“…based upon the medieval Irish myth of Buile Suibhne, or the Frenzy of Sweeney. Cursed to be half-man, half-bird, Sweeney hopped throughout Ireland lamenting his woes in lyrical verse, until he reached a farmhouse in St. Mullins in Co. Carlow where he found a strange form of kindness, – each evening he was invited to drink milk out of a bowl of cowdung…”1 The story of Buile Suibhne is an old epic of the Gaelic tradition. A king who is turned into a birdman… Read More »
REVIEW: Agitationism – EVA International ‘Ireland’s Biennial’
The city of Limerick shares EVA 2014 between two main venues. The main gallery is Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA). The second space is a disused milk plant on the other side of the river. This latter site reflects the changing economics of the city, from an agricultural hub to one of culture. Indeed the plant once owned by Golden Vale shows the signs of disrepair. While LCGA’s white walls interiorise and vacate the space for the art work to be shown, the… 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 »
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
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 »
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 »