Author: Paul Tarpey

A very brief showcase of static, performed and discussion led art filled 5 storeys of the now-titled Thomas St Centre last week. Presented by Occupy Space with assistance from Limerick City Council, ev+a, Creative Limerick, The Arts Council and more.

Ten galleries spread their wares in the generous emptiness of a building donated by Don and Michael O Malley. With this fair the spot can now justiflably be said to be the centre of Limerick’s progressive Art scene and representitive of the profile work both Faber and Occupy studios have done in the City Centre. Would it  now be time for parties to talk seriously about developing it as a funded Arts Hub?

Artists from the Galleries, 1646 The Hague, Basement Project Space Cork, Block T Dublin, Catalyst Arts Belfast, 126 Galway, Monster Truck Dublin, Transmission Glasgow, Soma Contemporary Waterford, Transition London and Wolfart Rotterdam presented well-designed installations of which those in the basement made the most of the unadorned space.

 

 

The glass lift shuttled viewers between the 5 floors where a combination of delicate constructions and rough assembalages were laid out. Here, work that used projections and screens had to contend with a 3-block long window space in terms of light and also for attention as the rare opportunity to see the panoramic view of Georgian Limerick dominated viewing. In fact my overall sensation of In_flux above the first 2 floors was the constant head-rotating experiance of art-window-art-window.

My brief vist didn’t absorb all of the work on show and by the time I was able return the project ended. I will not the only one who will hear about it and wonder why it didn’t continue longer but it was well supported in its run by Limerick’s art community and considering the variety of galleries I’m sure links and contacts were made between the participants. It was certainly engaging enough for repeated viewings and coinciding with deadlines for Limerick’s Art College In_flux also acted as a resource for students finishing up their own work. The Event also hosted a talk with Jota Castro the Co- Curator of Dublin Contemporary and various film screenings.

No doubt funding the sheer amount of art and artists accounted for the allocated time space but it certainly merits a return visit.

Vitiate is an exhibition by the LSAD 3rd year sculpture and combined media students. It is curated by Maeve Mulrennan and Kate Mangan and situated in the Franciscan Church on Henry street until Sunday April 3rd 2011 with opening times 10am-5pm daily and admission is free.

What was possibly the most spectactular intervention to date by the Students of LSAD in a city centre space was represented by a combination of the enormous former church with the considered artpieces carefully placed in the space. The Franciscan church was bravely chosen with sponsored finance by the group and the curation certainly reflects the challenge that was undertaken.

The furniture contained in the space, confessional booths etc, inevitably added resonance to the installed pieces and the exhibition’s statement mentions that ‘some of the works take on an other-worldly quality, ghostlike structures move in and around the formal structure of the church while others are more brazen in their attempts to resonate with the former functions of the spaces within.’  Certainly visiting the space in daylight hours will offer a different experience to the opening night’s almost ceremonial quality.

The Artist Alice Maher opened the show and delivered a polemic from the imposing pulpit in the middle of the Church. She spoke with passion on the continuing fight for creative recognition in the light of art education cutbacks.

The Limerick public would take any chance to vist the reopened city centre space even without the breadth of work now installed and Vitilate makes the most of this as well as showcasing the professional approach by all concerned.

For further information contact 0879486870 or email pink_dollars@hotmail.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bock adds …

 

I dropped in for a look myself.  Marvellous stuff.

It moved me to deliver a short sermon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Videogram Limerick is a recent addition to the cultural hub that is the corner of Thomas St and Catherine St. The Occupy Space gallery is the venue for these nights of film and talk. Admission is free and events begin at 8 o clock. Dates and listings are available on the Videogram Facebook page.

Last Thursday’s event drew a healthy crowd and the night was an interaction between Videogram and the curator of Occupy Space’s current show Mary Conlon. One of the films she chose was the often-mentioned but seldom seen short ‘Werner Herzog eats his shoe’, directed by Les Blank in 1980. This energetic portrait of Herzog recorded the honouring of a promise he made to his ex student Erroll Morris in which he swore to eat his shoe if Morris ever managed to finish a project. The shoe was eaten in the middle of a question-throwing crowd at the premier of Morris’s lauded Gates of Heaven, a documentary about American pet cementeries.

 

Herzog is known in both Art and popular cinema circles as a dynamic instigator of projects that explore and question the individual’s place in situations. Blank’s film reminded us of what an effective orator he is on the need for what he called a ’grammar of alternative anti-capitalist imagery’ and the idea that complacency was a curse to be avoided in all walks of art.

Occupy hosted another film the following Saturday organised by ‘Troubling Ireland Artists Think Tank Programme’. Maquilapolis (city of factories) was made with the participation of Mexican Factory workers. This night was billed as an evening of talks and film screenings on Labor issues from the Limerick Soviet to contemporary struggles.

There was talk last year of a city centre cinema to be situated not too far from Videogram’s base, but in the absence of this conversation being continued events such as this are more than necessary. A visual commentary on the proposed cinema site may be taking place on the top of Catherine St with a mock shop sign spelling out the situation.

On view at the  Limerick Printmakers are the results of a 24 hour print marathon that was held in their studio on Market St.

Members and invited printers started the process at 12 oo  o’clock on Saturday 26th and presented a show of the work to the public at 12 the following day.  The lithographs, photo etchings, screenprints etc that now fill the gallery were dramaticaly taken from idea to ink in this intense time frame.

A 24-hour web link tracked proceedings, fuelled by bagels and coffee, and with beds available for the weary marathon artist if necessary.  Well-known Limerick printmaker Des Mac Mahon confirmed his determined status by reputedly remaining awake for the full 24 hours and was busy sweeping the area as the first visitors came through the door on Sunday.

Printmakers spend a significant amount of time prepping the studio, preparing ink and paper, plate and stone before cleaning up and the print marathon gave an insight to this process as part of the discipline.

The Gallery is open Tuesdays to Sundays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are usually two guaranteed opportunities to experience Performance Art in Limerick each year. The breadth of the International art exhibition that is ev+a tends to feature work of this nature and then there is the annual Art College performance night.  This year the city will not host an ev+a so at present the Art College flies the flag.

This year’s LSAD performance night was a culmination of a workshop held by artist and writer Oscar McLennan. The participating sculpture students, under the stewardship of staff Amanda Dunsmore and Sean Taylor, used  the theatre over the Locke Bar in George’s Quay to present a series of short individual performances collectively titled DRY.

Any presentation of performance art outside a college or gallery tends to invite derisory comment, often calling up the stereotype of the wild/ difficult/ concept-heavy Artist as an outsider. Since the 60s, popular types of drama and comedy and even protest actions have claimed the expressive tropes of performance as their own and by doing so have neutralised the impact of what originated – and is still taught as- a vital discipline in the Arts.

That’s why we need events like Dry, a showcase that dispels stereotypes and shows where artistic practice is now, as well as offering an introduction to the discipline over the course of a night. Straight monologues, chaotic noise and flickering projections as conceptual vehicles were all in evidence in the Locke.

McLennan is an artist who has worked as a stand up comedian and teacher of performance art since the mid 80s and he opened the show with a tone-setting twisted monologue of childhood. This was important because, irrespective of the nature of the work on display, it is still courageous to stand up in front of an audience, even if they are on your side.  The students who followed him in 15-minute slots delivered on themes of identity, the role and experience of a performer, and the necessity for emotion.

After tonight some of these students will immerse themselves in the discipline and practice and become performers while others will have the experience to look back at as a one-off. This is no reflection on the variety of work as everybody acquitted themselves well and collectively ran the night professionally.

The questioning of Self identity is the fundamental theme for a performance piece and it was inevitable that the audience would experience examples of this from the workshop.  Because all the acts were on and off quickly, their performances represented not only small performed stories about themselves but examples of the kind of performance art you would see in other (classic) exhibitions.

The blindfolded knife-wielding woman, the man in conversation with himself through a mirror, the burlesque quoting performer Candy Warhol were all respectful manifestations of previous performances that quoted the discipline’s history. Once you were aware that Amy Riordan’s reading of DRY involved her spending the showcase away from the audience in an adjacent room and writing on why it was impossible for her to perform work, it was safe to say most boxes were ticked.

Some pieces were noticeable for their precise conceptual brief, effective stage design and timing. Teresa Dyer hammered 6-inch nails from a wooden bowl into a full-length crucifix, the methodical silence of the act briefly interrupted by a low voice hinting that the event was really an ominous domestic narrative visualized on stage. Eilish Tuite, in judicial robes and wig, delivered a vigorous, well written, anti-establishment speech decrying the ‘vertigo of power’ which she angrily punctuated by swinging a wooden mallet instead of a gavel.  (The effective weariness of her performance no doubt a result of her work managing the stage all night).

Carla Burns’s deceptively simple demonstration of a yoga workout complete with mat, rubber plant and motivational voiceover initially blindsided the audience who may have presumed by her deadpan seriousness she was channeling a parodic comedy sketch. The performance however was based on Burns’s careful détournement of herself and the props in the space to reflect on personal and public empowerment. Rewriting and re-recording the yoga tapes as a confrontational manifesto to perform both with and against was an indication of the professional level the students projected.

One downside to this progressive night was the unfortunate lack of publicity. The absence of the public was a loss for the students and those who certainly would have been entertained and exposed to professional-standard performance. Performance’s reliance on diverse audience interaction is an essential factor in how this work is considered and this is why the previous LSAD showcase nights are part of Limerick folklore.  If possible the work could be performed again in to rectify this. It certainly would be worth it.

As the students dismantled their props and went outside, the lights of the Trinity Rooms flickered and crowds gathered for one of Ireland’s best known conceptual performance acts.  The ironic and surreal Cork family unit Crystal Swing were booked for a Rag week gig. Both occasions on either side of the river graphically illustrated the current breadth of the discipline as hosted by Limerick City centre in February 2011.