- Venue
- Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
- Location
‘Keep the Friday date!' hails the Let Be Be Show of Seem programme, and I would recommend that you do exactly that.
Every Friday from 20th April until 31st August 2007, Studio 6 – Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin 2, is host to a myriad of events produced by students of the MA Visual Arts Practices at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
Lightworks, the inaugural exhibition curated by Eilís Lavelle, has set the precedent for the following 19 events. Lavelle's selection of 5 artists generated an articulate inquiry into one's sense of place within a world of flux. The dialogue generated between the works was enhanced by a series of subtle curatorial decisions – it was not simply the artworks posing the questions, but the approach and style of the curation too.
Following a clockwise direction around the gallery, one approaches the photographs of Nicholas Hughes: Snowscapes 12, 26 and 17. Landscapes of whiteness invite one to recede into an uncluttered space away from what might be encroaching their unframed parameters. The scale of these images (25.5 cm x 30.5 cm) makes one aware of their containment: of the information that has been selected and, furthermore, of the information that has been rejected. The contemplative state induced by Hughes' imagery is disturbed by what might lie beyond the edges.
The curation of Hughes photographs is unassuming, and yet serves to develop the essence of the whole show. Two of his three photographs sit side by side, whereas the third, although remaining parallel to the others, is set at a distance. This gap is subtle, and lends itself to the contemplative aesthetic of Hughes' work. More importantly, however, it serves to question ideas of placement in relation to the expected. The gap presents an insoluble ambiguity – it is at once vast and intricate.
Lavelle has selected works that use the visual phenomena of light to present an altered perspective of the landscape. As one's attention is drawn into details that might ordinarily be missed, one becomes astutely aware that there remains a great deal more that is still hidden. Lucy Bainbridge's three screen-prints; Canary Wharf, explore the temporal effect of light on the city landscape. Bainbridge has taken an identifiable cityscape and stripped away the familiar visual cues necessary for recognition. The imagery is rendered indeterminate; content and context lose clarity as one's perception is challenged.
Familiar visual cues are further challenged by Lavelle's choice to omit a traditional labelling system. Instead of defining each work separately, which could have disturbed the dialogue of the show, Lavelle enabled a fluidity of movement around the exhibition. Although one experiences an initial sense of loss for the expected mapping system, it is exactly this experience that enhances the nature of the exhibition. Rather than simply presenting a compilation of works, this show could be considered as an installation.
The video works pull the viewer into the internal dynamic of the exhibition. Acousticity by Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt) captures and distorts sounds and images from the city of Prague. The single set of headphones, necessary for one to engage with the work, seem to offer more than just a practical solution – one becomes physically connected to the work, which is utterly involving and accosting of one's senses. As the sounds and images pulsate seamlessly together, one's experience of seeing is merged with ones experience of hearing. There is a loss of distinction. The physical connection to this frantic piece emphasises one's stillness as a viewer, which in turn creates speculation of one's own placement within the exhibition (and beyond).
The curatorial intricacies developed in Lightworks blended subtly with the essence of the artworks. This was a beautifully orchestrated show. The artworks as autonomous objects appeared to become inseparable from the exhibition as an entity within itself. However, in removing definition from the artworks as autonomous objects, and creating the idea of a singular installation, is an element of authorship removed from the artist? What are the implications of curators using artworks as objet-trouvés? One is persuaded to consider how interrelated art and curation have become, and consequently how reliant and supportive the artist and the curator are of each other.
Lightworks has set the standard as a provoking exhibition – I would highly recommend that you pay a visit to The Temple Bar Gallery to see some of the other events taking place there this Summer.
For more information, please contact Aine Ivers: [email protected]
MA Aesthetics and Art Theory
