NEWS

So we’re winding up for Christmas and the art world has already checked out. Released this week is http://punchamonet.gallery/, where you can follow in the footsteps of jailed art vandal Andrew Shannon who last year put his fist through Monet’s “Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat” (1874) at the National Gallery of Ireland. Luckily this virtual game lets you do millions of pounds of damage and you, and the painting, get away scot-free. It’s pretty rudimentary but satisfying enough!

 

On the slightly more serious but equally stupid scale is this week’s revelations that the director of the State Art Museum of Uzbekistan has been systematically selling off original artworks and replacing them with copies over the last 15 years. He and two accomplices were given eight and nine year sentences for selling works by some 25 European artists for sums between €80 and €650.

 

The Exhibitionist will be taking two weeks off over Christmas and will return on the 07/01/15. Happy Christmas!

 

ROUND UP

 

Shows opening this week:

Aoife Cox at The Helix

Preview: Saturday, 20 December, 7pm
Exhibtion dates: 21 December – 31 January
Location: The Helix, DCU, Collins Avenue, Dublin

‘Home is Where One Starts From’ is solo exhibition of new work by Cork Based artist Aoife Cox. Exploring personal perspectives, Cox’s work navigates a redefining of the artist’s relationship with past and present home places. Her vividly detailed paintings, drawings, and sculptures explore and highlight the idiosyncrasies and characteristics of localities through a flaneurial context.

Contact: [email protected] or [email protected]

 

‘Soundings – Collective memories of the sea’ | Inaugural Exhibition at dlr LexIcon Gallery

Soundings – Collective memories of the sea
13 December – 24 January
dlr LexIcon Gallery, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin

dlr LexIcon this weekend celebrates the opening of its inaugural exhibition, Soundings, in its state of the art, brand new municipal gallery.

Soundings is curated by artist Michael McLoughlin with thanks to Dún Laoghaire RNLI lifeboat crewmembers. It features the work of six artists – Gary Coyle, Anthony Haughey, Emma Johnston, Sabina MacMahon, Julie Merriman and Lisa Reburn.

Introducing the exhibition, curator Michael McLoughlin said, “Soundings explores the relationships between Dún Laoghaire, the sea and its people through artworks, talks and workshops. It brings together six artists with connections to Dún Laoghaire who have investigated maritime histories, memories, testimonies and archives. Soundings talks, workshops and performances will offer further opportunities to explore and engage with the local maritime themes. Throughout this exhibition there are themes that ebb and flow between the work of the six artists — the connections between the local, the town and the port.”

Soundings events will feature a performance of Gary Coyle’s At Sea, a spoken word performance based on the artist’s daily swimming diaries and photographs (15 Jan), a special screening of A Tribute to Sound, a short film by Simone Corr which commemorates the decommissioning of the foghorn from our coastline (21 Jan) and Prospect, a video piece by artist Anthony Haughey exploring migrant journeys from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe (24 Jan).

To explore and celebrate Dún Laoghaire RNLI, the crewmembers have created a video piece and a series of photographs, these can be viewed in the project room of dlr LexIcon. There has been a lifeboat present in Dún Laoghaire since 1803 with the RNLI establishing a station in 1861. Today the RNLI operate two lifeboats in the harbour and in 2013 alone rescued 67 people.

Opening day events on Saturday 13 December include a curatorial tour by Michael McLoughlin and crewmembers from the RNLI, a TOG workshop where participants will learn how to create and experience a Skull Radio, and families are invited to join in on the fun and help create a maritime frieze on the windows of the project room in dlr LexIcon.

www.dlrcoco.ie/arts

 

Susan Connolly and Maggie Madden at ArtBox
PERSONA

12 December – 31 January | Opening: 11 December at 6pm
ArtBox, Unit 3, James Joyce Street, Dublin 1

In this exhibition, artists Susan Connolly and Maggie Madden examine the relationship of the aesthetic subject and the idea of ‘exhibition’. The title for this exhibition is taken from Director Ingmar Bergman’s seminal 1960’s film, ‘Persona’. Both art and film have at certain junctures, exposed the limits of their media to further examine the role of art and its presentation. The film ostensibly explores the relationship of two women placed in close proximity, however what remains central to the work is the non-reciprocated conversation between the two protagonists. And although a reciprocity between (object and viewer) is often looked for in the presentation of art, the gallery, ultimately retains a performative disposition.

Susan Connolly’s works rotate around a complex axis, oscillating between the flattened plane (of painting) and the space of sculpture. Maggie Madden’s work pushes the boundary of the formal grid into a mutability that decries all previous assumptions regarding sculpture, solidity and form. Can the ‘exhibition’ deconstruct itself enough to engage in a subjective manner with the viewer? Does immediacy exist in the presentation of art, or is art destined to remain a performative ‘event’ embedded in the greater terms of one’s singular temporality?

This exhibition is curated by Dr. Hilary Murray and marks the opening of ArtBox Gallery on James Joyce Street. The exhibition preview has been kindly sponsored by the Brown Paper Bag Project. www.brownpaperbagproject.com

www.artboxprojects.wordpress.com

 

 

Mobile Encounters: The Early Years of Performance Art in Ireland at IMMA

12 December – 15 February | Opening 12 December, 6.00-8.00pm
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Project Space.

Opening 12 December, 6.00-8.00pm

‘Mobile Encounters’ presents a selection of ephemera and artworks documenting the early years of performance art in Ireland. Curated in partnership between the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) and IMMA, and drawing on both collections, this project traces the people, organisations and events that contributed to shaping a culture of ‘mobile encounters’ for performance art from the early 1970s to the late 1990s.

The opening of ‘Mobile Encounters’ includes a live performance by artist Dominic Thorpe at 6.30pm.

www.imma.ie/en/page_236929.htm

 

NSF Presents: Maddie Leach’s Evening Echo 

Sunset – Tues, 23rd December 2014
Shalom Park. Gas Works Rd & Albert Rd, Cork

Lighting Sequence:
9th Lamp on : 4:17pm

Sunset : 4:27pm
9th Lamp off : 4:57pm

Suggested Gathering Time 4:00pm – 4:15pm

Evening Echo is a public artwork by New Zealand-based artist Maddie Leach. It is sited on old gasometer land gifted by Bord Gáis to Cork City Council in the late 1980s. This site was subsequently dedicated as Shalom Park in 1989. The park sits in the centre of the old Cork neighbourhood known locally as ‘Jewtown’. This neighbourhood is also home to the National Sculpture Factory.

Evening Echo is an art project generated as an artist’s response to the particularities of place and locality. Now in its fourth year, the project continues to gather support from the Cork Hebrew Congregation, Cork City Council, Bord Gáis and its local community.

Manifested in a sequence of custom-built lamps, a remote timing system, a highly controlled sense of duration, a list of future dates, an annual announcement in Cork’s Evening Echo newspaper and a promissory agreement. Evening Echo is fleetingly activated on an annual cycle, maintaining a delicate but persistent visibility in the park and re-activating its connection to Cork’s Jewish history. Intended to exist in perpetuity, the project maintains a delicate position between optimism for its future existence and the possibility of its own discontinuance.

This year, the last night of Hanukkah is Tuesday December 23rd and offers the only opportunity to see ‘the ninth lamp’ alight until next year. The ninth Lamp will begin the cycle 10 minutes before sunset, which occurs this year at 4.27pm. As is customary in the lighting of Hanukkah candles, the lamp ‘burns’ for 30 minutes after sunset.

A catalogue with essays by Mick Wilson (artist, writer, educator) and Matt Packer (former curator of Exhibitions & Projects, Lewis Glucksman Gallery) has been published by the National Sculpture Factory

For further details see:

www.evening-echo.net
www.nationalsculpturefactory.com
www.corkcity.ie/tv