The exhibition ‘Terrible Beauty – Art, Crisis, Change and The Office of Non-Compliance’ consists of a wide variety of high quality artworks from remarkable artists. Although many of the pieces depict a dismal ambiance, I found the way they were presented by the artists interesting and uplifting. Many pieces that stood out to me had an underlying meaning that I found appealing. I noticed that an artist’s effort to draw in the viewers’ attention often depends on how the works are displayed and what information is provided.

One of the most personally memorable pieces from the exhibition presenting the themes of ‘crisis’  and ‘change’ was the work entitled ‘Blow Up 160-Subatomic Decay Patterns: Picture of the Village of the Future’ by American artist Kysa Johnson. This is a site-specific work consisting of a 360-degree chalk on blackboard drawing of an Irish landscape composed of subatomic decay patterns. Its domineering presence at all angles around the viewer accentuates its impact, while the simplicity of the drawing’s subject at first glance is a contrast to this effect. What struck me most about this work was the how the artist conveyed the small but significant things in life that people generally tend to oversee. We only notice the detail of the micro patterns when we observe the drawing up close, thus obscuring the entire landscape image. This illustrates our habit of neglecting minor details and taking everyday occurrences at face value without appreciating their existence. The changes that occur in our lives on a daily basis are illuminated by the inconspicuous symbols that make up the entire background. I felt that the room exhibited a morose and haunting atmosphere and almost demanded more space.

The exhibition’s theme of ‘terrible beauty’ is blatantly existent in the Italian collaboration Vedovamazzei’s piece entitled ‘Nave Emmet Native Amer’. The idea of death and transformation is illustrated by this piece while raising ethical issues with regard to its medium. Beautiful pictures resembling floral wallpaper are made using the ashes of an individual sentenced to death in America. These pieces draw beauty from tragic circumstances while bringing to attention the issue of righteousness. When I first saw the pieces, their simplicity was thought-provoking. They are displayed in a spacious room and are the only pieces on the wall. Both pictures are framed and hung at eye level. The lighting in the room is bright, lending the art a peaceful quality appropriate to beautiful images on display. However, after having read the panel of text that stated the medium used, my whole perspective on the pieces changed as they effectively gained a dismal aura. The contrast between their visual impact and their association with death is striking. Its bold statement and relevance to the title of the exhibition was evident when reality closed in on me as I read the panel of text.

Another piece that caught my attention was Wang Du’s ‘Le Berceau’ (The Cradle). Initially, this piece seemed to invite us to return to our childhood. The enormous cradle consists of a massive bed frame with the mattress printed with images of crumpled newspapers so that the viewer is surrounded by pictures and text. Above the cradle is a number of suspended television screens switched to real-time programs, pulling us towards the reality of our media-centred society. I thought the artist’s premise was conveyed in an extremely clever manner as he used the people’s interaction with the cradle to support his idea. The children and adults who happily rock back and forth on the cradle are apparently oblivious to the fact that by doing so, they are proving the artists point about today’s ubiquitous flow of information from all directions to new generations of media and technology-oriented individuals. The piece’s connection with future generations is a contrast to the age-old building in which the exhibition is set. The remnants of the past are still on display within the building, including marks of removed shelving, peeling paint and rough floorboards.  I found this appropriate to the theme of ‘change’ as the surroundings recall the past while in the presence of contemporary art.

In conclusion, much of the artwork on display requires the viewer to take a closer look in order to understand what the piece is about. I found that a prevailing theme was society’s obliviousness to the changing world in which we live. The way in which an artwork is displayed has an effect on its impact and I enjoyed the fact the building remained un-renovated as it brought a sense of the past to the exhibition of contemporary art.

Diane Meyler

I do like to remember that time over the school holidays when I collected numerous comic books from cousins, egg boxes for some reason fascinated me and elastic bands could change an empty washing up bottle into an aeroplane or submarine in an instant. You would be wrong to think that although our time is filled with a plethora of devices that distract, the attention can be waned over to the simplest of objects that catch the all important imagination in our minds, something still cooking in particularly children’s minds but still important in anyone’s mind is that they continue to stay young, continue to learn.

Ice Cream Architecture are from Scotland and on a tour of Ireland stopped by with their magic plastic to engage with one and all, set up originally by Desmond Bernie and Sarah Frood it’s obvious that they have imagination at the heart of their interactive outlook, their moving bus pop-up that introduces the magic of a recently discovered plastic that can melt at sixty degrees binds anything any object you can muster to another, I did spend some time with Cian who professed the excellence of his makeshift noisemaker cobbled together from old waving piping a stick [you should always possess a stick] and a traffic cone he borrowed from the car park whilst the attendants weren’t watching. Kids love this play and make set-up and respect to the Ice Cream Architecture for getting stuck in and bringing something different to the Earlsfort terrace car park, watch out for them at a town near you.

  Ice cream architecture by DublinContemporary

Aidan Kelly
www.aidan-kelly.com

Those are some of the things that we have been up to the past few weeks. We’ve done a lot more than what’s mentioned here but I hope that you now understand the Circle Programme a little bit better. There are still a few more events to go before we all raise our glasses together and shout “Hooray! We did it,” but truthfully, I’ll miss it and I’ll be sad when it’s all over. I hope to see you all again in five years! Until then, let’s all work diligently on our practice and continue discussing the ideas that make our profession so different to everyone else’s! Best of luck, Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

Reflecting the show’s curatorial aim of offering a platform for young Irish artists alongside home-grown and international established peers, Dublin Contemporary 2011 sought out key emerging Irish furniture designers and established design stores for their help. Thanks to their wonderfully diverse pieces, the Lounge has proved an elegant and comfortable place for visitors to relax and muse over the electrifying art they have just experienced.

John Walsh of Made* is the man behind the angular elegance of the charcoal V5 one and two-seater sofas, while his cheerful Urban felt couch in pale grey with blue and yellow cushions is now on every Dublin Contemporary staff member’s wish list. A lecturer and award-winning designer, Walsh works with The Sofa Factory in Dublin, keeping manufacturing local too. Made*’s other creative brain is Peter McCann, whose simple Causeway bench – happily liveried in Dublin Contemporary orange – has offered many a weary visitor some welcome respite. McCann’s geometric Causeway tables are not hard to live with either.

Martin Gallagher is a graduate of GMIT Letterfrack with a passion for wood, and his incredible hand-crafted Arú console table with its delicate maple ‘ribs’ and glass top allows the piece’s intricate assembly to be seen from above. Gallagher also loaned his clever 3D coffee table and stools, neatly constructed of interlocking circles of wood and pale leather.

Directional store Minima has been a treasure trove of international design since its inception in 1998, and has kindly loaned beautiful lights from Foscarina – including the fabulous geodesic Rock light by Diesel for Foscarina, the springy Twiggy floor lamp, Moroso’s Ripple chairs (looking for all the world like gigantic sweeties), B&B Italia’s giant pouf in supple lilac leather, and a pair of Gerrit Reitveld classic Modernist Utrecht chairs in blue and grey felt.

Completing the lighting in the lounge is Unleaded’s wall mounted PL-Y light, a series of Y shapes concealing halogen bulbs which wash the surrounding wall with diffused light. The lighting system already graces a groovy new hotel in Mexico (they ordered 16 of them). A second Unleaded light, the quirky B-Con, resembles a emergency beacon, and rocks gently on its cast concrete base while giving the bar a soft orange glow.

Sasha Sykes is the force behind Farm 21, a company that fuses the rural and contemporary with its use of natural materials suspended in resin and acrylic. The technique brings to mind those paper weight making kits that were all the rage in the 1970s, albeit on a much larger scale.

Three recent DIT graduates are also on show, with Deirdre Hanrahan’s graceful bent wood and glass table holding its own in the lounge, while the bar is home to two very different mirrors. Kathryn Payne’s Growing Shadows piece echoes dappled light with fragments of reflective glass escaping the mirror’s boundaries, while Gráinne Lyons’ mirror nods to the Art Deco era with its fanned layers of timber.

Our final thanks goes to two residents of The Malthouse Design Centre in Dublin, a hub for young Irish design with workshops and a showroom that must be seen. Sticks ff loaned a selection of their ingenious ‘flat pack’ brightly painted birch table and stools, while Locker 13 custom-made a large version of their Johann stool, fabricated from heavy duty cardboard tubing and coiled felt.

Dublin Contemporary 2011 offers a heartfelt thanks to all of these designers and stores for their generosity. Visit their websites for more information and commissioning details, and look out for their work during Design Week from 31st October - 6th November.

* Congratulations to John Walsh and Peter McCann, both of whom are shortlisted in the furniture category of this year’s IDI Design Awards - see the full shortlist here, winners to be announced on 27th October.

Anne Mullee
Writer, former TV producer, occasional filmmaker, and now art-botherer, Anne recently completed an MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management and is Dublin Contemporary’s Corporate Events, Sponsorship and Fundraising intern.

Another event that generated a great deal of success was the tour of Mason, Hayes, and Curran’s contemporary art collection. Mason, Hayes, Curran is a law firm that has been collecting contemporary art as a means of increasing their social consciousness for many years. Their collection is vast and plays a significant roles in lives of the people who work there. Although art may not be their primary interest they are confronted with beautiful and at times rather difficult notions almost at every turn. Keep your eyes out for Colman and Declan they’ve grown to be known faces in the gallery circuit around these parts.

So while Siobhan was in Kilkenny, I had the opportunity to take a few people over to visit the studios of IMMA’s resident artists. All of the artists are lovely but I was particularly captivated by the work of Vittorio Santoro.

Vittorio’s work is work that takes time. Knowing that, you’ll probably understand why it intrigued me, considering my love of slow-paced, nearly invisible work. I’ll tell you a little bit about Vittorio and his practice but I won’t tell you everything he said on Saturday in his studio as it’s best heard from the man himself.  Vittorio was not trained as an artist in the way that he did not attend art school. His father didn’t think it was a real profession so instead he studied economics at university and spent many hours reading and learning about art by himself in the library. He said, “Many of the artists became my mentors although I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me.” After some time of getting to know these artist’s works he made a list of people whom he would like to meet in order to ask them questions and discuss their art considering that at that time he had no work of his own to discuss. He spent many years getting closer to his mentors and in the end he was able to meet most of them. That doesn’t say much about his work its self, but its a small example of how, in my view, Vittorio’s time-based works on paper are so closely related to the way in which he carries his practice and leads his life.

Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

I could say that I first met Brian Duggan at the Circle Programme artist brunch we held with him, but really I was introduced to his work when I had spent a good while looking at his piece for Dublin Contemporary, a few weeks prior. I won’t delve too much into it but Brian brought up a really interesting question through his piece and it’s something I haven’t been able to get out of my head since. “How do you represent something intangible, tangibly in art?” How can you deal with a force that you know exists, such as radiation, devastation, loss, confusion if you can’t see it or touch it. It’s a great question and one that everyone should probably ask themselves.
Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle had to ask themselves very similar questions during their time wrongly incarcerated. Or maybe their questions were the complete opposite of Brian’s. How can we overcome being trapped, tangibly, to which they both responded that although physically you may be restrained, your thoughts are your own and no one can ever take your ideas or your creativity away from you. This wasn’t a Circle event but it was really powerful talk in the Office of Non-Compliance, which stuck an even more powerful chord in everyone considering the night before Troy Davis had been executed in the United States. There are typically at least 1 or 2 talks per week at the Office of Non-Compliance.

Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

I didn’t get to meet Tom Molloy personally, but I was able to see his show during our Circle Programme ‘Art Trail of Galleries.’ I hate to admit it but I wasn’t too familiar with Tom’s work before seeing this show. When I entered the gallery on that sunny, Saturday afternoon, my jaw dropped. I often go on about this but one of the most interesting factors in contemporary art for me is the pace of works. With that in mind, my favourite works are the most subtle, quiet pieces that you could almost pass over without even knowing they’re there.  You can imagine my shock, joy, pure elation when Josephine Kelliher described Tom’s show using those same words I always default to when describing my connection to this type of work- work you can almost pass over without seeing. The whole show was stunning but if I had to choose one piece, it would be the burned book, ‘Book.’ Not only did he manage to make it look like a gem plucked from deep underground but the amount of ideas encompassed in one passive piece of art; it could very well be the history of man retold, just like in a precious stone. Each modular formation or peer-through-the-microscope, each burnt page revealing another layer of secret thoughts and ideas.

I don’t know how Emma did it but the way she curated the Art Trail was spot on. With each gallery we went to the ideas we were confronted with became more vibrant and flowed through each other. I found myself not only thinking about individual works but the way in which the ideas of art and the world interlace and how different artists take specific human ideas and stretch them in all directions, always coming full circle. You can imagine how mentally exhausted we were by the end, so much so, that the next day I came down with a 24hr flu and seriously considered going to the hospital. “Whats wrong with me, what do I have, Doctor?!” “Well, Gianina, it seems you’ve had an Art Overdose. You’ll be fine by Monday morning. Try not to think so hard next time.”

Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

PART 1

Whichever name you choose to call us by, ‘Golden Circle’, ‘Circle Club’, ‘Circle Thing,’ or the ‘Circle Group,’ the Dublin Contemporary 2011 Circle Programme has been in full swing for five weeks now, hosting a wide variety of events directed specifically towards arts professionals.

Many of you have gotten to know us pretty well over the past few months. If you haven’t, then after reading this you should head over to the Circle Desk in Earlsfort Terrace for a chat. The driving force behind the Circle, Emma Dwyer is our lovely ring leader; Siobhan Feehan, is a mixed-media artist hailing from Louisiana, and myself Gianina Jimenez Barrantes, otherwise known as the relatively-forgettable girl with the really difficult name and the American accent (I’d refute all those statements but that is an entirely different subject). We are the three main faces of the Circle Programme.

Together we’ve schlepped it all over Dublin on foot, by cab, bus, Dart, Luas and my most recent venture: on an old, rusty, coral-coloured bike found in the back of Earlsfort Terrace, last ridden by Molly Malone, someone joked. Throughout our adventures, I’ve managed to profess my love to artists and curators, international and national alike, so here’s a recap of what’s been going on.

We kicked off the programme back in the beginning of September with a series of artist brunches. These were insightful morning chats with the likes of Eamon O’Kane and Richard Mosse about their work in the show. During one of these brunches I discovered where Richard lives in New York, so when I go home I can play the lute outside his window hoping to catch a glimpse of him through the curtains. Only joking, Richard! Truth is, we were really impressed by the great lengths he had gone to produce the photographs showing in Dublin Contemporary. Not only did he choose a practically obsolete infra-red film on which to shoot, he did it in a place harmful for the film and dangerous for himself as well. The outcome is stunning. In an age where I tend to immediately think all work is made using Photoshop, it’s refreshing seeing work such as his.

Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

Is a Costa Rican national based in New York City. She has held almost every position in the arts including having worked as an artist, curator, adviser, dealer, writer and currently as Circle Agent for Dublin Contemporary 2011.
Her range of experiences has provided her with an open-mind and broad-range of references. Find more of her personal work at http://cargocollective.com/trashypillow