The second Dublin Biennial International Exhibition of Contemporary Art closed its 12 day showing on Sunday. Seemingly coming from ‘nowhere’ (i.e. not from the expected channels of arts production and dissemination) in 2012, it was met by many members of the Visual Arts community almost universally with condemnation. “It’s a scam” was the most common reaction. But why? Actually, the answer is very simple. It’s not a Biennial. Yes, of course it is happening every 2 years, with plans for one in 2016. And in… Read More »
REVIEW: The Enclave (Part 3)
Mother Jones: Is contemporary photojournalism more about daredevilry and showmanship than nuanced storytelling? Fred Ritchin: In recent years the tendency has been to elevate the messenger over the message, a strategy which effectively keeps their more painful imagery at a distance. The courage of the photographer is celebrated while the circumstances of his or her subjects becomes somewhat secondary. As a result the photograph becomes less of a window onto the world and more of a mirror reflecting the distorted priorities of the… Read More »
INTERVIEW: Anna O’Sullivan – The Enclave (Part 2)
An interview with Anna O’Sullivan by Jim Ricks, commissioner/curator of The Enclave by Richard Mosse Part 2 of a 3 part series on Ireland at Venice 2013 http://www.marycremin.com/richard-mosse-the-enclave/ Can you tell us a little about the process of selection for you as the commissioner/curator? Were you nominated separately? The Commissioner/Curator and the artist is a team effort with the Commissioner/Curator putting the artist forward. Richard and I came together and worked on an application initially, got shortlisted to one of four teams, which was followed… Read More »
Images: Fuckier, Shittier, Pissier
Lord God, how immaculate (2014) – Simon Cummins Lapiss Lazuli (2014) – Aoife Mullan Whats his name (2013) – Stéphane Hanley Q Lauzarus Rising (2014) – Mike Fitzgerald R to L: Things don’t happen they’re implied (2013), For a long time, I went to bed early (2014), Either it’s raining, or I’m dreaming. Maybe it’s both (2014), A ‘resistance of yes’, of sorts (2014) – Lee Welch, and Whats his name (2013) – Stéphane Hanly At the horizon we won’t need eyes to… Read More »
Balls
Balls NCAD SU XXX-Mas Ball Image-Gate By Jim Ricks 30 March 2014 So there was this ‘something’ that happened up at NCAD in December, and it’s worth having a second look at. It is the kind of thing that one may say ‘I’m over it’. But, a number of interesting and important issues: politics, semiotics, feminism, pornography, power, all immediately come to mind. I was reflecting on Panti Bliss’s speech at the Abbey Theatre, and the simple and invaluable point she makes…. Read More »
REVIEW: Leonora Carrington: The Celtic Surrealist
“The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope”(1) – Leonora Carrington What a fantastical world we expose when we penetrate the depth of our unconscious and concurrently the zenith of our imagination. Can any of us say for certain which is felt to be more consistent with that of ‘the real’: the structures of the conscious mind, or “…the unconscious and its – for the most… Read More »
Images: more adventurous thinking…
http://www.ncad.ie/gallery-event/view/more-adventurous-thinking more adventurous thinking… from the archive of Dorothy Walker, with artist’s response from Seamus Nolan NCAD Gallery 15th June – 7th October 2013
REVIEW: Housing a Pig
Housing a Pig is the third and final episode in a series of shows curated by Paul McAree, part of a broader project called FLOOD. Its been located around the corner from The Lab and Oonagh Young Gallery in Dublin 1. The title’s suggestion of actively ‘putting up’ a biblically unclean animal is at once catching and surprising, but primarily a practical concern in more rural parts of this island. Up in the Big Smoke this proposal is meaningful of something certainly allegorical. Traditionally,… Read More »
Ultra-Left Destruction
The position I outline here is my own position only. It is based on my experience as a left-wing activist at national and international level over 50 years. It is my personal response to current disunity on the left. Competitive recruitment between the Socialist Party (SP) and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has destroyed the United Left Alliance (ULA) and is now narrowing the Campaign against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT) to such an extent as to make it ineffective. The number of people… Read More »
Write Makes Right
Write Makes Right A conversation between Darren Caffrey and Jim Ricks Autumn – Winter 2012 DC: So how do you want to start? JR: The point is just to write truthfully in correspondence about what we see as the shortcomings, pitfalls, success stories, etc. taking place in Irish arts writing. I think the attached graph that James Merrigan of Billion Art Journal and Fugitive Papers produced a little over a year ago is an interesting starting point. I immediately countered his graph… Read More »
REVIEW: TULCA 2012
The 2012 Tulca: Season of Visual Art was the tenth anniversary of Galway’s 2 week, multi-location event. Always in mid November, it utilises existing arts infrastructure and activates a variety of disused ‘slack spaces’ or rather vacant buildings and shops. This year was no different as the exhibitions bring “together 41 artists over 10 locations.” I had lived in the west of Ireland for about 6 years and know the festival somewhat intimately. I exhibited in 2006, the year Cliodhna Shaffrey and Sarah… Read More »
Images: In the Black
David Nugent Jonathan Mayhew Darren Caffrey Sara Amido Emma Haugh In the Black Sara Amido, Darren Caffrey, Emma Haugh, Jonathan Mayhew, David Nugent, and more. Curated by Matt Packer and The Black Mariah The Black Mariah Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, Ireland 21 October – 3 November 2012
Images: Towards a Newer Laocoön
Towards a Newer Laocoön Sarah Pierce NCAD Gallery, Dublin 4 October – 7 November 2012
The future
Futures 2012 is joyously mixed in its form and yet it is this distraction which when presented to us is hoped will overcome the obvious weaknesses of art without proper framing or even depth. On one wall sits the result of a routine investigation into the world outside of a window, Ed Miliano “began making a visual diary, painting one picture every day”, and to that end, judging by the quantity, he has succeeded. It is identified that the pictures when viewed together ‘create a collective… Read More »
Images: Colophon
Colophon Gavin Murphy Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin 20 September–28 October 2012
The 7th Berlin Biennale
Biennale press pass, welcome packet, newspaper-cum-event guide complete with custom fonts and logo. Initially, I had intended to write a review of the Biennale. Although I did I find it difficult to consider the various permutations of this festival in a positive light, it was ultimately the decentralized and event-based character of it that led to my decision not to. Perhaps, I should have committed to living in Berlin for 6 weeks. I suppose the political trajectory, or rather intent, of head curator Artur… Read More »
Images: Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art
Sacrilege by Jeremy Deller, Glasgow Green Sacrilege by Jeremy Deller, Glasgow Green Jeremy Deller Spanner (Stretcher/Loiterer) by Nairy Baghramian, The Mitchell Library Detail from Art Lending Library by Walker & Bromwich, The Mitchell Library Art Lending Library by Walker & Bromwich, The Mitchell Library Installation view of What is there to do here, what is there to see? by Rob Kennedy, CCA Installation view of What is there to do here, what is there to see? by Rob Kennedy, CCA Detail from What is there to do here, what is… Read More »
Santa Rita, I Hate Every Inch of You
Santa Rita, I Hate Every Inch of You February 6, 2012 by Jeb Purucker Reblogged from Viewpoint Magazine Twenty-four hours into my incarceration in Santa Rita Jail, I found myself in yet another tactical conversation, dissecting the numerous failures that had led to the kettling and mass arrests of about 400 Occupy Oakland demonstrators. This is one of the few upsides of a mass arrest. After getting the rowdy activists off the streets, the police find themselves hosting a three-day strategy conference inside the… Read More »
Her art on my sleeve
What appeared to be a slew of papier mache chicken legs beckoned cheekily from the display window at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. They were advertising The Human Race, Sonia Shiel’s first solo exhibition at the venue. It was hard to tell if the sight was something farcical or bizarrely fanciful. Regardless, it certainly begged for further investigation. As Shiel’s known for an aesthetic that can at times seem unfathomably loose and slapdash – think surrealist artist/director Michel Gondry’s cardboard news studio in Science of Sleep –… Read More »
REVIEW: Il Mistero delle Cattedrali
Wow-ta-fuck. Pictures were largely unobtainable and descriptions fall short; the works of Anselm Kiefer, on show at the newest of London’s Whitechapel ventures, appear as nothing less than awesome. In the end, it might come down to a simple fact of alchemy, a beauty that transports material into another dimension of realism, a feeling of creation. Oxidisation of copper and the impregnation of lead amounts to a captivation of the surface and the spirit, each work as a complete thing. Yes, there is a uniformity,… Read More »