction in both their methodologies and resulting works.

Tom Dalton’s small-scale works on paper include the carefully considered Citadel and Little downfall. Each is made with painstakingly-neat pencil or ink marks and lines, which bring to mind a frustrated caluculation or schematic that on closer inspection is chaotic and nonsensical. Soft crisscross, a minature diaorama of brown-dead pine trees on a scorced earth, is constructed of parcel tape and foam, its fragility enhanced by these flimy materials.

A second sculptural piece, Outcrop, is a satisfyingly spodgy lump of pale blue resin, a lumpen, emergent, ungainly form atop a slim wooden plinth. Its containment on the stand presents it as an aberrant experiment, a creature transforming into something both comical and terrible. This sense of incompleteness recurs through Dalton’s work, driving us to wonder what happens next.

The highly finished paintings by Darragh Lyons are at the other end of the spectrum, their graphic flawlessness at odds with the surrounding pieces. At first the groups of four images look almost identical, with their trompe l’oile frames-within-frames outlining flatly perfect blue skies and sparely inhabited landscapes. These are the scene for the repeated illustration of a stylised building and tree, appearing sometimes together, somes apart, casting long shadows in a perpetual evening. These idealised habitations, framed in cheery tones, are nonetheless melancholic, like a dream that can never be realised.

Abstraction and the behaviour of light give Kate Bowe O’Brien’s photographic works a distinctly

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

23

How is it made?

Kevin Killen, ‘Certain Moments’ installation view, University Of Ulster Gallery, Belfast

Kevin Killen, ‘Certain Moments’ installation view, University Of Ulster Gallery, Belfast (5 March – 2 April 2015)

Kevin Killen, ‘Certain Moments’ installation view, University Of Ulster Gallery, Belfast

Capturing Passing Moments KEVIN KILLEN DISCUSSES THE WORK HE MADE FOR THE EXHIBITON ‘CERTAIN MOMENTS’ AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER GALLERY (5 MARCH – 2 APRIL).

My interest in working with neon started during my time at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College (1996 –1999). I’d moved to a busy college town from the countryside, so I really noticed the continuous flow of traffic and especially the noise and lights that came into my student house at night. I experimented with ways to capture passing moments, by visualising the nocturnal sounds and lights that invaded my space. Neon seemed an ideal medium to do so. It processes an ability to encompass both speed and stillness. Likewise neon light can be either quietly seductive or loud and overwhelming – and it has strong links with pop culture, glamour and advertising.

During and after my studies I was reliant on getting neon pieces fabricated by industrial makers. As a consequence, I did feel I was missing out on a proper understanding of the full scope of the medium in both practical and theoretical terms. I’d found that when dealing with neon workshops, the available options were often both expensive and restricted. The commercial makers always came up with barriers to making the pieces I really wanted to make.

In 2009, after saving up for a few years, I finally had enough money to afford the necessary tools and to undertake specialised training: a five-week course at the Ed Waldrum School of Neon in Dallas, Texas.

The course cost $4500 and I was fortunate enough to receive a £500 travel award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to attend.

The course not only gave me a full understanding of how to design and plan neon works, but it gave me an important sense of control and a freedom from the conventions of industrial fabrication. The knowledge I gained enabled me – both in my research and practical work – to tame the medium and to stretch its boundaries. For example, I’ve created freestanding neons, as I’ve been able to explore and experiment with the strength of various calibres of glass tubing. I’ve also worked with the sonic qualities of the medium, creating ‘whispering’ neons that invite the viewer closer to the work.

A lot of practice is required in order to master the various processes and tools involved in making neon works. It can be quite overwhelming at first, but there are two basic aspects to making neons. Firstly, there is the fabrication of the tubing. This is a process that involves filing, bending and welding. The subsequent process involves gas torches / heat sources – respectively ribbon and ‘cannon fire’ burners.

Bending is a key skill. Firstly you’ve got to mark the correct area to heat and then judge the correct temperature to bend the tube, whilst gently blowing air into the tube to force out the bends or glass tube walls, as tube walls kink in when you bend them.

Electrodes are attached to the tubes using a cannon burner or hand-held torch. The technique for doing so involves heating ends of the tube and then pressing them together at the right temperature, while quickly stretching and blowing the glass walls out in order to ease the stress in the weld point.

At this point you hope that all the welds are tight and will not let in atmosphere. The next stage is to attach the neon units to the manifold that controls the flow of gas and to a bombardier, which is used to heat the neon tubes up to 300 degrees centigrade. I also do a range of vacuum tests using a torr gauge and preheat to see if everything is working fine.

Neon gets its colour in two main ways. Firstly, the gas that’s inside the tube: neon or argon. Secondly, colour of the glass tubes itself. There are 30 or so colours to chose from. Small transformers power neon lights; these range from 1000 – 8000 volts. They’re high voltage but low current devices. Running costs to range from approximately 2 – 20 pence a day for each piece.

After a number of heating and pumping stages, to ensure that the neons are clear of impurities, I fill the tube with argon gas, adding a small amount or mercury, around a 1mm ball. This helps the brightness of the tube, as the mercury vaporises and mixes with the gas. The last part of the process is to ‘burn in’ the neon tube so it can reach its full colour and brightness. This can take anything from four hours to three days in some cases.

My recent exhibition ‘Certain Moments’ (University Of Ulster Gallery, Belfast, 5 March – 2 April, shown as part of the Ulster University Festival Of Art and Design) came about from participating in the Speed Curating event at the 2014 VAI Get Together. I met with Feargal O’Malley, curator of the University Of Ulster Gallery – and actually my first ‘date’ of the session – who had already seen some of my neon work.

We talked mainly about my current work and the history behind it, and arranged to meet later in the Summer. Prior to our next meeting, I’d done some further research into the idea of working with a dancer.

When we met again and O’Malley told me he’d been thinking about the possibility of my neon work somehow tracing the movements of a dancer, I was thrilled – it was as if my stars had lined up, it was perfect timing. I was also very reassured when O’Malley stated that if my idea didn’t work out, it would be fine. This took a lot of pressure of me, as I wasn’t entirely sure whether what I had mind would be possible to achieve in practice.

The project actually progressed really well from this point onwards.

During my first meeting with the choreographer / dancer David Ogle I was impressed by his professionalism and understanding of what I was trying to do. I invited Ogle to respond and react intuitively to the UU Gallery’s dimensions. In response Ogle performed a series of spontaneous and elegant gestural movements while holding a set of lights. I captured these movements using long-exposure photography. The movement of my camera as I followed Ogle added another playful dimension to the light drawings we created.

Using the playback screen of a digital camera made it simple for me to give him feedback in terms of which movements I found interesting. Working together we quickly built a visual language to express Ogle’s response to the space. The resulting images of distorted beams of light were then translated into a site-specific installation of neon works, each based on various traces of the dancer’s movements.

The resulting exhibition was described by Feargal O’Malley as “a minimal, luminous installation of the fleeting moments,” that attempted to “instigate a shared experience” while blurring “conventional modes of interaction”.1 When I’m working with neon I try to clear my head of and concentrate on the tasks at hand. Keeping this clarity of thought for a prolonged time is taxing but strangely calming. It’s difficult and demanding work – from using the canon and ribbon fires to bending the glass without stressing or stretching the glass tubes, or the care needed when welding tubes together and attaching electrodes.

Everything has to be done perfectly. If not, the units will either not light at all, or not last very long. A week’s work can be lost by a split second lapse in concentration. Unlike other materials, neon does not take well to tantrums – it doesn’t bounce back off the wall very well!

I’ve grown to really like the unforgiving nature of neon. More or less, you’ve just one chance to get it right, so it demands your attention and respect. I’ve had to learn to master physical techniques, practice muscle memory routines, control my emotions and be calm in the face of cuts, burns or band bends or welds.

Kevin Killen kevinkillen.com ulsterfestival.com Note 1. Feargal O’Malley, PR notes for Kevin Killen’s exhibition ‘Certain Moments’, University Of Ulster Gallery (5 March – 2 April), shown as part of the Ulster University Festival Of Art and Design

24

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Conference

Change from Within?

JONATHAN CARROLL DISCUSSES ‘THINKING THROUGH INSTITUTIONS’, AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM HELD AT THE HUSTON SCHOOL OF FILM & DIGITAL MEDIA, GALWAY (27 FEBRUARY 2015).

Hosted by the Huston School of Film and Digital Media, Galway ‘Thinking Through Institutions’ was a one-day symposium focusing on the roles of cultural organisations and various possibilities for their reinvention and reclamation. The event was devised as part of Para Institution (parainstitution.ie), an itinerant and virtual institution, articulated as a year-long public programme and research platform, devised and curated by Megs Morley (Arts Council of Ireland curator in residence, Galway City). This was the final project of Morley’s one-year residency.

It was fitting that the day commenced with a screening of Andrea Fraser’s Museum Highlights (1989), shown as the attendees found their seats. Fraser’s parody of an art tour guide’s presentation, which mockingly redeploys the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s information texts, is a classic example of institutional critique. But I was immediately reminded of the ultimate appropriation of institutional critique by the very institutions initially targeted. It’s now really just another label, like cubism or minimalism, that art museums and even collectors are completely comfortable with acquiring or commissioning.2 Fraser, paradoxically is herself something of an institutional fixture. I recall her live performative lecture, with fake emoting and tears, at the 2008 ‘Museum 21 Institution / Idea / Practice’ symposium held at IMMA. While the Para Institution doesn’t have the high level of resources possessed by some of the types of bodies it sought to critique, Megs Morley gathered a very good collection of speakers through ingenuity and use of Skype: Helen Carey (Director, Fire Station Artists’ Studios), Sarah Rifky (Cairo-based curator), Lane Relyea (Northwestern University, Illinois), Nuno Sacramento (Director, Scottish Sculpture Workshop), Fiona Woods (artist) and Mick Wilson (University of Gothenburg).

Despite the event’s avowed criticality, proceedings followed a more or less conventional institutional format. We had a moderator, artist Sarah Pierce, who directed proceedings from a podium, and the day comprised presentations followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. One context for the discussion was clearly the absense of a dedicated contemporary art institution in Galway. Helen Carey, the recently appointed Director of Fire Station Artists’ Studios in Dublin, was a speaker well-qualified to frame this situation, having worked in Galway in 1999 (as Director of Galway Arts Centre). Following her time in Galway, Carey then moved on to work in Paris, Bristol and Limerick.

She spoke of encountering blockages and issues in a variety of situations and institutions. Her main focus was Africa, however, and she transported us to Addis Ababa, where she attended a curatorial intensive in 2014.

Carey gave a humorous account of trying to use her Irish ‘postcolony’ passport as an attempt to empathise with the frustrations of identity encountered by African nations. As she pointed out in her article for VAN, Africa is a continent of 54 countries with hugely varied identities.3 Carey referred to Clementine Deliss’s Free Fall-Freeze Frame Africa: exhibitions, artists (1994), a brilliantly-detailed essay containing many examples of thinking through the problems institutions and exhibition-makers face when tackling the global art world.4 Carey also discussed photographer Mark Curran’s The Market (2013), which she curated for a show at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin. Curran’s project, which sought to illustrate “how unknowingly people work and live within systems that govern the detail of life”, included images from the recently established Ethiopian Commodity Exchange in Addis Ababa, the youngest exchange in the world.5 As often happens with these varied panel discussions, there was a neat segue into the next speaker, who joined the proceedings from Egypt via Skype. Thankfully there was only minimal giddyness, which often attends the use of Skype at these events. Sarah Rifky’s presentation from Cairo – which is experiencing continued upheaval and violence – was the strongest of the day, particularly in its approach to the avowed aim of the day: to address the question “How can an institution continue to be an active site of new knowledge and relevant perspectives in times of social and political turmoil and violence?” 6 Rifky is a writer and curator based in Cairo, where she co-founded an art space named Beirut (confusing I know!) which “thinks about institution building as a curatorial act” (beirutbeirut.org). By way of

introduction, the curator stated that, three years ago, when Beirut was founded, setting up an institution was a form of resistance. Rifky went on to speak of institutions in relation to three key factors: stories, characters and plots.

Rifky described how a meta-narrative of particular questions informs how the project operates. These comprise questions around the identity of Beirut: Is it fixed? Is it a ‘thing’? Is it an object – and if so, what kind of object – or is it a subject or condition? Can it be summoned through practice? In addition, broad questions about the nature of institutions also directed her practice – ie can one just declare an institution into becoming? Does one perform the institution like roleplay? Is living possible without institutions? Will there be institutions in the future? Her current concern was whether running an arts space in Cairo sends the wrong message, suggesting that all is somehow ‘alright’, when this is clearly not the case. Rifky also spoke of attempts by the powers-that-be to label their work as strange or alternative,

they are trans-generational projects. Thinking beyond art institutions, Wilson applied his analogy to the bigger structures of government – “we need to think of the role of the state – we see the state hijacked by capital. We have to invest in recapturing the state, that is our project”.

Artist and lecturer Fiona Woods took a completely different and refreshing angle on the topic of institutions. Woods showed a selection of early advertisements produced by Irish Water (Uisce Eireann), analysing the language and the imagery by showing the same advertising materials with and without sound. She highlighted two primary visual codes deployed in the campaign – namely transparency and whiteness – before showing some of the clever and witty responses made by the protest groups opposed to water charges. I especially liked a placard that read, “Irish Water can Fluich Off”.

Woods spoke of the idea that an institution can be brought into being by acting out. Woods illustrated this point citing Park Fiction (park-fiction.net), the “organised collective production of desires” for a park in Hamburg’s red light district, St. Pauli. The project was set up in 1995 in response to plans to rezone the park for commercial buildings.

Instead of a ‘protest’ Park Fiction took the form of a community-based parallel planning process. The project created platforms of exchange between people from different cultural fields: musicians, priests, headmistresses, cooks, cafe owners, bar-men, psychologists, children, squatters, artists and interventionist residents.

In the context of what some call the crisis of the institution, the questions of how we organise ourselves, how we work together and how potentially we selfinstitute have never seemed so pertinent to ask, yet we seem to continually reach an ideological impasse. Do we withdraw from existing structures, or do we attempt to reclaim and reinvent them? 1 which has a nullifying effect.

Rifky’s position was one of qualified doubt, expressing the view that a reflective form of institution-making could function as a nuanced form of activism, at the same time she conceded that institutions didn’t have all the answers. During the panel discussion Rifky added a simple but pertinent addendum to her position, making the key point that the kinds of projects you put forward will ultimately show what kind of institution you are.

Rifky’s presentation provided an invigorating sense of possibility, which went beyond conventional ideas about how institutions are imagined, formed and operated. In local terms, this was a particularly energising message in terms of the inequitable treatment of the regions, in terms of public funding and development.

Lane Relyea brought a North American perspective to the proceedings and introduced examples of self-organised initiatives of artists and art workers in the United States. He drew from his 2013 publication Your Everyday Art World (MIT Press), which looked at the effects of communication networks on artistic practice and its contexts.

Some of the organisations he discussed were: Temporary Services; Working Artists and the Greater Economy (WAGE) (wageforwork. com); Creative Time; Three Walls (three-walls.org) and Common Field (commonfield.org). Relyea is a founding member of the latter organisation. He spoke about the frustrations of the artist having to perform multifaceted roles for little financial reward – doing talks and performances, undertaking residencies, curating shows – let alone finding enough time and resources to make art.

Mick Wilson, who wittily thanked the previous speakers for “using all his material”, followed Relyea. While Relyea had summarised various attempts to counteract both abandonment of the institution by artists and the banishment of the artist from the institution, Wilson ploughed through various histories of institutional critique. Wilson ended with a statement about the institution being a form of contract that outlives the lives of those who establish and work within them –

The original meaning of ‘symposium’ was to get together to drink (a drinking party or convivial discussion), something that the Irish are particularly good at. Before we could do that, however, there was a panel discussion with all the previous speakers and then a screening of Harun Farocki’s A New Product (2012). While beginning the day with an artist’s film is a good icebreaker, ending the day with the same tends to stifle conversation. The conversation in this case was getting nicely heated, over various local issues and the use of crowdfunding, which Lane Relyea told us, provides more funding than the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts).

All in all it was a very positive day with plenty of concrete examples of the value of setting up institutions, especially in Sarah Rifky’s contributions; and learning through doing, as discussed by Fiona Woods. The symposium adjourned to a local tapas bar for further ‘off the record’ deliberations.

Jonathan Carroll is the curator and founder of public art project Art-Lot Dublin. He has curated the visual arts strand for the St. Patrick’s Festival and is on the panel of curators for the GoetheInstitut. He was the assistant curator of the Project Arts Centre (2006 – 2009) and is a graduate of Art History (UCD), Cultural Management (Instituto Universitario Ortega Y Gasset, Madrid) and Curating Contemporary Art (RCA, London).

Notes 1. Introductory text for the symposium: parainstition.ie. The Para Institution is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Curator in Residence Scheme, in partnership with Galway City Council Arts Office, GMIT Centre of Creative Arts and Media, Galway Arts Centre and the Huston School of Film and Digital Media 2. Fraser herself has written about this in From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique, Artforum, September 2005. The text begins “Nearly forty years after their first appearance, the practices now associated with ‘institutional critique’ have for many come to seem, well, institutionalized.”

3. Perception & Representation, Helen Carey reports on the Addis Ababa Curatorial Intensive, VAN Issue 5 September – October 2014, p.17 4. Thinking About Exhibitions, (ed. Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Ferguson and Sandy Nairne), Routledge, 2009 5. galleryofphotography.ie/mark-curran-the-market 6. Introductory text for the symposium: parainstition.ie

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

25

How is it made?

Shadow Carrier BRENDAN FOX DISCUSSES HIS PROJECT ‘LESS GREATER EQUAL’, SHOWN AT THE NAG GALLERY, DUBLIN (6 – 20 MARCH 2015).

Brendan Fox, Less Greater Equal, film still

Brendan Fox, Less Greater Equal, film still

I consider the gallery space a platform from which I converse with viewers. Both curatorially and from the perspective of a visual artist, I regard Less Greater Equal as a personal conversation. This project is a departure from my previous work, as I found myself assuming the role of both subject and auteur. In 2014 my life changed irreparably. The year encompassed the breakdown of a 10-year relationship, losing my home, my father’s cancer diagnosis and my spiraling into depression.

This was compounded when I experienced a homophobic attack.

During this period there was also a constant barrage of Wimbeldonesque media coverage relating to the forthcoming marriage referendum.

In the seemingly endless rounds of media discussions, it’s too often insinuated that LGBT people are ‘other’, peripheral or otherwise not quite part of the cogs of society.

I found myself questioning everything, embarking on an existential quest of sorts, searching for a personal context and a means of re-establishing my own identity. ‘Less Greater Equal’, although politically motivated, is also concerned with the idiosyncratic nature of sexual identity and the repercussions of growing and existing in a sociopolitical landscape where one is perceived as lesser. The tension between our inner and outer selves encourages artifice in our behaviours.

Carl Jung refers to this facade as the persona: “… a kind of mask designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual”.1 We all struggle with identity. We are fragile. It is through the sharing of our narratives and vulnerabilities that we can truly understand both ourselves and the ‘other’. “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is”.2 The notion of the Jungian shadow is at the core of Less Greater Equal. I share his belief that “in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness – or perhaps because of this – the shadow is the seat of creativity”.3 There is perhaps nowhere the shadow and mask are more present than in theatre. The existential nature of the writings of Shakespeare, Cocteau and Beckett has propelled my process as an artist.

Much like a theatre or film director may strive to find a fresh angle in a narrative, my work often pushes an agenda that has evolved through the dissection of a literary text. My practice is also concerned with metatheatre, a self-conscious focus on form and the constructiveness of artefact.

The photographic element of this work explores notions of expulsion and marginalisation. I approached the content with a purposefully regressive, almost juvenile tone, which is further emphasised by the words ‘Fuck me’ painted on my back, in my role as the protagonist in the images. Photographer Dejan Karin, who has previously worked with David Lachapelle, among others, is a long time collaborator and there is an innate sense of trust between us. In each of

Brendan Fox, Less Greater Equal, film still

the four photographic works the figure assumes a position where the face is obscured – the positioning of body is the sole conveyor of emotion. This ‘occultation’ is an extension of the Jungian mask. The headless figures and crude text presented in the photographic works are intended to be the antithesis of the emotive performance and the use of Shakespearean text within the film.

The film is in essence a recording of four performances. Each act is emblematic of a particular phase in life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and death. The aesthetic temperature of the film is really the product of playing with shadow. German expressionist films influenced this aspect; atmospheric lighting and harsh contrasts between dark and light were key in conveying emotional undercurrents of a subject. The film is also concerned with the act of painting. It begins with my painting white onto black and ends with my painting black onto white.

It was intended that the time and space between these two acts then becomes a grey, liminal area, confused and inaudible. The set consisted of three kinds of ladders: sculptural forms that are instruments of elevation and access. Yeats captures this aspiration to reach sustainable truth through the creative process in his 1933 poem The Circus Animals’ Desertion: “Now that my ladder’s gone / I must lie down where all the ladders start / In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”

I collaborated with cinematographer / artist Basil Al-Rawei on the film. As part of the process we discussed the content and formulated a structure for the action to take place. There is an unspoken creative flow between us. During the shoot there was often little need for verbal communication at all. On the day of filming I found myself in the vulnerable position of disrobing in front of a crew. I began to wonder: why I was doing this at all? How had my practice and thinking brought me to this point? I felt as vulnerable as a newborn. I carried that vulnerability with me as I began to paint, developing a life-size family portrait. The image reveals my four-year-old self upon my father’s knee, surrounded by my mother and seven siblings at the occasion of my sister’s first holy communion.

At the time of the performance my father lay in a hospital bed fighting cancer. As each face appeared before me like apparitions, more uncanny than familiar, I felt them witnessing the action. I felt the ridiculous injustice that I am not afforded the same rights as my brothers and sisters, that the love I love is considered lesser than theirs in the eyes of our constitution. The traditional family is afforded the position of being a ‘microcosm of society’. With this in mind I considered the statistics that suggest one in ten individuals are homosexual; within this portrait of ten I am that one. The central act of the film is concerned with language, interiority and the struggle to communicate this state of tension. American literary critic Harold Bloom credits Shakespeare as having “invented the human” in giving us the words for carrying the “dialogue of our humanity”.4 Bloom’s

Freudian psychoanalysis of Hamlet focuses on the tension between the inner self and its Oedipal struggle to be actualised in the social world of men. The performance involved an accelerated repetition of two soliloquies from Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’ (act three, scene one) and ‘Now I am alone (act two, scene two). Both monologues are concerned with procrastination, existential struggle and the futility of living. The resolve of the first soliloquy underpins the idea that conscience deters us from action and therefore stops us realising our ambitions. This refers not only to the idiosyncratic nature of procrastination, but also its cumulative effect on the movement of political issues of importance. In the second soliloquy Hamlet is perplexed by the impassioned performance of an actor, observing the irony that the reality of his own situation should propel him into such passion: “ Is it not monstrous that this player here/ But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, / Could force his soul so to his own conceit / That from her working all his visage wanned, / Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, / A broken voice, and his whole function suiting / With forms to his conceit? / And all for nothing .”

This idea is extended in the epilogue of Less Greater Equal, which references the opening sequence from one of my favorite films, Being John Malkovich (1999), directed by Spike Jonze. The film is concerned with identity, escapism and the inhabitance of the ‘other’. In the scene we witness a puppet dexterously manipulated by his creator in a distraught dance propelled by the realisation of his own powerlessness upon seeing the strings that control him. We understand the puppet much like the actor Hamlet observes: purely a vehicle for conveying the interior emotion that the main protagonist or puppeteer cannot.

Perhaps this body of work serves me in the same way. Less Greater Equal is an extension of myself, a contortion of references, ideas and ideologies. But I hope that at its core dwells a more universal shadow. In Seamus Heaney’s poem Personal Helicon (2006) he observes that selfexploration through an art form has much wider social repercussions.

It infers that when we are shown the ‘shadow’ in others we see it reflected in ourselves. He writes: “I rhyme, to see myself, to set the darkness echoing”. This work has the same intention.

Brendan Fox is Curator and Director of Foundation15. brendanfoxart.com foundation14.com Notes Special thanks to Norman Kelly, Lauralee Guiney and Claire Chaney.

1. C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, London, 1953, p.190 2. C.G. Jung, ‘Psychology and Religion’ in CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1938, p.131 3. David Bowie: Critical Perspectives, Routledge, 2015, p.34 4. H. Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1999

26

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Conference

Is Legenderry Dead?

SARA GREAVU CONSIDERS THE LEGACY OF DERRY CITY OF CULTURE. It has been over a year since the night of fireworks that marked the end of Derry’s run as UK City of Culture (CoC), and opinions on the ongoing cultural health of the city – and visual arts in particular – remain mixed.

As 2013 wound to a close the visual arts sector contracted significantly.

The two main publicly funded spaces in the city, CCA Derry-Londonderry (CCA) and Void, have maintained the gains of the City of Culture period in terms of their expanded premises, but not everyone was so lucky.

Though the funding was always intended to be temporary, it was still a surprise when the London Street Gallery closed so swiftly at the end of

What, or who, benefits from large-scale, spectacle-led events that presuppose the nature of the identities that make up the public sphere and pre-empt the conditions in which these groups ought to speak?

the year and their building began to be redeveloped into a boutique hotel. The Portrait of a City project has also gone fallow; artists were evicted from Pump Street’s Studio 6 so that the building could be renovated for private use (though they have since secured new premises); and the long-standing Gordon Gallery shut its doors for good last summer.

One of the narratives that won Derry the bid for City of Culture was that of culture-led regeneration and reconciliation. This was presented as a chance for Derry to tell its own, new story: a city finally free from the conflict that has blighted its history, primed and ready to do business. A video produced as part of the bid highlighted the citizens’ diverse identities and included a passage in which people characterised themselves variously as ‘Derry’, ‘Londonderry’ and a new, third option: ‘Legenderry’. Central to the story of renewal and hope was the promise that the transformative effects of City of Culture wouldn’t end on 31 December 2013. City of Culture would have a legacy.

Research into event-led regeneration might start by asking more fundamental and relevant questions: How is the event produced (as a meaningful occurrence) by different communities of interest in the city? Why is a temporary event being framed as a way of addressing deep-seated social inequalities in a locality?

‘Legacy’ would go on to become a key strategic priority of the Arts

Susan Fitzpatrick Creative Communities and Everyone Else: Liverpool as European Capital of Culture, 2013

Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) and Derry City Council (DCC), while on the ground the term people quickly became fatigued by its overuse. In the end, the commitment of funds ring-fenced to support it was relatively limited. £900,000 was promised over the first two years

address the barriers to inclusion in the arts … in the North West”. The

of value for arts organisations. The one-day conference ‘Public Assets:

post CoC, but this was to serve all cultural organisations across all art

bulk of the day’s schedule was focused on the practicalities of how arts

small-scale arts organisations and the production of value’ addressed

forms. Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín recently announced that, in

organisations can build long-term relationships between individuals

“the ways in which small-scale arts organisations produce artistic value

fact, the funding would not be continued into the second year, as there

and the arts, with specific attention paid to targeting non-traditional

beyond measurability and quantification, provide spaces for public

is “no baseline budget to continue provision of additional funding in

audiences.

experience extra to the market, and in so doing contribute importantly

the North West after 31 March 2015.” 1

Proceedings were kicked off with introductions from some of the

to cultural wealth”. This approach argues for increased, rather than

Other factors have contributed to a feeling of precarity among arts

main players in local government and the tourist industry.

diminished, funding for the arts as a core public asset and for the

institutions and individual artists. There have been considerable cuts to

Representatives of Audiences NI, ACNI, DCC, the Community Arts

development of a new vocabulary to talk about what we do, separate

arts and culture, passed on through ACNI annual funding, which have

Partnership, Tourism NI and DCAL laid out their various positions. For

from that of instrumentalisation. For us, it highlighted the disparity

bitten deep into the cultural infrastructure across the North. The sector

the City Council, the measures of success over the last two years were

between the language of tourism and local government, which ascribes

has been warned to brace for worse over the coming years. Derry was

predictably quantitative and focused on the spectacular, with events

value and sets cultural agendas, and the terminology we need to be

not spared these cuts, though it is worth noting that visual arts were not

such as the Fleadh, the Return of Colmcille and the Walled City Tattoo

advancing to define what we do and judge the success of any given

the hardest hit: theatre and publishing sustained some of the deepest

topping the table in their metrics of value. Some clues were given on

initiative. It is, in part, about recognising and codifying the ways that we

wounds. The amalgamation of Derry City Council and Strabane District

what to expect as the new cultural strategy for the Derry / Strabane

already work with various artists and publics: prioritising inter- and

Council into a new ‘Supercouncil’ has created further uncertainty for

super council is drawn up: arts organisations are seen as “service

intra-institutional collaborative practices, delivering engaged projects

organisations in receipt of City Council support, as the mechanisms for

delivery agents” or “cultural service providers”, delivering wellbeing in

which take place over longer periods, placing care for artists and

delivering that support have not been established yet. Derry City

the context of community planning.

communities at the heart of projects and privileging processes based on

Council commissioned a visual arts strategy document to assess the

All the speakers foregrounded inclusivity and combating

state of visual arts in the wake of City of Culture and make

marginalisation, bringing in audiences and participants from

open-ended research without necessarily moving towards a

recommendations for the future, but the framing of this report leaned

economically deprived areas and ‘edge-to-centre’ approaches, as well as

Prior to the City of Culture, visual arts in the city were already

towards an appraisal of the viability of various organisations, with a

the maximisation of audience numbers. These are important goals, and

beginning to thrive. Interesting, relevant and challenging work was

reductive set of econometrics as its scale of success.

some of our work in CCA also seeks to address or circumnavigate

being done in Void and the Context Gallery / CCA, by smaller

predetermined goal.

That said there are also signs of hope. Void was one of the very few

established patterns of social exclusion. But, as Susan Fitzwilliam asked

organisations and collectives, and by groups like Artlink just across the

organisations to receive an uplift in this last ACNI funding round,

in the aftermath of Liverpool’s year as Capital of Culture, why is there

border in Donegal. One key benefit City of Culture brought was the

though it seems to have necessitated major institutional restructuring

not more work being done to challenge the attempts of advocates of

amplification and legitimisation of this work, along with much needed

on their part, and CCA has been announced as a new member of the

cultural regeneration to fix and formalise the public sphere in this way?

connections to channels of communication and access to wider debates

Plus Tate network, which is seen as a concrete marker of legacy in terms

“What, or who, benefits from large-scale, spectacle-led events that

and discussions among peer arts organisations. In the aftermath of

of sustaining relationships established during the staging of the Turner

presuppose the nature of the identities that make up the public sphere

2013, legacy can perhaps best be measured in and through a new set of

Prize in Derry. A new space has opened, the Social Studios and Gallery,

and pre-empt the conditions in which these groups ought to speak?

metrics that are generated by arts organisations themselves.

which seems to offer some of the same accessibility as the London

Research into event-led regeneration might start by asking more

Street Gallery in the broad appeal they are making to a wide audience.

fundamental and relevant questions: How is the event produced (as a

Sara Greavu, is a curator, artist and educator. She is Curator

It was against this backdrop that the day-long conference ‘Is

meaningful occurrence) by different communities of interest in the

(Public Programmes) in the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry-

Legenderry Dead?’ was organised by Audiences NI and the Department

city? Why is a temporary event being framed as a way of addressing

Londonderry.

of Culture Arts and Leisure (DCAL). Both of these organisations have

deep-seated social inequalities in a locality?”

2

borne significant government cuts and wanted to evaluate the idea of

At CCA we are closely following the work of organisations such as

‘legacy’ and consider ways forward for the arts in the city and region.

Common Practice, an advocacy group consisting of some of the key

Renamed ‘Growing Audiences’ after ‘pushback’ from Derry City Council,

contemporary institutions in London, who have commissioned research

the event sought to “provide a forum for discussion about how we can

and initiated discussions with the goal of developing a new calibration

Notes 1. BBC News, UK City of Culture 2013: Minister confirms no budget for Derry legacy projects, 20 March 2015 2. Susan Fitzpatrick, Creative Communities and Everyone Else: Liverpool as European Capital of Culture in Conflict, Community, Culture (ed. Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt), 2013

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

27

How is it made?

Antidote to Oblivion ÁINE PHILLIPS, EDITOR OF ‘PERFORMANCE ART IN IRELAND: A HISTORY’, DISCUSSES THE MAKING OF THE BOOK.

Domonic Thorpe and Sandra Johnston, Due Process, Third Space, Belfast, 2011

The past is not the same as history. A written history is not everything that happened in the past. It is a selection of events and an attempt to understand them. I have edited a new book that undertakes this task: Performance Art in Ireland: A History, published by the Live Art Development Agency in collaboration with Intellect Books (UK) and funded by the Arts Council. This selected history unfolds through a series of essays, articles and reviews. It is illustrated with over a hundred images and populated with a dense timeline of numerous artists and events that spans five decades and the island of Ireland.

The publication was gestated during a meeting of some of the most active performance artists in Ireland at Trinity College Arts Club in October 2011. Dominic Thorpe put out a call for someone to take on the imperative of producing a book that would document work in performance and live art created in Ireland or by Irish artists abroad. No such publication existed and the critical and theoretical writing that did exist was scattered and diverse. This made it difficult for artists, students or interested readers to access outside of specialised libraries. It was clear this sector of contemporary art practice urgently needed recording. Live art often lives in memory and the advance of time brings amnesia. The writing of books is the antidote to oblivion.

In 2009 I completed a practice-based PhD in autobiographical performance art at the National College of Art and Design. The PhD taught me the value of perseverance, dogged hard work and commitment to a long-term project. Consequently, I felt prepared to take on this ambitious project. It also helped that I’ve been a live art practitioner for many decades and that I personally and / or professionally know nearly every artist in Ireland who has worked in performance / live art.

Performance Art in Ireland: A History is a fusion of the excellent work of so many important contributors, in both text and in image.

I initially only approached the Live Art Development Agency (LADA) for advice on publishing. But almost immediately they offered to take the title on, in collaboration with Intellect Books – with whom they’d worked before on a number of books. Intellect’s involvement served to significantly enhance the marketing, profiling and distribution of the book to bookshops, libraries, universities / colleges and other outlets and readers. LADA expressed confidence that the book would be a success internationally.

Working within the limits of the Arts Council Project Award funding, the publishers and I discussed how we could most advantageously allocate the budget, weighing the respective costs of authors’ fees and design against word count, quantity of images, book size and paper quality. This process involved some complex decisions (over the entire duration of the project) and I was glad of both the

editorial committee’s background support and the publishers’ expertise.

The Arts Council project award paid for the contributors’ fees, editorial costs, design and most of the printing costs. As co-publishers, LADA administered the budget and managed the timeframe, proofreading, design process and PR / marketing. Intellect administered the peer review and conducted a substantial amount of international PR and marketing. Intellect are distributing the book worldwide and LADA is selling the book on their Unbound website.

From the beginning, my aims were to include as many artists as possible, to demonstrate the scope of the art form and to celebrate the work of numerous exceptional practitioners. Not every relevant artist could be reviewed in detail, but many could be represented through images or by listing. I advertised my intention to make a book, seeking images for inclusion and the information to build a chronology of performance practice in Ireland, without distinction of the political border. I published this timeline on a blog (irishperformanceart. blogspot.ie). Over nearly two years, hundreds of artists, practitioners, programmers and curators responded with information and images.

It is due to the generosity and participation of so many that the book is rich with various histories. From the groundbreaking, politicallycharged performances made in the early 1970s during the Troubles to the socially transformative activist feminist performances in the south during the 1980s and 90s, Performance Art in Ireland: A History charts the development of these practices into what is currently defined as live art and contemporary, socially-engaged practices. The evolution of sound art in Ireland is also extensively described and documented. Many of the writers are practicing artists and their insights into the subject are particularly incisive. A couple of previously published reviews are also included, which adds an archival authenticity.

André Stitt described the work that emerged from the North concerning the Troubles in the 1970s and 80s. Amanda Coogan explored the performances produced in Dublin up to the 1990s through remembered or retold narratives. Danny McCarthy and Megs Morley conversed on Cork-based performance and sound art histories and El Putnam elaborated the contemporary sound art scene. Kate Antosik Parsons and Helena Walsh provided two rigorous chapters on feminist performance practices from the 1980s to the present day. Michelle Browne documented the current cultures of performance and live art on the island. I wrote an essay on selected Irish artists abroad and international influences on Irish performance work. Karine Telec wrote about the contemporary work of the collaborative group Bbeyond, who are based in Belfast. Fergus Byrne, Cliodhna Shaffrey and Anthony

Sheehan contributed archival and chronicled reviews from specific events and exhibitions in Galway, Dublin and Cork respectively.

The particular social and political context of Ireland, with its postcolonial framework, ethnic nationalist conflict, subsequent peace process and exigent gender issues has proved to be a fertile breeding ground for a special type of performance art practice since the 1970s.

Performance art became an artistic strategy – politically active and deeply socially engaged – to enact and compel social change in terms of sexual politics, social justice and in response to the Troubles.

By choosing to disregard the political border that divides the North and the Republic of Ireland, I wanted to show how the work of performance operates beyond perimeters, breaks down borders and expands into new territories of meaning and action, exchange and communication. Performance and live art is activist by its very nature.

Performance Art in Ireland: A History seeks to reflect on such principles of activism: to promote peaceful efforts to seek beneficial change.

There is a strong, coherent community of practitioners in performance and live art on this island, who support each other, promote emerging artists and build audiences. Performance Art in Ireland: A History is a tribute to and celebration of this community. The nature of performance practice, along with its curation and programming, is often collaborative. This is also reflected in the publication and how it was produced. I could not have imagined how painless the process of creating this book would be due to the huge assistance and encouragement I received throughout from my editorial panel: Céile Varley, Dominic Thorpe, Michelle Browne, Pauline Cummins and Brian Connolly.

The publishers, the Live Art Development Trust (LADA) and Intellect Books, guided me through each stage of production with ease.

I have worked with LADA on many projects since the early 2000s and they have provided huge support and advocacy to Irish performance since their inception. Peer reviewers Catherine Marshall and Heike Roms issued valuable and vital advice at crucial moments in the editing, drafting and refining process. NIVAL’s archives supplied much of the content alongside NCAD library and Burren College of Art where I teach.

The first ‘hot off the press’ book arrived through my letterbox in late January 2015. I was astonished and delighted by its physicality and impressed by the fluency of images intermingled with text. The book was launched in mid March; first in Belfast then London, Dublin and Galway. At each location we organised local contributors to speak on the project and to impart their perspectives on its context and significance. The launches were celebratory, honouring the efforts of so many involved in the publication. In London, on St. Patricks Day, the launch was hosted by the Live Art Development Agency and many of the large audience were emigrant Irish artists who have been living in the UK for decades. Kira O’Reilly, originally from Kerry and now based in London, posted this review the following day: “This book is a tremendous and thrilling benchmark and sets a high and comprehensive precedent from which subsequent books will follow – but they will be the richer for having this one.”

My desire, in collaboration with the community of practitioners in Ireland, was to create a legacy for performance art in Ireland, disseminate its histories, educate and inspire students, stimulate audiences and inform the general public. I believe that Performance Art in Ireland: A History has achieved these aspirations and a coherent narrative has been shaped. History is too large to be all inclusive and too random to be conformed to a recorded set of events. Despite its limitations, written histories need to be ventured or nothing will be gained. I hope all the writings and image-texts in this collection can reveal new understandings, and inspire other publications and critical evaluations of performance art in Ireland, acknowledging what it contributes to world performance and live art practice. Áine Phillips makes live performance art and video in Ireland and internationally. She is involved in artist led projects and curates live art events in Ireland. ainephillips.com Performance Art in Ireland: A History can be ordered from farpointrecordings.com and thisisunbound.co.uk.

28

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Building

Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre’s new building (detail), photo by Robert Harris

Future Intent

DIRECTOR ANN DAVOREN INTRODUCES UILLINN, WEST CORK ARTS CENTRE’S NEW BUILDING. After 30 years in the 1,000-square-foot ground floor of a VEC-owned building in North Street, Skibbereen, Co. Cork, West Cork Arts Centre moved to a new, 10,500-square-foot purpose-built facility in the heart of Skibbereen town, which opened to the public on 31 January this year.

This event, which celebrated the inaugural exhibition ‘Fourth Space’ (31 January – 14 March 2015), was the culmination of 10 years of work – a building project that began in the Celtic Tiger, fought through the recession and the devastation of the construction industry and finally came to fruition in 2015.1 It succeeded through the tenacity and efforts of a dedicated team of people: WCAC Board and staff, the support of the local authority Cork County Council and the West Cork community, who shared the vision that the most significant civic building to be built in Skibbereen in over a 100 years would be a building for the arts.

The name of this new building is Uillinn. It means elbow or angle, a reference to the angled plan of the building and its cantilevered location over a bend in the Caol stream, which snakes through the town. An international architectural design competition – run in association with the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland – delivered a signature design devised to develop and enhance a once derelict site as a new key location for the town. The competition attracted 215 entries from design teams from Europe, Australia, Japan and the US as well as Britain and Ireland. The competition was won by Dublin-based Donaghy and Dimond Architects in 2009.

Donaghy and Dimond’s design addressed a number of issues particular to the project. The building’s footprint is small. The site is bounded by a narrow river and a mix of domestic and commercial properties. The emphasis of the brief was on visual art, along with a broad and vibrant education and community programme, which takes place across a range of art forms with children, youth, adults, people with disabilities and older people. It was also important that the new building have the potential to cater for new art forms and new approaches by artists working in various fields.

The ‘ghost’ outline of a derelict bakery, which once occupied the site, was recast in new materials to house the double height ground floor gallery and three artists’ studios. A new pedestrian bridge over the Caol stream leads to a sheltered courtyard containing a tearoom and is the main access point to the entrance of the building. Extra space was cleverly gained by cantilevering a portion of the main block out over the Caol stream. This five-storey section comprises another gallery, a workspace, a multi-purpose performance space (for dance, performance, lectures and film), a changing area and offices. It’s clad in Corten weathering steel, which matures and stabilises over time.

The total cost of the building project was €3,562,269. This was funded through €1.6 million from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht’s ACCESS II scheme and €1.5 million from Cork County Council. The balance of €450,000 was raised by WCAC. In 2011, the tender for the construction failed to secure a successful outcome, arising from the withdrawal of the lowest tender and the fact that the construction firm that submitted the next lowest tender went into liquidation.

With the failed tender, the project stalled and we had to terminate the contract with the design team. It was unfortunate timing and a very frustrating experience from our point of view, to be in the building market during such an unstable period in the construction sector. In order to progress we had to maintain the commitment of our funders and engage in a new tender process. There were extra costs associated with this, which involved revisiting previous stages of the contract with the design team and making revisions to the design of the building.

Most significantly, the idea of basement space had to be scrapped, in order to enable more contractors who would qualify to tender, also reducing the cost of construction.

We also had to review the composition of the design team and enter into a new contract with them. As our construction budget was extremely tight, we appointed the quantity surveyors rather than the architects as design team leaders. It became, out of necessity, a cost-led project.

Although necessary to the survival of the project, removing the basement from the design had knock on effects throughout the building, in the placement of plant and services, reduction of storage and the doubling up of functions of some of the spaces. The dance studio, for example, also had to serve as a small performance / lecture / film space.

The appearance of a large rusty steel box in the centre of the town engendered much comment and the location of this very strong architectural feature has aroused quite a lot of negative opinion within the community. But now that it is complete the general view of it seems to be mellowing. Many people are of the view that this bold, modern insertion into the townscape has provided Skibbereen with a new visual focus and, in fact, has provided a statement about Skibbereen’s future as a vibrant and forward-thinking community.

The building, which is universally accessible, comprises single three-and-five-storey interlinked volumes. These volumes and spaces are simple and adaptable. The galleries form an interlocking L-shaped space connecting the two volumes and incorporating a workspace as a

mezzanine to the upper gallery. These spaces, while simple, are arranged to provide a diversity of spatial experience and opportunities for occupation and exhibition. As the visitor passes through the galleries, orientation and views change, with a variety of aspects and light sources that can be closed off and adapted depending on the needs of exhibition. As curator, I’m finding my way to delivering a programme of exhibitions that both engages and utilises the space and which acknowledges and draws upon the context of the building in the town and the region.

The building materials are not only durable and low maintenance – Corten steel, lime render, concrete, cedar – but are tactile, visually stimulating and responsive to light and the elements. Uillinn is naturally lit and ventilated throughout, except for the performance / dance studio, which incorporates heat recovery and mechanical ventilation as required. Simple plasterboard wall and ceiling finishes dominate throughout the space. The main stair and lift core is finished in fair-faced concrete block work, with a cast-in-situ reinforced concrete finish. The floors are polished concrete with a sprung timber floor in the dance space.

A former cul de sac to the north of the site has been opened up to create a new laneway connecting the road in front of the building with Townshend Street to the back of the building – contributing another civic space to the town. The local authority acknowledges, along with the prime location of Uillinn, that the new building will serve as impetus for further redevelopment of the town’s public realm over the next three years.

The artists’ studios, which incorporate high-level, north-facing raked windows, provide much needed space for artists to work, develop projects and engage with the public. Having artists working on site creates unique opportunities for people to experience how artworks develop over a period of time. Already Tess Leak is at work developing large-scale drawings for her exhibition in May; photographer Emma Jervis is developing her practice by researching nineteenth-century photographic techniques and at the same time recording the transition from old to new and key events in the opening season.

Susan Montgomery has just developed a Discovery Box (a gallerybased resource for families) for the exhibition ‘Disconnect’, currently running in Gallery II, comprising work by West-Cork-based artists Bernadette Cotter, John Doherty and Sue Crellin McCarthy. Poet-inResidence Afric McGlinchey is – in addition to conducting many other interventions with the artists and exhibitions on site – inviting people to write a poem-to-go during their lunchtime. Interweaving all this activity is our Dancer-in-Residence Tara Brandel who, before we even opened in January, has been drawing the community into the new space through interventions, performances and events that have helped invigorate, populate and transform this new space from a building site to a living, porous and active place.

Recently, when we were installing Daphne Wright’s exquisite exhibition ‘Antrum’ – which included very fragile plaster and unfired clay work – in our fabulous new custom-built ground floor gallery space, we hit a water pipe which resulted in gallons of water pouring into the gallery for an hour. Luckily the artwork escaped any damage and the exhibition opened to the public that evening – disaster averted.

But what on earth were water pipes doing behind a gallery wall? What else could be lurking behind the walls; and not detailed in the plans?

So what lessons have we learnt in this process? They are so many: from actively, consistently and persistently engaging with the local authority, to not ever taking your eye off the work of mechanical and electrical engineers. When our first tender process collapsed in 2010, due to two of the building contractors going into liquidation, Cork County Council consolidated their ongoing support by cash-rolling the portion of the funding from the Department of Arts, which enabled us to go to tender again. The most important thing we have learned is that by drawing on the support, expertise and commitment of a wide group of people, the energy required over such a lengthy gestation can be maintained, and succeed in something in which people have a real investment which bodes well for its future.

Ann Davoren, Director, West Cork Arts Centre.

Note 1. ‘Fourth Space’ (31 January – 14 March 2015) comprised sculptural and installation work by David Beattie, Karl Burke, Rhona Byrne, Maud Cotter, Angela Fulcher, Mark Garry, Caoimhe Kilfeather, Dennis McNulty and Liam O’Callaghan. The exhibition, extended throughout the ground floor and first floor galleries, and drew together works by artists who shared an approach to making that is “fluid, questioning and open-ended and yet displayed a fascination with space and materiality”

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

29

BUilding

DIT at Grangegorman VAI TALKS TO KIERAN CORCORAN, HEAD OF THE DUBLIN SCHOOL OF CREATIVE ARTS AT THE DUBLIN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (DIT), ABOUT THE NEW CAMPUS AT GRANGEGORMAN.

DIT, Grangegorman, gallery space

DIT, Grangegorman, exterior

DIT, Grangegorman, exterior

In 2014 the Dublin School of Creative Arts (previously the department of Art, Design and Printing) of the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) relocated to a new site at Grangegorman, Dublin 7. The site has a long history, previously housing the Richmond Asylum built

by Francis Johnstone in 1810. During the nineteenth century the site also housed the Richmond Penitentiary, the Fever Hospital and St. Lawrence’s Church. In the early twentieth century the site became St. Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital, which at its peak served over 2000 patients and closed completely in 2013.

The Grangegorman Development Agency (GDA) was established in 2006 by the Irish Government to redevelop the former St. Brendan’s Hospital grounds. The new 73-acre Grangegorman campus comprises both the old hospital buildings and several new buildings that will be developed over the next four to five years.

Can you introduce DIT’s new Grangegorman campus and describe where the school is situated within it?

The School of Creative Arts was the first to move to the new location.

We made this decision in 2011, largely because the department was so spread out across different campuses.

Currently, the School is housed in the old men’s ward building called the North House, with additional spaces available to us, such as large individual project rooms for third and fourth years and a repurposed church for interventions, screenings, performances etc.

The North House is a large three-story building, which has been completely retrofitted with workshops for printmaking, sculpture (including clay), metal, wood and plaster grouped around the ground floor gallery. There are dedicated studios for Fine Art, Product / Furniture Design, Visual Communication Design, Interior Design and Visual Merchandising on the upper floors. There is also a fully equipped set of photographic studios, darkrooms, digital photo and digital printing

labs next to the main studio complex. The move allowed the school to almost completely reequip the workshops and acquire new studio furniture for all programmes. There is also an arts library with over 40,000 volumes and high-speed WiFi is available throughout.

In two years the whole School will move to a new, dedicated, 17,000-square-feet creative arts centre across the road. In addition to the full range of art and design studios and workshops (with nearly 20% extra space), this will contain a 450-seat black box theatre, studios for film, television and game design, as well as fine art and design. The centre will facilitate 3000 people, with the LUAS extension running right to the door. Our hope is that this will become a truly interdisciplinary space – something that’s talked about a lot but rarely achieved.

The campus is a significant urban development for the city of Dublin and opens up a historic building that was previously a closed space. What broader impact will this have on the city?

The site has a long, disturbing history, which has been explored in a recent public lecture series ‘The Construction of Madness / Knowledge’, organised by the School. Speakers have included Professor Ivor Browne (former Chief Psychiatrist), Professor Brendan Kelly (Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at University College Dublin and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital) and Dr Damian Brennan (TCD). They have examined the movement of psychiatry to the community in the context of the history of Grangegorman.

Acknowledging this history will also be an important part of a major public art project, which is being coordinated by the Public Art Working Group chaired by Professor Ciaran Benson, former Chair of the Arts Council. The Public Art Working Group is currently developing a three-year programme for the delivery of a range of public art

works and events that will involve community groups, local arts organisations and the broader art world.

The site will undoubtedly transform the area and we see it as part of the drive to develop the arts in Ireland, which we believe are fundamental to a healthy society. We’re not trying to tell people what to do but to show that a big investment like this can fit in with artist-led spaces and organisations. The creative and cultural industries should be a central part of Irish society, making it more open and democratic as well as having a genuine economic impact.

The area around the site is full of creative groups and artists, such as Block T and the Complex theatre company; we want the new centre to be a focal point for this kind of activity. We have already been contacted by the Dublin Fringe Festival, for example, and hope more organisations like this will get involved.

The campus will be an open, public space connected to the surrounding area. There will be a primary care centre and an Educate Together primary school situated on the site. The new library will also be open to the public.

What were the main aspects of the brief relating to faculties for the visual arts courses in terms of technical facilities and space for making larger works? How have these been manifested?

We wanted the studios, gallery and other workspaces to be close together to see what kinds of collaborations might emerge between students. The new site allows for the students’ work to be more visible on campus, which was much more difficult in our previous location.

It was also important to the School to facilitate residencies for professional artists, so that students can engage with them. During the summer months, the studios will be opened up to selected artists who then provide the students with a masterclass when they return.

The fact that the new site is so open to the city was also a big draw for us. This open, urban context will allow students to connect with the local creative community. We’ve already had lots of interest from various arts organisations and festivals, and we’d like to really open up the space to professionals. DIT has always had been closely linked with the ‘real world’, so to speak, and we hope that these connections can be further developed through the new site to provide students with greater insight into the professional art and design world.

Have the new spaces had an impact on teaching styles or have they been designed to accommodate existing practices?

Many of the spaces in the building have been completely rethought.

All the chairs and tables are on wheels, for example, so that each space is adaptable to the needs of different students and groups. We’ve tried to move away from traditional box-like rooms to encourage more collaboration and group work. It’s not something that art and design students are necessarily comfortable with but the industry has begun to emphasise and encourage it. This has already been pioneered to an extent in the Fine Art department, which offers an ‘interdisciplinary’ option. We’re trying to break down the walls of the academy, in a way, but without diluting the experience. All students have access to a common gallery space which can also act as a crit / lecture display space. It’s also positioned at the entrance of the building so that students from different programmes can see what others are doing.

Creative Arts was one of the first schools to move into the new building. Have any unexpected issues arisen?

More than 800 people were moved from three separate sites, so naturally we encountered many issues. Change is always difficult and people struggled with leaving the buildings they were familiar with.

It was a challenge to get everyone under the same roof and into spaces that were sometimes a departure from those they had grown used to.

However, the benefits really outweigh any of these initial problems. The move allowed us to almost completely re-equip the department, from workshop equipment to easels to plan chests. The WiFi in the building is superb and all the technology has been replaced. There are new computers, large-screen TVs and film / photography studios with brand new equipment.

When will the inaugural degree shows take place?

The degree show opens on 5 June 2015. Students have already begun to explore the various spaces available and move out across the whole campus. Nearly all the spaces will feature some kind of intervention or exhibition and it promises to be a really exciting show.

30

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

art in the public realm

Artist as Go-between TONYA MCMULLAN, PROJECT OFFICER FOR DOWN COMMUNITY ARTS, PROFILES ‘LIFE TEXT’, AN INTERGENERATIONAL ART PROJECT.

‘Life Text’ exhibition Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick (13 – 28 February)

Down Community Arts (DCA) is a unique organisation, which offers a participatory arts service to people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities. In addition to a regular programme of arts workshops (in visual arts, film making, dance and music), DCA offers a tailor-made service to community groups and organisations. Based in Downpatrick DCA is a constantly evolving organisation responding to the needs of the local community. It employs two staff members, full time Project Manager Philip Campbell and myself (Tonya McMullan), Project Officer, employed 16 hours per week.

I joined DCA in May 2014. One of the first projects I was given to work on was Life Text, an intergenerational community art project funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Arts and Older People Programme (AOPP). Launched in June 2010, AOPP was established to increase opportunities for older people to engage with the arts. It provides funding to arts-based projects addressing related social justice issues such as poverty, isolation and loneliness as well as promoting positive mental health.

Life Text brought together groups of older and younger people to work for an eight-week period with artists Jill McKeown (jillmckeown. com), Verity Peet (veritypeet.com), Larry Cowan (lambfilms.com) and Charlotte Bosanquet (charlottebosanquet.com), who engaged the groups in visual art and multimedia workshops.1 All of the artists were listed in our current artist database and were chosen for their strong contemporary art practices and experience working with older people.2 One aim of Life Text was to use art as a tool to reflect and raise awareness of age-related issues. The groups took a thoroughly collaborative approach to this with the artists acting as a ‘go between’, passing text, questions and drawings between curious participants old and young. The group sessions offered a space for a commonality to be explored through new and fresh art workshops that included skill sharing exercises and group drawing games.

The contribution of stories and experiences from people across the age spectrum provided an insight into the lives of people in the community and influenced and shaped the direction of the artworks.

Half way through the project the groups young and old joined together and were facilitated by the artists in sharing their progress and ideas with one another.

Life Text was process led. This was particularly evident in the exhibition, held at Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick (13 – 28 February), which travelled to Glass Gallery, Newcastle (13 – 21 March). The show revealed both striking similarities and vast differences between people born in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Writer Verity Peet

produced a limited edition book of poetry, which was exhibited and given to each of the groups. The poetry was arranged to highlight the common thoughts and fears shared by people at different stages in their lives.

Charlotte Bosanquet’s took an innovative approach to working with the Crossgar Primary and Glasswater Care Home. The group of older women from Glasswater made drawings, which they passed onto the school children, who added detail. The drawings were passed back and forth until patterns began to emerge. The artist then made the pattern into a one-off printed fabric, which was used to upholster a chair and cushions. The cushions now decorate the rooms in the care home. Many of the older women had dementia, which the school children had not come across before. Their teacher explained the condition to them and discussed some other challenges faced by older people. This support from the school paved the way for a challenging collaborative and intergenerational drawing exercise whereby the group held hands in a circle and drew portraits by operating their neighbour’s hand.

Filmmaker Larry Cowan made a short film with the Ballymote older men and women. The group learnt about the various aspects of filmmaking and operated a drone to capture aerial footage of the Ballymote area in Downpatrick. The group discussed the ethics of this new technology and how it is used internationally and particularly in relation to the context of Northern Ireland. There was a sense of excitement within the group as they explored their area from another angle. Each participant took home a copy and a series of screenings were organised.

Groups in Annsborough and Ardglass worked with Jill Mckeown to make prints, paintings, collages and photo books. Jill introduced the older groups to linocut printmaking. Once they were familiar with the technique she then prepared them to lead their own workshop for the local youth club. The intergenerational learning aspect of the project was unplanned from the beginning, however, because the artist had a flexible approach to this kind of participant-led activity.

Each of the artists involved in Life Text have a strong practice behind them, showcasing their work locally and internationally.

McKeown has gained an international reputation, exhibiting in solo and group shows in Ireland, UK, America, Europe, Egypt, China and Japan. Her work explores memory and simultaneous experiences with the passing of time, associations with place through photographic source material and the process of photo-intaglio printmaking to create visceral layers of details and associations.

Bosanquet argues that art is a collaborative process, which can’t

exist without the help and dialogue with others. Within her practice she performs, directs and facilitates actions, performances and events, questioning the pre-existing structures that constitute artist and audience, democratising the art experience by encouraging a shared experience.

After years of working in the hospitality industry, Larry Cowan left to pursue a filmmaking career. While gaining as much experience as he could in every department – from Tim Robbins stand-in to set security – Larry was keen to put all these skills together and formed Lamb Films.

In the last seven years Lamb Films have produced films for all types of audiences, ranging from short films to cross-community projects. Their short films have played at over a hundred film festivals worldwide.

Dr Verity Peet is a published broadcast writer working mainly in TV but also radio, film, print and multimedia. Peet enjoys unusual projects such as creating three-second-long ‘soundbites’ for an interactive sound installation in a corridor at a new Waldorf Astoria hotel (for the Sound Agency), or creating a comic radio play based on the legend of the birth of the Ganges (Heritage Arts Company). Her TV scripts have been broadcast on the BBC and her multimedia animations and films have reached international audiences courtesy of Tourism Ireland.

The groups were given a presentation on the proposed artists before they were contracted, preparing the ground for the project and allowing the group to ask questions about the artists. One participant noted that the artwork presented to him was certainly not the arts and crafts he was used to. He then went on to say that he respected the artist and was willing to give the project a go.

In all cases the artist came to the first workshop prepared with a few suggestions for the groups. From there, the artist gauged the level of ability and interest before moulding a unique workshop series centred around participants, their art form and the context of the project. DCA supported this approach and through this partnership the groups and artists had the freedom to express themselves through the work.

The artists were paid for production time outside of the workshops.

This meant that they could focus on the group during the eight weeks of contact time, without the pressure of creating material for the exhibition. The artists then had the chance to bring something from their own practice into the exhibition and ensured the work was finished to a standard of exhibition quality.

The feedback from community groups was positive. Some will continue to develop skills learnt by purchasing equipment and materials to make lino prints, a skill they first tried out with artist Jill McKeown.

The Ballymote older men’s group really enjoyed the research visit, during which they directed the bus to significant local areas to take photographs and film footage. The exhibition side of the project was of great interest to the primary school children. Before the show opened they had a visit to the gallery and discussed with Bosanquet how they might show the collaborative soft sculptures and whether or not people should be allowed to ‘touch’ the artwork. Coming to the exhibition was a proud moment as they could see how this discussion had influenced the final display.

A key indicator of ‘success’ for collaborative / process based projects like this – in terms of the quality of the experience of the participants – lies within the strong partnerships that DCA has built up over the years. DCA work alongside artists, group leaders, volunteers and community development workers to develop community-centred projects and new artistic approaches that challenge and excite people.

Tonya McMullan is a multidisciplinary artist based in Belfast. She is a recent recipient of the ACNI Artist Career Enhancement Scheme. In addition to her studio practice Tonya organises and facilitates freelance community-based projects and is currently working on a collaborative intercultural commission ‘Sister of Another Mama’ through the Corners initiative. tonyamcmullan.co.uk Notes 1. The participating Life Text groups were: Glasswater Lodge Care Home, Glasswater Primary School, Ardglass Youth Group, Ardglass Friendship Group, Annsborough Social Club, Annsborough Youth Club, Ballymote Men’s Group, Ballymote Women’s Group and Ballymote Youth Forum 2. The DCA artist database is continuously updated as new artists contact us with their CV. We periodically advertise for new artists to sign up to the register through social media and the DCA website. downcommunityarts.org

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

31 VAI Northern Ireland

Clunk and Boom ROB HILKEN REFLECTS ON SOME RECENT HIGHLIGHTS OF VISUAL ARTS ACTIVITIES AND INITIATIVES IN NORTHERN IRELAND.

Photo by Jo Hatty

Stephan Millar at Boom Studios, photo by Jo Hatty

Richard Gorman RHA, K-Sora, 2014, Oil on linen, 170 x 170cm, Image courtesy of the artist and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.

185th 26 May – 8 August, 2015

RHA ANNUAL EXHIBITION Featuring painting, print, sculpture, drawing, photography, architectural models.

Irelands largest open submission exhibition.

ADMISSION FREE

GAllAGHeR GAlleRy / 15 ely Place, Dublin 2 +353 1 661 2558 / info@rhagallery.ie www.royalhibernianacademy.ie

2015 Valerie Earley Residency Award Previous Recipients:

Jill Christine Miller (2013 award)

Aoife Flynn (2014 award)

IN 2013 Visual Artists Ireland put in place a commemoration of our late friend and colleague Valerie Earley, who worked with us as Membership Manager for over 17 years. We wanted to provide a lasting memory of Valerie and hope that this award is one way that Valerie’s care for our artist members will continue into the future.

The Valerie Earley Residency award is open to all Visual Artists Ireland members and takes the form of a two-week residency in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. The Tyrone Guthrie Centre is set in a tranquil, beautiful setting amid the lakes and drumlins of County Monaghan. The residency is self-catering and includes accommodation and a studio facility.

The application process is subject to the standard terms and conditions of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. Contact: Tyrone Guthrie Centre Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Co. Monaghan 00353 47 54003 info@tyroneguthrie.ie www.tyroneguthrie.ie

closing date: Friday 26 June 2015

2015 has started with a boom! The first three months of the year in Northern Ireland have seen ambitious, creative and innovative projects spring up around the region. Boom Studios, a new studio group in Bangor, have announced their presence with an unique residency opportunity. David Best’s Temple, developed and built in Derry, finally reached its’ ‘big burn’.1 The Festival of Art and Design at the University of Ulster saw large numbers of people attend 64 events and exhibitions over 6 days. In addition, exhibitions in galleries across the region continue to delight and challenge audiences in equal measures.

Boom Studios emerged at the beginning of this year to fill a notable gap in studio and workspace provision for creatives in Bangor. The three founding members had each been residents at Project 24 in Bangor – a regeneration initiative that uses converted shipping containers as artist studios in prime unoccupied space on the Bangor seafront – but they felt the need for a move to permanent studios. Boom Studios occupies the top floor of an office building in the middle of Bangor, houses five studios and aims to become a major creative hub and resource centre for the region.

Boom’s first public initiative was to host a weekend of ‘Wee Residencies’. This was an opportunity for 16 artists, designers and makers to experience a residency for the first time, hold an exhibition in the studio gallery and become a part of the Boom Collective. Commenting on these short residencies, artist Stephen Millar noted “the twohour duration of Wee Residencies was appealing as it provided me space for a small duration to experiment on a new project and see how the public reacted to it. As the residencies were only two hours many of the artists who had residencies earlier in the day stayed to witness the later ones. So it was also good for meeting new artists and groups.” Visual Artists Ireland will be partnering with Boom Collective and Studios later this year for a Visual Artists’ Cafe, which will offer artists and makers of the region the opportunity to meet, share ideas and make use of this new resource.

The eighth incarnation of the University of Ulster’s Festival of Art and Design took place in March. There were many highlights. Kevin Killen transformed the University Gallery with his neon sculptures – freestanding ‘drawings’ that trace the movement of dancer and choreographer David Ogle.

Aine Philips launched her book on the history of performance art in Ireland. David Littler collaborated

with local artists Jiann Hughes and Paul Moore, along with traditional musicians, in a live audiovisual performance that took inspiration from the rich history of the Irish linen industry.

Visiting artist Mark Wallinger has been strengthening his ties with Northern Ireland over the last year. Currently a board member of Void in Derry and an Honorary Professor of the University of Ulster, he co-curated the exhibition ‘Horse’ with Maoliosa Boyle, which ran at Void throughout March and April, and gave tutorials and seminars to current students at the university. For the festival Wallinger gave a retrospective overview of his career in an intimate and enlightening seminar.

Belfast-based artist Paddy Bloomer worked with sculpture students to create a large installation inspired by Fischli and Weiss’s 1987 chain reaction artwork The Way Things Go. An old washing machine and a foot spa were among the abandoned household items brought to life in this kinetic performance that flirted with danger and had all the Heath Robinson eccentricity so often found in Bloomer’s work.

Bloomer also created work for the Belfast Children’s Festival – ‘Meat Clunk’ at the Golden Thread Gallery.

For this exhibition of kinetic sculpture Bloomer entertained audiences with an interactive work using an old stair lift, a metal tank and numerous gears and counterweights that loudly announced each participant’s descent to the ground with a thumping crescendo of metal on metal.

Outside of the festival, Belfast Exposed showed their latest commission from an artist working with their extensive photography archive. Michael Hanna created a significant new work – Short films about learning – that paired images from the Troubles with audio from a psychology lecture given by Professor Paul Bloom. The artist transformed the gallery in order to shut out any external light and noise that might distract the audience from the experience of this 12-minute video work. Hanna distances himself from the content of the images in an almost scientific manner, leaving the audience to bring their own interpretation to the work. The resulting installation immersed the audience completely in the work, giving new life and an alternative perspective to images of the Troubles that are familiar to many.

Robert Hilken, Northern Ireland Manager, Visual Artists Ireland.

Note 1. David Best, well known for his creative involvement in the Burning Man festival, was commissioned engage with people from across the community in Derry. Participants built a shared structure that measured 72 feet high, which was then ceremonially burnt in March 2015. Temple was intended to “turn traditional associations with bonfire burning in Northern Ireland on their head” (templederry-londonderry.com)

32

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Public Art ROUNDUP

Art in Public public art commissions, site-specific works, socially engaged practice and other forms of art outside the gallery.

CHAPELIZOD DERELICTION

Artist: Debbie Chapman Title: Chapelizod Dereliction Commissioning body: Dublin City Council Date advertised: 2013 Date sited / carried out: February – November 2014 Budget: €4,000 Commission type: Dublin City Council Arts Grant Project Partners: Eneclann Genealogical Research Agency Brief description: The project was undertaken by visual artist Debbie Chapman (a resident of Chapelizod) in collaboration with Eneclann Family History researchers, local residents, including local history societies, heritage groups, community organisations plus artists, individuals and young people living in Chapelizod. The purpose was to explore the impact of decline and deterioration of historic buildings at the village centre and through shared artistic practice create a strong

sense of place within the current community. The outputs were artistic interventions instilled with community consciousness. These were informed by extensive research and a series of community arts events.

The project culminated in a semi-permanent artistic hoarding in the village and a project exhibition in Farmleigh Cow Shed Gallery.

Dublin Ships Artist: Cliona Harmey Title: Dublin Ships Commissioning body: Dublin City Public Art Programme Date sited / carried out: February 2015 Commission type: Per Cent for Art Scheme Project partners: Dublin Port Company, Dublin Docklands Development Authority

Brief description: Dublin Ships is a temporary public artwork. The artwork is generated via a live electronic information system (Automatic Identification System or AIS) which tracks the locations of ships. The names of the most recently arrived and most recently departed ships from Dublin Port are output to two large LED screens sited at the Scherzer Bridges beside the Samuel Beckett Bridge. The artwork is concerned with the meanings and poetic qualities of ship names. The ship names include allusions to maritime trade, cargoes, historical figures

and distant places. The juxtaposition of the two ship names generates a form of poetic writing. The work also attempts to interrupt the speed of instantaneous data and returns it to the speed of movement of real entities in space. The project includes a website (dublinships.ie) with a commissioned essay by Francis Halsall and an automated Twitter feed (twitter.com/dubships).

THROUGH ROSE TINTED GLASSES

Artist: Rian Coulter Title of work: Through Rose Tinted Glasses Date sited: 23 – 25 April 2015 Project Partners: Social Entrepreneurs Ireland – Wave Change, The Liberties Business Forum and RGDATA Budget: €1,000 Brief description: To celebrate the continuing rich commercial heritage of the Liberties area of Dublin, artist Rian Coulter hosted ‘Through Rose Tinted Glasses’, an exhibition of trade memorabilia from a contemporary perspective at Larkin Bros. Butcher Shop, Dublin 8. Coulter is interested in the dramatic change in the city’s social, economic and spiritual complexion, particularly the changing face of high streets, towns and villages. The artist sees art as a “state of encounter that can transmit and transform what we desire, forget, condemn or choose not to see, acting as a dot on a line that aims to sidestep the inevitably of prescribed tasks”.

irish bronze

Invitation to Exhibit: Alley Arts & Conference Centre The Alley Arts & Conference Centre, Strabane, invites applications for exhibitions to be programmed within our gallery space. Selection will be based on a consideration of an artist’s CV, exhibition proposal and 6–12 examples of previous work (which can be submitted in hard copy, slide or CD format).

Dedicated to the faithful reproduction of the sculptor’s vision

To receive an information pack with gallery dimensions, programme schedule and terms and conditions please contact Jacqui Doherty: +44 (0) 28 71884760, jacqueline.doherty@derrycityandstrabanedistrict.com, alley-theatre.com.

The Alley Theatre 1a Railway Street Strabane Co. Tyrone BT82 8EF

T: 01 454 2032 e: irishbronze@eircom.net W: www.irishbronze.ie

Deadline for receipt of submissions: 4.00pm, Friday 12 June 2015

Willie Malone: Casting Sculpture for over two decades

Studios for Rent: Mornington The Stables at Mornington, Multyfarnham, Co. Westmeath have recently been renovated and converted into four fine studios / exhibition spaces. They are now available to view and for rental.

facebook.com/thestablesatmornington web: www.mornington.ie, email: stay@mornington.ie 00353 (0)449372191, funded by Leader

Kilmainham Art Foundry Ltd t/a Irish Bronze, Kilmainham Rd and Griffith College, Dublin 8

For members of the organisation, Visual Artists Ireland offers a range of services, facilities and items for hire at affordable rates – including media projectors, cameras, room hire and PA. Institutions, organisations & non-artist individuals may also hire equipment and services by joining VAI as an Organisation or Friend. visualartists.ie

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

33

opportunities

Opportunities courses / workshops/ training DARKROOM WORKSHOP Alan Ross is holding darkroom workshops in The Darkroom, Smithfield Square, Dublin 7 (23 – 26 Jul and 30 Jul – 2 Aug 2015, from 9am – 6pm). Ross is an internationally respected master photographer and educator who has worked side-by-side with Ansel Adams as his photographic assistant. During this fourday intensive workshop Alan will discuss, explain and carefully demonstrate the way he approaches printing to achieve an expressive, tonally rich, fine print. In turn, you will have access to an enlarger to practice with your own negatives under Alan’s guidance.

Email info@darkroom.ie Web alanrossphotography.com, darkroom.ie INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY Leo Scarff and Alistair Farrell are holding a two-day Innovative Technology workshop in Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Sat 23 – Sun 24 May. Cost: €130. Day 1: 3D CADCAM Technologies: an introduction to 3D CAD, free and low-cost alternatives to AutoCAD, solid and surface model formats and how to exchange with other systems; generating photo-realistic models for mockups; 3D scanning, how to scan a physical object for 3D digital manufacturing; 3D digital manufacturing techniques, an overview of 3D printing techniques and printers, CNC milling; demonstrations of 3D scanning and printing. Day 2: Plastics and Solid Surfacing Materials: recent innovations in plastics, including examination of physical samples in studio; overview of plastics manufacturing processes wit examples from the art world; up-to-date review of Irish-based plastics and composite-processing companies.

Web leitrimsculpturecentre.ie PRINT WORKSHOP Debora Ando Print will hold a number of print workshops during May and Jun. May 9: one day etching workshop (11am – 3pm). Cost: €65. May 23 – 24: weekend etching workshop (11am – 4pm). Cost: €100. Six-week introduction to etching starts on May 19 (6.30am – 9pm). Sixweek etching practice starts on May 20 (6.30am – 9pm). Cost: €190 Email deboraando@gmail.com Web deboraando.wordpress.com Address 18 Exchange Street Upper, Dublin 2 SUMMER COURSES AT NCAD Continuing Education in Art and Design at NCAD is now enrolling for the sum-

mer series of short courses. Courses run over 3 – 5 days during the months of Jun and Jul. For further information check the CEAD webpage on the NCAD website.

Web ncad.ie/continuing-education Email cead@staff.ncad.ie MA FESTIVE ARTS The MA Festive Arts combines production, performance and the study of festivity and its role in society. Previous students include arts managers, festival producers, graduates from a range of backgrounds, those with a strong professional background in the field, festival performers and those interested in the scholarly and critical exploration of festival and society. For full information on applications and scholarships, please visit the website.

Contact Dr Niamh NicGhabhann Web irishworldacademy.ie/postraduate-programmes/ma-festive-arts/ Email niamh.nicghabhann@ul.ie

funding / awards / bursaries ARTS & DISBILITY ireland The Arts Council and Arts and Disability Ireland announce the second phase of Arts and Disability Connect, a new awards scheme for artists with disabilities in the Republic of Ireland. Supported by the Arts Council the scheme will have a fund of €25,000 to distribute in 2015.

Specifically targeted at individual artists with disabilities, Arts and Disability Connect includes New Work, Mentoring and Training awards. The scheme offers artists the opportunity to: connect with other practitioners or venues; make a change in their practice; ‘step up’ in terms of scope and scale; reach new audiences and to engage in mentoring and training.

Email info@adiarts.ie Deadline 4pm 21 May Web adiarts.ie Telephone 018509002 lisburn & castlereagh The Tyrone Guthrie Centre Bursary allows a successful artist to spend two all–inclusive weeks at the prestigious Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, Co. Monaghan. This idyllic artists’ retreat plays host to artists from around the world working in a variety of art forms.

Applicants must be born in or domiciled

in the Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council area to apply for this particular award.

Deadline 4pm 22 May Web castlereaghcommunity.co.uk/2015/01/ the-tyrone-guthrie-centre-bursary/ jim mcnaughton bursary The Jim McNaughton / TileStyle €10,000 Artist’s Bursary will be awarded towards the development of an artist’s craft or the evolution of a body of work or project by an emerging artist(s) in any art form. The Bursary is designed to develop an artist’s creative practice or helping to realise an idea, whether that be for writing, composing, performing or creating in a visual or other medium. Nominations must be made by a partnering business, arts or other organisation and should include up to 800 words on the artist(s), the partnership, the idea and how the TileStyle Bursary will be used to realise that.

Deadline 5pm 5 May Web businesstoarts.ie/awards RDS Craft Awards The RDS is now calling for entries for the 2015 RDS National Craft Awards, which has an increased prize fund of €40,000.

The annual RDS National Craft Awards showcase and reward excellence in Irish craft. The Design and Crafts Council of Ireland sponsor the category prizes in the 2015 RDS National Craft Awards. This year the 13 category prize winners in each strand will receive €500 as well as an RDS medal and certificate. There is also a special additional €5,000 prize to celebrate Irish Design 2015, which will be awarded for design innovation and excellence in a craft entry this year.

Web rds.ie/craft Deadline 10 June

studio space INDEPENDENT STUDIOS Applications are invited for three studio residencies commencing between July and September 2015. The studios are located at numbers 16 and 11 Eustace St in Temple Bar. They are well-lit individual rooms in two Georgian buildings. Sizes range from 20 x 20 ft. to 12 x 16 ft. All have sinks with running water. Residences are for two years and rent is approximately €150 per month, not including ESB. Buildings do not have WiFi. The website is currently being updated.

Deadline 15 May Web visitstudios.com/independent-studio-artists/ Email independentstudioartists@gmail.com.

CUSTOM HOUSE STUDIOS Custom Houses Studios are now accepting applications for use of studios for short term contracts (1 – 3 months) in 2015. Please send letters of interest, CVs and 10 images arranged in one PDF file by email. Selection is by peer panel of artists. Custom House are also inviting submissions for exhibitions and long term use of studios in 2016. Please send letters of interest, CVs and images (cd) by post.

Deadline 31 August Web customhousestudios.ie Email customhouse@eircom.net Address The Manager, Custom House Studios, The Quay, Westport, Co. Mayo PALLAS PROJECTS Pallas Projects/Studios are accepting applications for studio members for periods of six months to three years. Please email using the subject line: ‘Expression of Interest: Studios’ and include your full name, contact phone, your CV, a onepage statement/biog, with a maximum of six images in PDF or Word document format.

Email info@pallasprojects.org Web pallasprojects.org

organisation membership ARTLINK MEMBERSHIP Artlink, Donegal have launched a membership programme. Membership benefits include: online promotion of members’ artistic activities, access to artist support and professional development events, discounted rates on workshops, opportunity to submit to annual membership exhibition. Types of membership: students / unwaged €10, waged €20.

You can also support Artlink further by becoming a Friend of Artlink for €50 or a Patron of Artlink for €250.

Web artlink.ie/membership Address Artlink Ltd, Fort Dunree, Inishowen, County Donegal

open submissions CORK PRINTMAKERS Cork Printmakers invite printmaking artists to participate in ‘Impress’ through an open call submission. The theme of ‘Impress’ is ‘Print in the Post Print Age: Print as Art versus Print as Technology’.

The idea is to create a 16-page full colour classic tabloid format newspaper featuring the artwork of 12 selected printmakers and a commissioned text by Dr Angela Griffith, Trinity College Dublin. The newspaper will be printed in a minimum print run of 2,000 copies. ‘Impress’ will be

presented at IMPACT9, a major print symposium in Hangzhou, China, 22 – 26 September 2015. Please POST your submission.

Deadline 5pm 1 June Web impact9.caa.edu.cn | corkprintmakers.ie Email info@corkprintmakers.ie Telephone 0214322422 Address MPACT9, Cork Printmakers, Wandesford Quay, Cork

job vacancies ARTS EDUCATION PANEL Butler Gallery, Kilkenny is currently recruiting professional visual artists for its Arts Education Panel. The Gallery seeks expressions of interest from experienced and enthusiastic artists who have an interest in arts education practice, and a passion for enabling engagement with programmed exhibitions and facilitating arts experiences in a gallery context.

Applications can be sent by post or email.

Applications should be clearly marked ‘Education Panel’.

Deadline 12pm 11 May Contact Bairbre-Ann Harkin Web butlergallery.com Email bairbre.ann@butlergallery.com Address Education Curator, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny Castle, Kilkenny

residencies CREATIVE SPARK Creative Spark, Dundalk, Co. Louth welcome submissions for 2015 / 16 Creative Spark/Create Louth Residency Programme. Applications are now being accepted from visual artists (originally from / living in) Louth, Ireland, artists based in the rest of Ireland and international artists.

Deadline 4.00pm 30 June Web creativespark.ie Email hello@creativespark.ie. clo Clo and the Living Archive invite ongoing applications from artists interested in the landscape and language of the Gaeltacht. The programme offers accommodation in Clo Ceardlann’s artist-inresidence house and access to the workshop based in North West Donegal. This is offered on a self-funded basis and Clo will assist with letters to secure funds.

Email hecloceardlann@eircom.net

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

May – June 2015

Visual Artists Ireland operates a wide range of professional development training events throughout the year.

May – June 2015

The delivery of this programme is greatly supported by our relationship with local and international visual art professionals and partner organisations throughout the island of Ireland.

Visual Artist ireland works in partnership with local authorities, visual arts venues and others, combining resources to support the professional development of visual artists at regional level.

Republic of Ireland Dublin / Fingal Dublin Handling, Transport and Storage of your Art Works with maurice ward September (date tbc) Dublin Peer Critique Sculpture & Installation with hannes brunner @Visual Artists Ireland October (date tbc) Dublin Peer Critique Sculpture & Installation with hannes brunner @Visual Artists Ireland October (date tbc) Dublin Peer Critique Drawing @Visual Artists Ireland November (date tbc) Fingal Visual Arts Fingal – Peer Curation & Soup Supper In partnership with Fingal Arts (curator tbc) June (date tbc)

Clare Ennis Child Protection Training for Artists working in All Media with the national youth council of ireland In partnership with Clare County Council Arts Office September (date tbc)

Tipperary Clonmel Writing about Your Work with patricia clyne-kelly In partnership with Tipperary County Council Arts Office June (date tbc)

Galway Co. Galway Visual Artists Cafe In partnership with Galway County Council Arts Office and Udaras na Gaeltachta Gailmhe October (date tbc) Galway City Writing about Your Work In partnership with Galway City Council and Galway County

Northern Ireland Council Arts Offices November (date tbc) Galway City Collaboration & Partnerships for Individual Artists and Artist-Led Groups In partnership with Galway City Council and Galway County Council Arts Offices November (date tbc)

Kerry Kerry Developing Creative Proposals with annette moloney In partnership with Kerry County Council Art Office September (date tbc)

Laois Portlaoise Developing Opportunities for your Work with geraldine o’reilly and gallerist (tbc) In partnership with Dunamaise Arts Centre and Laois County Council Arts Office

Meath Meath Towards Sustainability with patricia clyne-kelly In partnership with Meath County Council October (date tbc) Tell us about your training Needs!

If you are interested in training please do get in touch with us directly or forward an expression of interest in a topic/s through the Professional Development Training web page.

Artists & Tutors Panel Visual Artists Ireland has an ongoing open submission process for artists and arts professionals interested in being part of an available panel of tutors contributing to the VAI Professional Development Training Programme.

Bookings / Information Monica Flynn, Professional Development Officer Visual Artists Ireland, 7 – 9 Dame Court, Dublin 2 T: 01 672 9488 E: monica@visualartists.ie W: visualartists.ie

Bangor Visual Artists Cafe – Introducing Bangor Meet local artists and arts organisations in Bangor on this relaxed and informal networking event in Bangor’s latest creative hub: Boom! Collective and Studios. We will also hear from local artists in the Show & Tell. Please get in touch if you wish to share your work.

23 May 10.30 – 16:00 @Boom! Collective & Studios, 80 Main Street, Bangor Cost: free to all (includes lunch)

Belfast Visual Artists’ Helpdesk Individual one-to-one helpdesk appointments to assist with all aspects of your professional career. 13 May 13:00 – 17:00 10 Jun 13:00 – 17:00 @Digital Arts Studios Price: free (VAI members) / £5 (non-members) Visual Artists’ Cafe – Belfast Photo Festival Visual Artists Ireland and Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery present a two-day symposium titled The Art Book Today, with a self-publishing workshop from London-based group the Photocopy Club.

12 Jun and 13 June 11:00 – 16:00 @Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery Price: (includes lunch): Fri only.: free (VAI members) / £5 (non-members) Fri and Sat: £10 (VAI members) / £20 (non-members) The Art Book Today (Fri 12 Jun 11:00 – 16:00) is a panel discussion with 2015 Unseen Dummy Awards jurors Hans Gremmen and Willem van Zoetendaal, Unseen Art Market curator Zhenia Sveshinsky and Agata Stoinska of BLOW photo magazine. This will be followed by a peer review and discussion of the books of Northern Irish photographers.

The Photocopy Club Zine Workshop (Sat 13 Jun 10:00 – 16:00). The Photocopy Club zine workshops started in 2013 with the aim of helping students and up-and-coming photographers learn a simple but effective way of turning their digital images into printed matter. The zine workshop will guide you through the history of zines, in particular photography zines, and show you how to lay out, curate, print and distribute.

Bookings / Information Rob Hilken, Northern Ireland Manager, Visual Artists Ireland A: Digital Arts Studios, 38-42 Hill Street, Belfast, T1 2LB E: rob@visualartists-ni.org W: visualartists-ni.org

VISUAL

Centre for Contemporary Art and the George Bernard Shaw Theatre

www.visualcarlow.ie

SUMMER 2015

30th May - 13th September

ECHT BEDWYR WILLIAMS Main Gallery POST ELECTRIC GIMME MORE

In collaboration with EPFL+ECAL Lab Switzerland.

Digital Gallery Xchange

Augmented Realities project with designCore, I.T Carlow.

Lobby Gallery DATABASE DAVID EBNER & TOBIAS ZIMMER Foyer AIB ÉIGSE OPEN SUBMISSION CURATED BY LEWIS BIGGS Includes work by invited artists Siobhán Hapaska, Micky Donnelly, Eilis O’Connel, Kathy Prendergast and Willie Doherty.

Link Gallery

OPENING TIMES:

Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 5.30pm Sunday 2.00pm - 5.00pm

Old Dublin Road, Carlow T: 059 9172400 E: info@visualcarlow.ie W: www.visualcarlow.ie

Ireland’s national day for visual artists 15 May 2015, IMMA, Dublin

Discussions / panels art career. It will look at the how 16 visual artists at various stages artists and gallerists position of their careers speak about their their work and the strategic decipractices, their inspirations and sions they make in the pursuit of overcoming challenges. Each pan- opportunities to help sustain an el discussion will be followed by a income while maintaining their Q&A. 1. Michelle Browne (chair), creative values.

Cian Donnelly, Richard Forrest, Sally O’Dowd, Clodagh Emoe. 2. Work: Practise Practice Brian Fay (chair), Martin Healy, This afternoon of conversations David Beattie, Donald Teskey, will focus on the paths taken by Brendan Earley. 3. Linda Shevlin artists, thinking about how to (chair), Lesley Cherry, Charlotte create supportive environments.

Bosanquet, Mary A Kelly, Janet Speakers will look at self-organMullarney. 4. Alice Maher (chair), isation as well as collectivelyMairead O’hEocha, Maud Cotter, generated supportive institutions Hannah Starkey, Vanessa Donoso such as self-funded galleries and Lopez. studios, self-organised events and commercial or social enterprise.

Artists Speak

Intergenerational Conversations

Declan Sheehan (chair), Joanne This session will comprise a set Laws, Shelly McDonnell, Jacinta of informal conversation pieces Lynch, Deirdre Morrissey, Faye between artists of different gen- Hosbon. erations inspired by the idea of exchange and knowledge pro- Footfall Report Launch duction. This partnership event 126 Gallery, Galway introduce involves Bealtaine, CREATE and Footfall, a national research project devised to explore the posiVisual Artists Ireland. tion of small arts organisations in Ireland. The aim was to develop The Artist’s Life Panel new ways to articulate the value This panel will focus on the speof the work done by smaller orcifics of how to make a sustainganisations. able livelihood alongside a visual

Tickets

Visual Artists Ireland members / students: €20 / non-member rate: €50 Speed Curating (VAI members only): €3 per curator/appointment visualartists.ie/get-together-2015/book-your-tickets (01) 672 9488

V

geT TogeTheR

I V Visual Artists’ Café

The Visual Artists’ Cafe will feature a range of stalls from arts organisations, galleries, college and artist-led spaces.

Artists’ Books Stall

This year the VAI artists’ books stall will feature a wide range of artists’ publications, zines, sound works, catalogues and books on art.

VAI Artist Award

VAI will announce the winner of our new award for visual artists working in Ireland.

The award is not financial but is intended to be recognition by artists of one of their own. VAI member artists nominated and then voted (any artist working on the island of Ireland was eligible).

Speed Curating

The ever-popular Speed Curating returns this year. The curators are: Aedín McGinn, Luan Gallery; Ángel Luis González Fernández, PhotoIreland; Ann Davoren, West Cork Arts Centre; Anne Kelly, NCAD Gallery; Belinda Quirke, Solstice Art Centre; Matt Packer or Aleisa Kleist, CCA Derry; Davey Moor, Monster Truck; Donal Maguire, National Gallery of Ireland; Elaine Grainger, Talbot Gallery & Studios; Grace McEvoy, Block T; Jerome O’Drisceoil, Green on Red; Josephine Kelleher, Rubicon; Maeve Mulrennan, Galway Art Centre; Maoliosa Boyle, Void; Mary Conlon, Ormston House; Mary Cremin; Olivier Cornet; Oonagh Young; Peter Mutschler, PS2; Peter Richards, Golden Thread; Rayne Booth – Temple Bar Gallery + Studios; Ruth Carroll, RHA; Sheena Barrett, The Lab; Trudi van der Elsen, Ennistymon Court House.

The Persistence of Objects

Josef Albers, Karel Appel, Patrick Collins, Barrie Cooke, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Micheal Farrell, Robert Indiana, Cecil King, Roy Lichtenstein, Nano Reid, Patrick Scott, William Scott, Peter Sedgley and Victor Vasarely Work from The Trinity College Dublin Art Collections Curated by Richard Wood

Lismore Castle Arts 3 April – 7 June 2015 Lismore Castle Arts Lismore Castle Lismore Co Waterford Ireland www.lismorecastlearts.ie +353 (0)58 54061

Michael Farrell, Study ‘66, 1966, acrylic on canvas, 91.5 x 80.5 cm.

Courtesy of The Trinity College Dublin Art Collections; © The Artist’s Estate.

Trinity’s College Gallery: The Swing of the Sixties

A major exhibition of contemporary art across Lismore Carol Bove, Gerard Byrne, Duncan Campbell, Steven Claydon, Gabriel Kuri, Basim Magdy, Wolfgang Tillmans, Hayley Tompkins Curated by The Common Guild

Lismore Castle Arts 21 June – 31 August 2015 Lismore Castle Arts Lismore Castle Lismore Co Waterford Ireland www.lismorecastlearts.ie +353 (0)58 54061

CALL F OR E NTRY clarem

orris open

exhibition

COE ’15

12th Sep. - 3rd Oct.

Substantial Prize Fund Separate Painting Award Entry Form: www.coearts.org Closing Date: 19th June

Curator; Brian Cass.

Mayo County Council

Arts Council of Northern Ireland Developing the arts in Northern Ireland Culturefox.ie is the definitive online guide to Irish cultural events, giving you complete information about cultural activities both here and abroad.

To find out what’s on near you right now, visit Culturefox.ie on your computer or mobile phone.

Download the FREE App available now for:

Arts Council of Northern Ireland, MacNeice House, 77 Malone Road, Belfast BT9 6AQ. T: +44 (28) 9038 5200. W: www.artscouncil-ni.org. E: info@artscouncil-ni.org

Image: Brendan Jamison, Green JCB bucket with holes. Arts Council Collection

iPhone | Android | Blackberry

Droichead Arts Centre Presents:

Pilot Light Ruth Lyons Wednesday 29th April – Saturday 20th June 2015

Presented by Droichead Arts Centre in conjunction with Drogheda Arts Festival

‘Pilot Light’ is focused on light in the landscape and humankind’s obsession with light, from today’s electricity and the power stations that produce it, to Newgrange and its astronomical alignment.

Droichead Arts Centre Stockwell St., Drogheda, Co. Louth.

T: 041 9833946 E: info@droichead.com W: www.droichead, @droichead_arts

Weekly trips from Dublin to Liverpool, Birmingham, London, Bath and Bristol; Monthly trips from Dublin to Paris, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Brussels and Amsterdam.

All transportation fully insured Largest Private Art Storage Facility in Ireland

Hi Lily, I’ll take a quarter page, top of back outside.

Please attach QR Code that is above.

Dublin to Paris, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Brussels, Amsterdam Monthly Dublin to Liverpool, Birmingham, London, Bath, Bristol weekly Edit at will Lily, Regards, Joe

Gabhann Dunne, Durragh, 10x15cm, oil on board, 2015

The lab Gallery is pleased to present

when The ceilinG meeTs The floor Susan Connolly

maGenTa honey Gabhann Dunne

Preview: 30 April 6pm – 8pm Continues until: 13 June 2015 The lab a: Foley Street, Dublin 1 T: 01 222 5455 e: artsoffice@dublincity.ie w: wwcelab.ie f: facebook.com/TheLABGalleryDublin T: @LabDCC