Shower Of Kunst

Critical Online Journal

IMAGES: Kung Fu in Africa

    Kung Fu in Africa: Golden Age Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985 – 1999) Master African artisan-painters Joe Mensah, Leonardo, Death is Wonder, Alex Nkrumah Boateng, D.A. Jasper, Stoger, Bright Obeng, Gilbert Forson, Samuel, Dan Nyenkumah, Africatta, Babs, Muslim. Curated by Ernie Wolfe III Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong 11 March – 12 April 2016 Image Courtesy of Hanart TZ Gallery; Photography by Kitmin Lee www.hanart.com

Berned Out

Why We Socialists Don’t Support Bernie Sanders for President Despite the fact that the Democratic Party is, along with the Republican Party, one of the twin pillars of U.S. imperialism, much of the U.S. left is looking for ways to accommodate—if not support—Bernie Sanders’ campaign to be the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.1 Some of these groups support liberal Democrats like Sanders as a matter of policy.2 Others need a special candidate to campaign for.3 In Bernie Sanders, many would-be left and… Read More »

Debunking the Imagery of the “Irish Slaves” Meme

Those that promote the meme of Irish perpetual hereditary chattel slavery use a variety of images entirely unrelated to indentured servitude to accompany their anti-history.  Liam Hogan examined a selection of them. 1. Sale of a Slave Girl in Rome by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1884) The most popular image to accompany the spurious “Irish: the Forgotten White Slaves” articles. It is cropped from a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme. In this work, Gérôme imagined a scene in a Roman slave market… about two thousand years ago. 2. The… Read More »

Images: PAIN TERO FLIGHT

  For this group exhibition, Pain Tero Flight, co-curated with Alicia Eler, participating artists were asked to interrogate the art, business and public persona of American pastoral painter Thomas Kinkade, who died in 2012. Kinkade rigorously maintained that the popularity of his work highlights the elitism in contemporary art world power structures, a position that may be less tenable in light of the last decade’s growth in popularity of contemporary art experiences. At the same time, Kinkade’s oeuvre continues to raise questions about the agency of… Read More »

2015 Shower of Kunst Undergrad Spotlight Award

Congratulations to NCAD Graduate Luke Byrne for his multimedia installation, Tony Ferrari : Superbowl Sunday, at the NCAD Degree Show in June of 2015. Self described as: “Guns, explosions, denim, war, shockingly lifelike prosthetics, cocktails, palm trees, special effects, Hollywood, other guys, milk, meat, dads, cool right? I know.” Byrne and his work, which deals with masculinity in a self aware, insightful, and absurd manner, is (finally) in the spotlight at www.showerofkunst.com. In previous years we have covered various Irish Degree Shows with extensive images of numerous… Read More »

On the sidelines of graffiti on the Apartheid wall

There is no doubt that the Apartheid wall is a very tempting drawing surface for graffiti artists, only if it wasn’t positioned in such situation. When contemplating about this issue – taking into consideration the presence of the apartheid wall and the message it represents- one can learn that any act of drawing on such a surface would only beautify it to an extent where dealing with the Apartheid wall’s existence becomes natural and acceptable to the viewer’s eye making it also mentally acceptable. For… Read More »

REVIEW: ∞ (Broken Mirrors)

  ∞ (Broken Mirrors) begins in the NCAD Gallery lobby with Lee Welch’s New Now. An arch is marked out in cross hatched mini-roller-width blueish looking grey paint, suggesting a doubling of the gallery’s current entrance through an older form in this newly remade space (the gallery was once the Thomas Street Fire Station). A large flatscreen displays a cinematically filmed, zoomed in, pre-digital electric flip clock by Jonathan Mayhew. Early in my life it was already too late is perpetually at 5:59, so closely… Read More »

IMAGES: The Funnies

                                The Funnies Charlie Billingham, Mel Bochner, Cosima von Bonin, Werner Büttner, George Condo, Philip Guston, Sanya Kantarovsky, Martin Kippenberger, Sarah Lucas, Simon Mathers, Helmut Middendorf, Oliver Osborne, Jon Pylypchuk, Anne Speier, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Jesse Wine, and Rose Wylie  MOT International, Brussels 20 November 2015 – 30 January 2016 All images courtesy of the artist and MOT International London & Brussels www.motinternational.com

REVIEW: What Is and What Might Be

The title, What Is And What Might Be, suggests an assessment of the here and now, and its potentials; the future and the plans to get there. And although the curators state that Lacan’s reference to Holbein’s distorted skull is their conceptual starting point, I’m not sure this matters in lieu of the ideas the actual experience provoked. A painting show, the selection of works and their organisation in this particular space pulled at and unpacked ideas to me primarily architectural. In both a literal… Read More »

IMAGES: Winter Palace

“Precaution principle is a series of drawings in which the precaution lines protecting the sculptures are drawn, contrary to the original sculpture which does not appear on the drawing. These precaution spaces become visible, like starting points of new systems.” More images from this series on the artist’s website here.     Winter Palace Matthieu Martin Galerie Alb, Paris 5 September – 17 October 2015 Photos courtesy the gallery www.galeriealb.com

REVIEW: Four Fold

The mutilated remains of a Bog Man cover the gallery floor. The gallery approach becomes a medical observation deck, affording a view of the downstairs installation from above. In full colour, Sam Keogh has enlarged a photograph of the two millennia old Irish ‘Old Croghan Man’. Coming down, the iridescent tanned skin of just a ragged torso, arms, and hands is to be walked over. Four sections of the image are peeled and propped up with decorated bone-sticks. These in turn are anchored in place… Read More »

REVIEW: Disequilibrium Displacement

Disequilibrium DisplacementDiogo Pimentao Garden Galleries, Irish Museum of Modern Art 10 April – 5 July 2015 Review by Darren Caffrey In the downstairs room of IMMA’s Garden Galleries, the work of Diogo Pimentao can be found. Titled Disequilibrium Displacement, it is perhaps best not to understand it in terms of words. For the purpose of this review, words will have to suffice however. Luckily, this exhibit comes with more words than just those of its title. The gallery text says “…using very simple materials like paper,… Read More »

Dublin’s largest professional visual artists studios forced to close after 18 years

Dublin’s largest professional visual artists studios forced to close after 18 years Press Release from Broadstone Studios, Dublin1 July 2015 Broadstone Studios, currently the workplace of 34 professional visual artists, will close after 18 successful years, this coming Friday, July 3rd. During that time Broadstone has made an immeasurable contribution to the visual arts community. Its aspiration according to director Jacinta Lynch was simple: to provide affordable and suitable workspaces for visual artists. It has successfully done so providing exactly that to many of Ireland’s most dynamic,… Read More »

Crisis of Criticism  

Just over a year ago, the newly appointed editors of Paper Visual Art, Marysia Wieckiewicz–Carroll and Nathan O’Donnell, invited four arts writers to respond, present, and discuss the question: “What do you expect from art criticism?” The following is my talk, re-presented now as it continues to be an entirely unresolved issue in Irish Visual Arts. The following is by no means all encompassing and is a bit schematic.  And don’t think I’ll answer the question “What do I expect from criticism?”  I’m not sure what my… Read More »

REVIEW: The Parallax View

The Parallax View Alan Butler, curated by Niamh Brown Ormston House, Limerick 12 December 2014 – 31 January 2015  Review by Jim Ricks As the end of Alan Butler’s solo exhibition, The Parallax View, loomed, on impulse I bought a same-day return ticket from Dublin to Limerick. Up far earlier than usual to catch a 10 o’clock, and in a half sleep, half caffeinated delirium, I decided to perform.  The performance took place on Twitter. I declared a very self-reflexive, so much meta, self-aware, double… Read More »