• Exhibition: The Last Wilderness @ The Dock

    July 29, 2017 - By 

    The Last Wilderness is the current exhibition in Carrick-on-Shannon’s The Dock, and features the work of Cecilia Danell. The show is an expansion of a body of work shown by Danell earlier this year in Galway’s Art Centre. In this version of the work, the artist’s landscape paintings, which draw on her native Sweden and its neighbour Norway where she recently completed a residency, are recontextualised to reference Danell’s interests in film, theatre and performance based art. These interests see the artist present an experimental film shot on 8mm alongside her work – the piece is is screened from a small theatre set constructed as…

  • Exhibition: The Triadic Ballet @ VISUAL Carlow

    July 11, 2017 - By 

    In 1922, and a year prior to him being named as the Head of the Bauhuas School’s Theatre Workshop, Oskar Schlemmer unveiled his first major theatrical work: The Triadic Ballet. The ballet saw 3 participants (always 2 males and 1 female) perform 12 dances in 18 costumes spread across 3 acts. The dancers, akin to life-size marionette dolls, were transformed into abstract geometric shapes as Schlemmer explored modernity and the human form. The ballet was shown extensively during the artist’s time at Bauhaus (’21-’29), with touring performances taking place. In 1970 Bavaria Film GmbH captured a colour film of the ballet with…

  • Exhibition: Dennis Dinneen @ Douglas Hyde Gallery

    May 26, 2017 - By 

    Today and tomorrow are the last chances to see an extensive selection from the Dennis Dinneen archive in The Douglas Hyde Gallery. Operating out of the room adjacent to this pub in Macroom, County Cork between the ’50s and ’70s, Dinneen captured an Ireland that has faded in recent decades. The imagery created is an important sociological document of an Ireland transitioning from the a newly established country to entering the European fold in the start of the 1970s. The Church stilled loomed large in community affairs and emigration had become an all too frequent bedfellow. Dennis Dinneen continues in The Douglas Hyde…

  • RHA 187th Annual Exhibition 

    May 25, 2017 - By 

    Opening this week for its summer run is the RHA’s 187th Annual Exhibition. The exhibition, which is the largest open-submission show in Ireland, features a multitude of mediums and provides viewers with a broad synopsis of current styles, trends and directions within contemporary Irish art. As well as it’s open-submission platform the RHA invites artists each year to contribute to the discussion. This year includes a site-specific installation by Miranda Blennerhassett – which sees the Scottish born, Irish based artist transform the gallery’s staircase. Drawing on inspiration from an Iranian mosque, the work is a reflection on the human tradition of…

  • Exhibition: School Portraits @ Draíocht

    May 24, 2017 - By 

    School Portraits, an exhibition which presented the work of four artists who have submerged themselves within the environments of Irish schools, opens tonight in Blanchardstown’s Draíocht. The show features the work of John Ahearn, Mandy O’Neill, Blaise Smith and Kilian Waters. Each has approached the topic with a different medium – photography, video, sculpture and paint, with Ahearn’s 1994 piece St Francis Street Boys on loan from the IMMA collection. School Portraits promises to be a fascinating look at life in Irish schools and will also help engage children in visual arts from a young age and spark discourses across generations. With that in…

  • Exhibition: Set in Time @ Glucksman

    June 21, 2017 - By 

    Founded in 1909 by Russian ballet and art impresario Sergei Diaghilev, Ballets Russes is recognised as a pivotal organistaion in the establishment and promotion of performative dance in the early decades of the 20th Century. As well as being home to some of the greatest ballet dancers of its time, including Nijinsky and Pavlova, Ballets Russes also saw Diaghilev commission pieces from contemporary artists, such as Picasso and Matisse, as well as costume designs from Coco Channel and compositional pieces from Stravinsky – who Diaghilev would eventually be buried near in Venice. In 1921, while only 16, Serge Liar was spotted by Diaghilev and he became his…

  • Exhibition: Showing Off @ VOID

    May 16, 2017 - By 

    This week is the last to see Showing Off in Derry’s Void gallery. The show, which has been curated by Mhairi Sutherland, has seen screenings from the New York initiative Women Make Movies’ archive. Void’s Gallery 2 has a rotation of feature film’s, with a fixed series of shorter films in the gallery’s other spaces. For this final week it’s Barbara Miller’s 2012 film Forbidden Voices: How to Start a Revolution with a Computer – which looks at female bloggers in Cuba, China and Iran as they document their countries’ regimes. This film will be shown daily at 11am and 1pm, with the shorter films, including…

  • Exhibition: And Europe Will Be Stunned @ Golden Thread

    May 9, 2017 - By 

    This week is the last to see Yael Bartana’s video trilogy And Europe Will Be Stunned in Belfast’s Golden Thread Gallery. The Israeli artists trilogy of video pieces are broken into three works: Mary Koszmary (Nightmares), Mur i wieża (Wall and Tower) and Zamach (Assassination), which were released in 2007, 2009 and 2011 respectively. Bartana’s work explores propaganda, the migration of people and the longing and desires of people. Her output sees the a disassociation between fiction and reality hard to navigate, a process that increases the impact of the work. And Europe Will Be Stunned continues until May 13th, with full details about…

  • Exhibition: THF @ Belfast Exposed

    May 23, 2017 - By 

    This week is the last to see Aisling McCoy’s exhibition THF in Belfast Exposed. The project sees McCoy explore and respond to the now closed Berlin airport Tempelhofer Feld – THF was it’s International Air Transport Association airport code. Tempelhofer Feld was original constructed by the government of the Weimar Republic, but underwent a massive expansion and redesigned in 1936 when it was envisioned by the Nazi regime as being the ‘Gateway to Europe’ for a post-World War II Germany. Since closing permanently as an airport in 2008 has undergone main guises from hosting fairs and marathon events. Since late-2015 it has also become…

  • Exhibition: How We Got Here @ Platform Arts

    May 17, 2017 - By 

    How We Got Here, an exhibition featuring the wok of 1st year MFA students from Belfast School of Arts, is due to end this week in Belfast’s Platform Arts. 12 artists feature in total, with the work exploring themes including memory and femininity. The exhibition is spread across both galleries within Platform Arts and includes collage, sculpture and painting. The gallery is open 12-6 Wednesday to Friday, before closing on Saturday 11-4. Full details are available here.