The Exhibitionist | 12 | Gauguin’s millions
News
This week we’ve got news of the most expensive painting ever sold, beating the 2011 record of $259m for a Cezanne painting. Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) by Paul Gauguin is said to have been sold to a museum in Qatar for close to $300m (€265m). The work, depicting two Tahitian girls, was painted in 1892, and its sale was confirmed by former owner Rudolf Staechelin, a collector from Basel in Switzerland.
Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist, well-known for his use of colour, flat style of painting and bold outlines. Travels to the Caribbean, to French Polynesia, and especially to Tahiti were very influential on Gauguin’s painting and Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) is a perfect example of his attempt to create ‘pure’ primitive art that challenged the ‘faux’ primitive art being made back in Europe. However the truth was that Tahiti was actually an unremarkable island with an international, westernised community at the time, so Gauguin was really painting an idealised version of his primitive paradise.
Round-up
Exhibitions opening this week:
Red Bird Youth Collective & Maeve Clancy at Galway Arts Centre
Before You Fade Away
7 February – 7 March | Opening: 7 February at 2pm
Galway Arts Centre, 47 Lower Dominick Street, Galway
Red Bird Youth Collective latest exhibition Before You Fade Away opens Saturday, February 7th from 2 – 4pm, in Galway Arts Centre. The exhibition will run from February 7th – March 7th, 2015. Project workshops took place from October to January, resulting in three distinct original graphic novels. Red Bird members have conceived of and implemented these graphic novels from idea stage and storyboards, to finished product. They are installing a multimedia exhibition, and will also present their graphic novels on their websitewww.theredbirdcollective.com.
Facilitated by artist Maeve Clancy, who specialises in graphic novels, comics, animation, and film, Red Bird members have investigated traditions of story telling and narrative techniques used in graphic novels as a starting point. Taking a fine art approach to their work, the aim of this project is not to replicate existing ideas, but to unpack its modes of representation, and re-present these in an installation. The goal of the graphic novel project is to develop visual story telling techniques that can be presented in both online & installation form. They have also been learning about deconstruction, appropriation & collage, which will also inform their process.
For more information on Red Bird Youth Collective, or for further details on our upcoming Spring exhibition please email Galway Arts Centre at [email protected] or visit our website at www.galwayartscentre.ie to sign up to our mailing list.
Janet Mullarney at the Highlanes Gallery
My Mind’s I
30 January – 11 April, 2015
Highlanes Gallery Ltd., Laurence Street, Drogheda, Louth
Born in Dublin, and living between Ireland and Italy for over four decades, Janet Mullarney is one of Ireland’s most important artists working today.
The title of the exhibition My Mind’s I refers not only to the idiom ‘mind’s eye’ but also the human ability to experience visual mental imagery, and the power of the psychic imagination to communicate complex subliminal codes.
In the exhibition, small fragile sculptures are placed against simple backdrops within a heightened lighting scheme, allowing mysterious theatrical scenes to unfold. The juxtaposition of these small seemingly insignificant figures against large open spaces will evoke a sense of anarchic independence as well as alluding to the subversive interior of the artist’s mind.
My Mind’s I seeks to express an inner vision suggesting the vastness of experience and the aloneness of each individual in their journey through life.
The exhibition is curated by Aoife Ruane, Director of Highlanes Gallery, with lighting design by Marcus Costello. The exhibition has been awarded an Arts Council Touring Grant and is sponsored by Clarke’s Bar, Drogheda, once home to 20th Century artist Nano Reid. The exhibition will subsequently travel to partners Butler Gallery, Kilkenny and Wexford Arts Centre in the Autumn 2015 and in 2016.
The exhibition will be officially opened by Manchán Magan, writer and documentary maker, who will also contribute to a catalogue along with art historian William Gallagher which will be published during the run of the exhibition.
‘A Terrible Beauty’ | Group Show at The Octagonal Room
A Terrible Beauty
12 – 28 February
The Octagonal Room, City Assembly House, 58 South William Street, Dublin 2
The Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to announce that the group show A Terrible Beauty which the gallery presented at Vue 2014 (National Contemporary Art Fair at the RHA) in early November 2014 will be shown at the Octagonal Room, City Assembly house from February 12 to February 28 by kind invitation of the Irish Georgian Society.
This touring exhibition is a response to the photographic work of Olivier Cornet’s great grand uncle François Bost who served World War I as a photographer. It features works by the following gallery artists: Michelle Byrne, Hugh Cummins, Mark Doherty, Conrad Frankel, John Fitzsimons, Jordi Forniés, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Yanny Petters, Kelly Ratchford, Hanneke van Ryswyk, and Adrienne Symes.
The show does not confine itself to any one conflict but instead reflects the artists’ responses to calamities and tragedies of all kinds, including war, and their consequences.
The show is accompanied by an essay by arts writer Cathy Dillon.
‘home’ : Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown Open Submission Exhibition 2015
‘home’ dlr Open Submission Exhibition 2015.
Selected by Mark St.John Ellis, Director of nag Gallery, Dublin.
Featuring the work of 37 artists connected to the Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown County.
14th February – 22nd March
Opening hours :10.00am – 5.00pm
Brian McIlvenny At Alliance Française
“Poussières d’étoiles”- Stardust
Brian McIlvenny
Wednesday 11 February at 6.30pm until 14 March
Admission free
At the Alliance Française – 1 Kidlare Street, Dublin 2.
Brian McIlvenny specializes in a particular photographical process known as lith printing. This technique where diluted lithographic chemistry is used to develop over-exposed photographic paper results in bold graphic images with delicate warm tones. Variables in this unpredictable printing method ensure that each individual lith print personally hand-made by Brian cannot be repeated. In 2010, Brian McIlvenny was Lauréat du Prix Cafefoto at les Rencontres d’Arles and consequently exhibited in Paris as part of the official Mois de la Photo.
Primal Architecture: ROADKILL at IMMA
Thursday 12 February, 6.00-8.00pm
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Military Road, Dublin 8
Programmed in parallel to the Primal Architecture exhibition, IMMA hosts an evening of live performance, installation, video and music by multi-disciplinary artists:
Jenny Brady, Sandra Davoren, Elaine Leader, Eoghan Ryan, Smilin’ Kanker, Przem SHREM Zaj?c
IMMA will also launch the Primal Architecture publication which includes contributions from Rachael Thomas, Maeve Connolly, Doug Harvey, David McConnell, Séamus McCormack and exhibiting artists Linder and Bedwyr Williams.
Primal Architecture continues until March 1st.
www.imma.ie/en/page_236898.htm
‘Flavours of Art’ | Winter Garden Cafe at the National Gallery of Ireland
‘Flavours of Art’
12 February at 6pm
National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square West, Dublin 2
Join us in the National Gallery of Ireland in our Winter garden Café on Thursday 12th February at 6pm for a Valentines inspired celebration of art and romance. The evening starts with a guided tour of the Gallery’s Collection, including an exclusive viewing of ‘Ireland’s Favourite Painting ‘ The Meeting on the Turret Stairs’. Followed by a romantic supper, a glass of wine and easy listening classics with Sean Boland.
Price: €30 per person, tickets are available in the Gallery Shop or www.eventbrite.ie
Feathered Friends by Diana Kingston at Triskel Christchurch
Feathered Friends runs at Triskel Christchurch 13 February until 7 March. Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 – 4.
Feathered Friends, a solo exhibition by Diana Kingston, is her first Cork outing in twelve years. The exhibition which signifies a return to her rural roots, opens at Triskel Christchurch 6pm Thursday 12 February as part of John P Quinlan’s guest curatorial series ‘Calling Up The Vangard.’
In this new body of work Kingston reflects on her formative years growing up on a farm in West Cork. In this world hens and their attendant lord, the cock formed a backdrop and chorus to her daily routines. The remembrance of things past sent her travelling around the country observing and photographing birds at numerous farmyards and agricultural shows around the country. It became a labour of love and a test of patience to capture that ideal moment where the personality and attitude of the bird is most evident.
http://dianakingstonartist.com
‘The Lie of the Land’ | Group Exhibition at Sirius Arts Centre
The Lie of the Land
11 February – 22 March | Opening: 11 February at 7pm
Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork.
Gallery reading / listening night Fri 27th February 7pm
Participating artists include visual artists Helen Devitt (Cork), Kenneth O’Halloran (Dublin/L.A), Adrian Duncan (Dublin/Berlin) and Jill Quigley (Belfast), writer Sarah Baume (Cork), and RTE Radio 1 producers Kevin Brew and Luke Clancy (Dublin). Curated by Miranda Driscoll, director of the Sirius Arts Centre.
The Lie of the Land is a multi-part project that will encompass an exhibition and a reading/listening night. The project examines the idea that there are certain materialities (both in the work and in the landscape) that seem to serve as cultural remnants. These remnants can sometimes define a certain Irish aesthetic in the landscape, or what might be perceived as one. Tackling well-trodden arguments around the monument, the ruin and modernity in Irish landscape and architecture, the project considers perceptions of contemporary rural Ireland as shown through visual art and writing. To accompany the exhibition, there will be a reading / listening event on February 27th that will include a reading of short stories from Cork based writer Sara Baume and Berlin based Adrian Duncan. In addition to this radio producers Kevin Brew (RTÉ Radio 1) and Luke Clancy (Soundsdoable / RTÉ Lyric FM’s Culture File) will play sound and stories from the radio archive reflecting their experience of the Irish landscape. The event will include an informal discussion.
www.siriusartscentre.ie/exhibitions/the-lie-of-the-land | www.siriusartscentre.ie/talk/the-lie-of-the-land-reading-listening-night
Mary O’Connor at James Barry Exhibition Centre
Modern Irish Landscapes – CIT Registrar’s Prize Exhibition
5 – 20 February | Opening: 4 February at 7pm
James Barry Exhibition Centre, CIT Bishopstown Campus, Cork, Ireland
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 10am – 5pm
The changing landscape of North West Cork is the driving influence in CIT Crawford College of Art & Design Graduate Mary O’Connor’s work. This is a landscape pockmarked with the remnants of a stalled building boom and the advancing sentinels of the next phase of technological progress. The modern visible structures of power and communication are gathering in hilltop colonies, appearing overnight in familiar views, or protruding behind houses, collecting and connecting.
O’Connor’s carefully layered paintings examine the impact and legacy of these developments, and ask how this altered landscape will be regarded by future generations.
This exhibition is part of the CIT Registrar’s Prize, an annual award made at the CIT Crawford College of Art & Design Fine Art Degree Show. The prize includes the purchase of work for the CIT Collection, and support from CIT Arts Office to present a solo show in the year following graduation. This will be Mary O’Connor’s debut solo exhibition.
For further details, see arts.cit.ie
Ormston House & Pallas Projects present Periodical Review #4
Ormston House is delighted to welcome Pallas Projects to Limerick for the second edition of Periodical Review #4 – a unique, yearly survey of Irish contemporary art practices, that looks at commercial gallery shows, museum exhibitions, artist-led & independent projects and curatorial practices.
Preview: Friday 13 February, 7-9pm
Exhibition dates: 14 February – 13 March 2015
Michael Beirne, Jenny Brady, Jane Butler, Rachael Corcoran, Anita Delaney, Joe Duggan, Marie Farrington, Hannah Fitz, Mark Garry, Dragana Jurisic, Allyson Keehan, Caoímhe Kilfeather, Ali Kirby, Sofie Loscher, Loitering Theatre, Shane Murphy, Liam O’Callaghan, Liliane Puthod/Resort, Orla Whelan.
www.pallasprojects.org
www.ormstonhouse.com
‘Sampler-Cultureclash Lisburn’ | Exhibition at the R-Space Gallery
14th February – 14th March | Opening Reception: Saturday 14th February, 2pm – 3pm
R-Space Gallery, The Linen Rooms, 32 Castle Street, Lisburn, Northern Ireland, BT27 4XE
Sampler-culture clash is an international collective of DJ’s, sound artists, textile designers, dancers, embroiderers, spoken word and graffiti artists. They explore the connections between textiles and sound and the cultures of craft and dj-ing using “sampler” as the starting point. They explore sampling as a creative process and create social spaces where people can come together to meet, to share, to learn, to generate ideas, to perform and make collectively.
www.samplercultureclash.org.uk | www.rspacelisburn.com
Lesley Cherry at Golden Thread Gallery
Repeat Patterns
Lesley Cherry
5 – 28 February 2015
Artist Talk – 19 February
1pm – 2pm
Repeat Patterns sees Cherry using wallpaper and text, which are recurring materials and themes in her practice. She uses these materials as decorative compositions in which to record and hide hand- written stories: some of the stories are true; some come from news reports or reality television. The wallpaper is a metaphor for how pattern is embedded in our everyday routines and actions.
