Art News:
LCGA LIMERICK CITY GALLERY OF ART - OFF-SITE
AT THE HUNT MUSEUM
Tuesday 20 April
2010
Still life
with... /
Cleary & Connolly / LCGA /
MIC / Hunt Museum / AIB Prize 2009
Opening at the
Hunt
Museum, 3 June 2010, 6pm.
Friday
4 June 2010 - Sunday 11 July
2010
The project is inspired by Patrick Hennessy’s
magnificent Still life painting from the permanent collection of Limerick
City Gallery of Art. Still life with... reconstructs the original
Still life as a 3-dimensional set, inviting you to step right into the
painting. It provides a meeting place for pixels and pigments, for moving and
fixed images, for shimmering light and hard matter, for young and old. Depending
on the visitor’s reaction, the exhibition can be a drawing exercise, a
performance, a dialogue between old and new, a reflection on pictorial space...
or simply a game.
In Ireland, we have a theatrical culture that allows
us to imagine what is behind the scenes, but if I were to ask you what is behind
the picture, you might be forgiven for replying ‘the wall!’
‘Pictorial space’ is not in our everyday language. All the more
reason to explore it. Still life with… offers us a walk through an
imagined space behind the picture plane. Like Alice through the Looking
Glass, the work invites the spectator to step through the frame into that
imaginary space behind the painting. It makes a bridge between old media -
painting and sculpture - and new media - computers, video and digital
printing.
This giant Still life then passes back into
two dimensions, as video: three interactive video projections surrounding the
set allow the visitor to become part of a series of ever changing new digital
Still lifes, contemporary interpretations of the classical painting
genre.
Still life with... is a space into which the
viewer can step - to be part of this three-dimensional exploration of painting
currently under construction in Limerick. Eighteen young student teachers - from
Mary Immaculate College at the University of Limerick - are busy building the
giant fruit that will form the heart of the installation, while the artists Anne
Cleary and Denis Connolly are elaborating three interactive installations that
will interpret movement and stillness. Every year The AIB Prize identifies
emerging Irish visual artists and helps them launch their career through the
staging of a showcase exhibition in a publicly funded venue. Winners of the AIB
Prize 2009, the artists hope - through this ground-breaking project - to push
the boundaries of educational models for cultural projects, and so the choice of
working with student teachers was a
judic!
ious
one.
The project will impact not only on the young people directly involved, but will
resonate on future generations of children through the experiences and
confidence gained by their teachers in working with contemporary art. Still
life with... promotes a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning
in the Visual Art Education in MIC (Department of Arts Education & Physical
Education in the Facility of Education in MIC). It advocates a student centred
approach to active involvement, reflection and the exploration of a variety of
artistic techniques in contemporary art.
Once installed, Still life with... is as much
about what moves as what is still. The interactive video projections study
moving bodies - people - and how they interact with the still objects of the
installation. Meanwhile easels invite visitors who might prefer a more
traditional approach to take up a pencil and draw their own still life. Cleary
and Connolly’s work is on the cutting edge of contemporary art practice,
and this new installation uses interactive video programming that they initially
created for LCGA, and which they have since fine-tuned for such major
international institutions as the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Guangdong
Museum of Art in China. This new work pushes Cleary and Connolly’s ideas
of inclusive art practice further than ever before. The three dots suggest that
the project is unfinished, incomplete
without…
you.
Award winning Irish
artists Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly live and work in Paris, where they moved
in 1990 following architectural studies in Dublin during the 1980s. Patterns of
behaviour, both in cities and within our institutions, are a central
preoccupation of their work; and these they examine through narrative and
interactive video, installation, photography, and text. Cleary and Connolly see
their work as an ongoing engagement with the world.
Recent solo
exhibitions include: Pourqui pas toi at the Pompidou Centre;
Moving Dublin at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris; Here There
Now Then at the Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland; and Yokohama House
Guests at the Yokohama Triennial, Japan.
Recent group
exhibitions include:Sombras e Luz, Sesc Pompéia, Sao Paulo;
Noughties but Nice, 21st Century Irish Art. LCGA, Limerick; TULCA
Season of visual art, Galway; Do Something Different, the Barbican
Centre, London; Tina–B, National Gallery, Prague; Global
Tour, W139, Amsterdam.
Events
Opening Reception at Thursday 3 June 2010,
6pm
at The Hunt Museum
Rutland Street, Limerick, Ireland.
Phone +353 61 312833
The Limerick City Gallery of Art acknowledges the financial support of
AIB prize 2009 and the Arts Council in making this exhibition possible. Still
life with… is in partnership with The Hunt Museum and Mary Immaculate
College at the University of Limerick.
Limerick City Gallery of Art off-site at The Hunt Museum, Limerick.
Admission to Still life with... is
FREE
Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday 10-5, Sunday 2-5 (Hunt
Museum)
For further information please contact Limerick City Gallery of
Art:
T: 061 310633
E:artgallery@limerickcity.ie
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Limerick City Gallery of Art is part of
Limerick City Council, funded by the Arts Council and supported by Fas, Failte
Ireland, Shannon Development and the Heritage Council.
To , please click
here.
