2008 Press Releases
Two new Exhibitions open at the Glucksman Gallery
12.11.2008
Two new exhibitions will open at the Glucksman Gallery tomorrow Thursday (November 13th 2008) at 5pm. Both exhibitions continue until March 1st 2009. Curated by Professor Dermot Keogh and Ruth Osborne, An Eye for an Eye will illustrate the often contradictory ways in which visual images and artefacts represented the conflict in Ireland throughout the 20th century.
12.11.2008
Two new exhibitions will open at the Glucksman Gallery tomorrow Thursday (November 13th 2008) at 5pm. Both exhibitions continue until March 1st 2009. Curated by Professor Dermot Keogh and Ruth Osborne, An Eye for an Eye will illustrate the often contradictory ways in which visual images and artefacts represented the conflict in Ireland throughout the 20th century.
The exhibition features artists: Robert Ballagh, Rita Duffy, TP Flanagan, Paul Graham, Paul Henry, Seán Keating, Sir John Lavery, FE McWillaim, Sir William Orpen, Michael Power O’Malley, Dermot Seymour, Victor Sloan, and Jack Yeats alongside archive materials from Gael Linn, The Imperial War Museum, The Linen Hall Library, The National Library of Ireland and UTV.
Irish artists have left strong images in response to the conflict in Ireland throughout the twentieth century. Yet none of the artists in the exhibition gratuitously extol violence. Nor are any of the artworks propagandist in nature. Rather the artworks suggest alternative responses and relationships to conflict in Ireland; from Jack Yeats’ personal and introspective Going to Wolfe Tone’s Grave or Sir John Lavery’s grand Pro-Cathedral Dublin 1922 (Michael Collins), which addresses the aftermath of conflict on the scale of national mourning, to TP Flanagan’s poignant The Victim- a highly personal work, universal and local in its significance, which tells the story of innocent, civilian death as a result of conflict.
The exhibition is an invitation to reflect on the complexities of the past rather than a formula which seeks or offers answers. An Eye for an Eye seeks to offer moments of twentieth century Irish history to the viewer for examination, contemplation and even revision. The artworks have been chosen to encourage reflection on a complex period of history.
Professor Dermot Keogh is the Head of the History Department at University College Cork and has published widely on Irish social, cultural and political history and has conducted extensive research on the former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch.
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The second exhibition Getting Even: Oppositions + Dialogues in Contemporary Art is an exhibition that explores the exchange of different social and political viewpoints that exist in society. Through works from the 1960s to the present day, the selected artists use various media to refer to protest, political activism, and other strategies of opposition and dialogue.
The exhibition features artists Francis Alÿs, Mark Clare, Nathan Coley, Öyvind Fahlström, Claire Fontaine, Liam Gillick, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Garrett Phelan, Alex Morrison, Jens Ullrich, Stephen Willats, Carey Young, Artur Zmijewski. It is curated by Matt Packer + René Zechlin
Over the last fifty years, artists have deliberately sought social and political engagement through their work, both inside and outside the gallery space. During the 1960s, many artists rejected the traditional structures of the art world, in an attempt to align themselves with the radical protests of the time. Artists were often interested in using their art, less as a representation of politics, and more as a tool for addressing politics directly.
Getting Even identifies artists that rethink the possibilities for social and political engagement through their work.
Oppositions in Contemporary Art
Protests and political activism feature prominently in the exhibition. Artists such as Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Alex Morrison, and Jens Ullrich develop references to protest and political activism to question the effectiveness and historical legacy of these modes of opposition. In Jens Ullrich's Plakate series, the artist has reworked press photographs of protests from across the world, manipulating each placard and banner with an abstract graphic motif of the artist's own design. In these works, the communication of protest becomes impossible to decipher, but some message continues to survive, conveyed in the protesters’ physical expression and visible sense of engagement.
Dialogues in Contemporary Art
The exhibition looks at strategies of participation by inviting visitors to discover and create conflicting relationships of their own by engaging with the works. For example, in Stephen Willats' Organic Exercise No.1 Series 2 , visitors are invited to re-configure a set of plaster bricks on a grid, without prior rules or instructions. The work therefore becomes ever-changing and subject to the alteration of each participant. Visitors are similarly invited to participate in Mark Clare's Ping-Pong Diplomacy - a functioning table-tennis table made of pallet-wood; a work that references the famous contest between American and Chinese players in 1971 which acted as a breakthrough in diplomatic relations between the two countries.
What Oppositions and Dialogues Resonate with you?
The culture sphere, and the gallery space in particular, offers an opportunity for artists to explore conflicting perspectives without there being a need for resolution or agreement. Here in the gallery, uneasy differences can co-exist. This enables the viewer to reflect on ideas, perhaps even those in conflict with their own world view. The deliberate tensions set up by the artworks, and indeed between the two exhibitions on display, may raise more questions than answers. In doing so, Getting Even and An Eye For An Eye encourage each viewer to consider the oppositions and dialogues that resonate with them.
The exhibition will tour to the Kunstverein Hannover, 30 May-2 August 2009.
The Lewis Glucksman Gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am-5 pm. Late night Thursday until 8 pm, Sunday 12-5 pm.
Image: Sir John Lavery, Pro-Cathedral Dublin (Michael Collins) 1922, Collection Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane.
904MMcS
Irish artists have left strong images in response to the conflict in Ireland throughout the twentieth century. Yet none of the artists in the exhibition gratuitously extol violence. Nor are any of the artworks propagandist in nature. Rather the artworks suggest alternative responses and relationships to conflict in Ireland; from Jack Yeats’ personal and introspective Going to Wolfe Tone’s Grave or Sir John Lavery’s grand Pro-Cathedral Dublin 1922 (Michael Collins), which addresses the aftermath of conflict on the scale of national mourning, to TP Flanagan’s poignant The Victim- a highly personal work, universal and local in its significance, which tells the story of innocent, civilian death as a result of conflict.
The exhibition is an invitation to reflect on the complexities of the past rather than a formula which seeks or offers answers. An Eye for an Eye seeks to offer moments of twentieth century Irish history to the viewer for examination, contemplation and even revision. The artworks have been chosen to encourage reflection on a complex period of history.
Professor Dermot Keogh is the Head of the History Department at University College Cork and has published widely on Irish social, cultural and political history and has conducted extensive research on the former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch.
__________________________
The second exhibition Getting Even: Oppositions + Dialogues in Contemporary Art is an exhibition that explores the exchange of different social and political viewpoints that exist in society. Through works from the 1960s to the present day, the selected artists use various media to refer to protest, political activism, and other strategies of opposition and dialogue.
The exhibition features artists Francis Alÿs, Mark Clare, Nathan Coley, Öyvind Fahlström, Claire Fontaine, Liam Gillick, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Garrett Phelan, Alex Morrison, Jens Ullrich, Stephen Willats, Carey Young, Artur Zmijewski. It is curated by Matt Packer + René Zechlin
Over the last fifty years, artists have deliberately sought social and political engagement through their work, both inside and outside the gallery space. During the 1960s, many artists rejected the traditional structures of the art world, in an attempt to align themselves with the radical protests of the time. Artists were often interested in using their art, less as a representation of politics, and more as a tool for addressing politics directly.
Getting Even identifies artists that rethink the possibilities for social and political engagement through their work.
Oppositions in Contemporary Art
Protests and political activism feature prominently in the exhibition. Artists such as Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Alex Morrison, and Jens Ullrich develop references to protest and political activism to question the effectiveness and historical legacy of these modes of opposition. In Jens Ullrich's Plakate series, the artist has reworked press photographs of protests from across the world, manipulating each placard and banner with an abstract graphic motif of the artist's own design. In these works, the communication of protest becomes impossible to decipher, but some message continues to survive, conveyed in the protesters’ physical expression and visible sense of engagement.
Dialogues in Contemporary Art
The exhibition looks at strategies of participation by inviting visitors to discover and create conflicting relationships of their own by engaging with the works. For example, in Stephen Willats' Organic Exercise No.1 Series 2 , visitors are invited to re-configure a set of plaster bricks on a grid, without prior rules or instructions. The work therefore becomes ever-changing and subject to the alteration of each participant. Visitors are similarly invited to participate in Mark Clare's Ping-Pong Diplomacy - a functioning table-tennis table made of pallet-wood; a work that references the famous contest between American and Chinese players in 1971 which acted as a breakthrough in diplomatic relations between the two countries.
What Oppositions and Dialogues Resonate with you?
The culture sphere, and the gallery space in particular, offers an opportunity for artists to explore conflicting perspectives without there being a need for resolution or agreement. Here in the gallery, uneasy differences can co-exist. This enables the viewer to reflect on ideas, perhaps even those in conflict with their own world view. The deliberate tensions set up by the artworks, and indeed between the two exhibitions on display, may raise more questions than answers. In doing so, Getting Even and An Eye For An Eye encourage each viewer to consider the oppositions and dialogues that resonate with them.
The exhibition will tour to the Kunstverein Hannover, 30 May-2 August 2009.
The Lewis Glucksman Gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am-5 pm. Late night Thursday until 8 pm, Sunday 12-5 pm.
Image: Sir John Lavery, Pro-Cathedral Dublin (Michael Collins) 1922, Collection Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane.
904MMcS