Circa 125 Contemporary Visual Culture in Ireland Autumn 2008 | ¤7.50 £5 Us$12 | Issn 0263-9475
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CIRCA 125 CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE IN IRELAND AUTUMN 2008 | ¤7.50 £5 US$12 | ISSN 0263-9475 c . ISSN 0263-9475 Contemporary visual culture in circa Ireland ____________________________ ____________________________ 2 Editor Subscriptions Peter FitzGerald For our subscription rates please see bookmark, or visit Administration/ Advertising www.recirca.com where you can Barbara Knezevic subscribe online. ____________________________ Board Circa is concerned with visual Graham Gosling (Chair), Mark culture. We welcome comment, Garry, Georgina Jackson, Isabel proposals and written Nolan, John Nolan, Hugh contributions. Please contact Mulholland, Brian Redmond the editor for more details, or consult our website ____________________________ www.recirca.com Opinions Contributing editors expressed in this magazine Brian Kennedy, Luke Gibbons are those of the authors, not ____________________________ necessarily those of the Board. Assistants Circa is an equal-opportunities Gemma Carroll, Sarah O’Brien, employer. Copyright © Circa Madeline Meehan, Kasia Murphy, 2008 Amanda Dyson, Simone Crowley ____________________________ ____________________________ Contacts Designed/produced by Circa Peter Maybury 43 / 44 Temple Bar www.softsleeper.com Dublin 2 Ireland Printed by W & G Baird Ltd, tel / fax (+353 1) 679 7388 Belfast [email protected] www.recirca.com Printed on 115gsm + 250gsm Arctic the Matt ____________________________ ____________________________ c ____________________________ ____________________________ CIRCA 125 AUTUMN 2008 3 Editorial 26 | Letters 28 | Update 30 | Features 32 | Reviews 66 | Project 107 | (front cover) Ben Craig degree-show installation 2008 courtesy the artist Culture night 2008 c . Circa video screening Circa screens the selected videos from the open submission Curated by Lee Welch, artist and co-director of Four Gallery, Dublin, videos will be shown in the Atrium of Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin on 19 September 2008. The Selected artists are: Candice Jacobs, Serge Le Squer, Emily Candela, Gabriela Vainsencher, Sergio Cruz, Tony Burhouse, Claudia Mateus, Andrew Sims, Angel Bellaran, Dave Griffiths, Barry W. Hughes, Funda Ozgunaydin circa: two critical writing competitions Calling all (a) undergraduates and (b) transition year/year twelve students! We are looking for new writers who are fascinated by contemporary art and visual culture. What do we want? Either a review of an exhibition, or an essay on any topic relating to contemporary art or visual culture. The winning texts will be published on recirca.com Details: (a) You are resident in the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland (b) You have not been published in Circa before, either online or in the magazine (c) You are writing about an art exhibition (up to 750 words) or an art- or visual-culture-related topic (up to 2000 words) (d) Closing Date: 31 January 2009 (e) Submissions to [email protected] or to our postal address. (f) Please state the course you are following and where. _____________________________c Circa 43 / 44 Temple Bar Dublin 2 Ireland tel (+353 1) 679 7388 [email protected] or [email protected] www.recirca.com c . Peter FitzGerald 26 Editorialc Art college. Do you leave it, or does it leave you? “… down the street, bouncing an empty can…” (see The final weeks in art college can be very fraught, as the above). Think cityscape. We inhabit cities, for the most struggle is on to get the work into a form ready for the part, and they inhabit us. To take one trivial example: assessors and the world at large to observe and judge. outside the Circa office window, in the middle of Dublin’s And then one day, shortly after, it all stops. You were Temple Bar, buskers murder the lyrics of Johnny Cash’s inside, now you’re outside. Sunday morning coming down – the source of the empty can – in what seems like a daily, ritual sacrifice. It’s an To draw out this whole process a little, for some, I am ‘outsider’ song, to judge by the lyrics, regurgitated in delighted that we are again hosting a ‘critics’ choice’ from Temple Bar in a way that possibly comforts the passing the degree shows. This is a series of short texts in which visitor in his or her temporary outsider status, or at least selected writers have themselves chosen one artist from a creates a moment of unmelodious but otherwise harmless bachelors- or masters-level Fine Art course. This is someone complicity. whose work particularly took their interest; in general, the word is, the standard is high and, as can be seen in Cities get into our headspace in a million ways, bad the pages here, the output diverse and stimulating. buskers being just an obvious example. Artists often try to pin down the where, when and how of the city’s effects. I do have misgivings that we were not able to cover all Sometimes the city itself, in its official form, encourages 27 degree-level shows, or to give fair weight to the different such artistic exploration, sometimes it seems to thwart it, colleges. Reasons are various, but it certainly doesn’t help and sometimes it does both simultaneously. Taking as her if a college provides no information about when its degree starting point one recent artistic intervention, bodycity, show is on. There is particularly small coverage of Gemma Tipton looks in her article in this issue at various degree-show work in Northern Ireland; again, reasons city/ art dialogues. are various, but one is worth mentioning because it is puzzling: there is only one college, the University of Ulster, Also often battling their outsider status are those whom Belfast Campus, offering Fine Art at degree level; in the various artistic interventions seek to re-enfranchise, Republic there are at least nine. to give a voice to – there are very many forms of art in the community that seek to involve disadvantaged people, But back to this particular artist presented in the opening and very many other ways in which artists seek to help paragraph, as he or she steps beyond the art-college those who are marginalised. And then along come the doors for the last time. Perhaps heighten the drama by Olympics and, it seems, much of this artistic work may having a bitter wind blast down the street, bouncing an cease – at least, this may very well be the case in empty can along the gutter (this is Ireland in June, after all). Nothern Ireland (NI), as the the London Olympics of 2012 Art students occupy multiple and contradictory positions siphon cash, especially Lottery money, out of the ‘good in the social hierarchy. There is a fair bit of the outsider cause’ sectors of UK society. As Justin McKeown argues about them, as they produce work regarded with varying in his article in this issue, now is not a good time to be levels of suspicion by the rest of society. And contrast taking money out of community-, cross-community- and “Hi, Dad, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend John, he’s just disadvantage-related arts activity in NI, not when people graduated from law school” with “…he’s just finished art in NI are trying to establish an identity away from the college.” Artists tend to welcome the freedom to think and shadow of violence. Yet, it seems, this is just what is going act differently that comes with being a bit on the fringes, to happen. I’ve mentioned above that NI seems peculiarly but for most there is still the comfort of knowing the lingo underresourced when it comes to Fine Art courses. It is of the middle classes and of being able to ‘reinsert’ with well known that NI is greatly disadvantaged when it relative ease. Not proper outsiders, so, at least not at the comes to central-government funding of the arts. And level explored by artist Brian Maguire. Maguire brings us now, apparenlty, someone is about to fire a javelin though prisoners, psychiatric patients, favela-dwellers, any and all what funding remains; doesn’t seem fair. who are in danger of existing, ‘passing through’, without apparent consequence. Maguire’s commitment to the On a happier note, Patrick Ireland is dead. Northern Ireland marginalised is certainly not common. What is very unusual, is again the reason, but the context is considerably better. however, is twofold: the incisive, arresting, unapologetic In this issue, Declan Long interprets an unusual interment. visual language that demands the viewer’s attention; and the way his work has found its way into the highest What else? Much – enjoy! reaches of the fine-art establishment in Ireland. In this issue we carry an interview with Maguire by Cian Traynor; it’s hard not to be struck by the simplicity and honesty of Maguire’s message. c . Letters In the first paragraph, story around an historical NSF exists to support Kelly quotes a report from fact and then make the artist’s work and its an advertising agency in image ambiguous?” Here, visibility is vital to this, Australia. In the layout Kelly’s observational both in relation to public and format adopted, this abilities are not capable understanding and support quote is placed directly enough to notice that the of art and artists. If Kelly over the words “The new image is not ambiguous; wants to know the means piece [ie, Beuys (still a it is actually very clearly of promotion adopted discussion)] consists of a explained by the text piece here, the artwork was photographic billboard on below if he wanted to read specifically promoted by the front of the NSF with and quote it correctly. the NSF’s newsletter an accompanying text.” and brochure for spring With Kelly’s structure, Kelly then continues to – summer 2008, by a casual reader might write that the NSF made electronic mailout, by an mistakenly read the posters and postcards of artist’s talk (which Kelly advertising quote as part the artwork.