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 »
REVIEW: Hammer and Feather – Experiments in Space
The title of the exhibition curated by Mary Conlon refers to an experiment conducted on the moon in 1971 to demonstrate Galileo’s counter intuitive assertion that without air resistance all objects fall at the same speed. But the words hammer and feather also suggests sets of oppositions beyond light and heavy, such as light and dark, natural and manufactured or organic and mineral, which might also be invalidated by physical laws, gravitational or otherwise. Variations around titles and artworks is a recurring theme of the… Read More »
REVIEW: Package From China
“To have read Das Kapital in the 1970s wasn’t a complete waste of time because it has helped me understand China in the 1990’s.” – Jan Wong Red China Blues, 1996 “To Get Rich Is… (around the corner and on the opposite wall) Glorious”. Each letter rises above eye level and works as a separate sculptural piece. They are comprised of hundreds of cheap everyday materials… all plastic and garish. The subject of this exhibition is former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Deng Xioping. Along… Read More »