the Artists' Space

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Dr Jill Unkel of the Chester Beatty Library, Jaime Nanci Barron of Cuckoo Savante and Jean Tormey of the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny

We spoke to Jaime from Cuckoo Savante about their upcoming album, Lovely Lily Bright.

They are looking for funding through http://www.fundit.ie/

"Twelve songs just waiting to be recorded. A concept album of Gothic, Vaudevillian pop songs.Lurid, Sensational, exciting, and most shockingly of all...True! Based around the real life murder of a young woman in 1925 Dublin, her name besmirched by those in the know to protect the men of high standing accused of the heinous crime..A much lauded Irish legend implicated in her untimely demise...it has all the trappings of an Arthur Conan Doyle yarn, and we want to tell the story..All in our own inimitable style of course!

Having investigated at length this thrilling tale, devised an entire theater show around the central characters, and written and arranged a full repertoire of authentic songs to reveal the sorry sordid tale, we now call on you to invest in the recording so that we can finally lay to rest the mystery of Lily Bright, her illegitimate child, and the shocking lives of the ladies and Gentlemen of Monto.

Who are Cuckoo Savante?

Cuckoo Savante are a beautiful collision of all that is good about jazz, blues, lounge and punk. Crawling out from under a rock in the west of Ireland at the turn of the century, they have been wowing and wooing audiences around the globe for the best part of 6 years.

The release of their critically acclaimed debut album ?Lennonstown Lies? garnered Cuckoo Savante a place on the "what's hot" list in the irish times, and saw them climb rapidly up the itunes blues chart where they sat snugly on the top ten for 16 weeks in between Irish Rockabilly Doyenne, Imelda May, and British traveling troubador Seasick Steve.

Their song "The House Of Ill Repute" was adopted by Irish Blues legend Mary Coughlan as the title track of her current critically acclaimed album, while another track "I C U Leopard" was used in a segment of the award winning docudrama "Identities" by Vittoria Colonna."

You can hear a taste of the band here

http://breakingtunes.com/cuckoosavante

PLEASE PLEDGE WHAT YOU CAN NOW. THERE IS ONLY 11 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE END DATE, AND IF THE BAND DON'T RECEIVE THE FULL AMOUNT, THEY GET NOTHING!

SEE http://www.fundit.ie/project/lovely-lily-bright , FOR EACH PLEDGE YOU MAKE, YOU RECEIVE SOMETHING IN RETURN

We also spoke to Dr Jill Unkel of the Chester Beatty Library about their exhibition o Henri Matisse Art Books.

"The Library and Bank of America Merrill Lynch present an exciting exhibition of the art books of Henri Matisse, marking the first public display of these works in Europe. The exhibition features four of Matisse’s most artistically significant books, including the famous Jazz, on loan from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection.

Two Matisse books from the Library’s own collection are also on display: Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans (1950), which is inscribed from Matisse to Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968), and a copy of Matisse’s illustrated version of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1935), which was acquired by the Library in 2009."

For details on events taking place to coincide with the exhibition see http://www.cbl.ie/Exhibitions/Temporary-Exhibitions.aspx

Another Fund it Project we included on this week's show was, What is Art?

Educational Curator for the Butler Gallery, Jean Tormey explained what it was all about.

"What is Art? is a journal created by Alan, Clara, Clodagh, David, Donna, Feidhlim, Ferdia, Jamie, Jesse, Maggie, Niall, Niamh and Roisin - young people from our Solas programme, to encourage and inspire people of all ages to experience and respond to contemporary art in a more fulfilling and refreshing way. Bring it with you when you visit galleries – there’s room for you to add your own thoughts and doodles as you go!"

http://www.fundit.ie/project/what-is-art-childrens-publication

http://www.butlergallery.com/

Interview with John Cronin, and Carol Ryan.

John Cronin is one of a small number of artists in Ireland who continues make both large monumental oil paintings as well as smaller works. The exhibition Augmented Reality will host a number of such mural-scaled paintings on aluminium and for the first time in over a decade the artist includes oil on canvas work.

The techniques Cronin employs to execute these richly layered works continue to vary and evolve, just as his preoccupation with the fierce technological and scientific change of the early 21st Century deepens. While Cronin has never been one to shy away from bold, highly charged, intensely colourful compositions that can violently grab the viewers’ attention, the themes of art in the age of artificial intelligence and questions about the nature of time, space, even matter itself, come increasingly centre-stage. In one way, the language of abstraction is best suited to address these imponderables. As the boundaries between what is real and what is virtual, what is measurable and what is not, what is physical and what is immaterial are more and more unsure, Cronin’s application of paint on expansive planes of metal or canvas seem to map out similar tense dramas. Colours and gestures jostle and interact before our eyes in an open-ended chemistry. As the artist states in reference to one of the current theories on our reality:

That all the information sucked into black holes is not destroyed but stored and projected back out to create our universe, our reality. It may be that we are part of a cosmic hologram.

The mind boggles at such incomprehensible models just as our sense of time and space is tested by the theory of Cosmic Microwave Radiation. As Donald Kuspit put it in his essay on Cronin’s Palinode series, “ for all their physicality, Cronin’s paintings are covertly sublime: they suggest romantic yearning for the unrepresentable”.

However, there is no getting away from the seductiveness and exuberance of these paintings. They are a jolt to the system and some of the most energetic and satisfying artworks being made today. Jane Humphries writes in the Irish Arts Review (Spring, 2009) of the artist’s last exhibition in Green On Red Gallery:

Cronin’s new works… are gloriously defiant, as his exuberant kaleidoscopes of retinal assaulting colour push the parameters to the edge, creating on one level pure sensory pleasure and on another an intelligent reinterpretation of abstraction, providing a ‘ sufficient ‘ case that, despite our media saturated age painting still has a lot to say.

In a reference, perhaps, to the artist’s very early works from the Manumit (1992) and Surd (1994) series shooting abstract forms appear within the frame, albeit barely separable from the intense action of the rest of the painting. In Augmented Reality (2011) 4’ x 18’ one such sulphur yellow gaseous form emerges from the darkness after a long passage of radical changes in colour from blue-black to furnace red to turquoise - which according to one source “ makes up the dominant proportion of space in the universe “ - and back to blue-black. Is it a life-cycle? One is reminded of Paul Cezanne’s comment that “ nature is not on the surface, it is in the depth. Colour is the expression of the deep on the surface. It rises up from the roots of this world. It is its life.”

In this show, we swing from moments of burning intensity to a sublime calm.

http://greenonredgallery.com/

http://www.greenonredgallery.com/easyedit/files/John%20Cronin.pdf

An interview with Polish, Dublin based artist Bartosz Kolata.

Mark Fairnington talks about "Flora" at the Oliver Sears Gallery, and Jennier Cunningham talks about the Forthcoming "I want to Get Off Now" at Monstertruck.

http://www.oliversearsgallery.com/
http://www.markfairnington.com/

http://www.fundit.ie/project/i-want-to-get-off-now
http://www.jennifercunningham.ie/
http://www.simonfleming.ca/

Ronan McCrea talks about Autodidact at the Green on Red Gallery, and Rayne Booth tells us about OFFLINE, and the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios

http://www.ronanmccrea.com/

http://www.greenonredgallery.com/

http://www.templebargallery.com/

Garry O'Neil talks about Where Were You?, A Photographic Journey Through Five Decades Of DublinYouth Culture - Street Style - Teen Life, and plans for a documentary film with Still Films. "Maser is Homemade" is opened at the Art Park, by Dublin Contemporary 2011 lead curator, Christian Viveros-Fauné.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Where-on-the-Island/191613567519235

http://www.fundit.ie/project/where-were-you

http://www.facebook.com/dublincontemporary

http://www.sebastianguinnessgallery.com/intro.php

Group show at Mother's Tank Station, & Vera Gaffney at Gallery Zozimus

http://www.motherstankstation.com/

http://www.veragaffney.com/

http://www.galleryzozimus.ie/

Denise Donnelly (Doorway Gallery) & Roseanne Lynch

http://thedoorwaygallery.com/

http://www.roseannelynch.com/

http://alliance-francaise.ie/gallery/

Martina McDonald of ARTISIT?, Veronika Samlova, Art for Japan & Gerard Mc Gourty's, Word of Art Campaign

http://www.artisit.org/

http://www.millracegallery.com/

Fergus Martin, Mark Doherty, and Peter Fitzgerald, editor of Circa.

http://olliart.com/artists/markdoherty.htm

http://www.greenonredgallery.com/

http://www.fergusmartin.com/

http://www.recirca.com/

John Daly (Hillsboro Fine Art Gallery) & Artist, Eoin MacLochlainn

Hillsboro Fine Art

"Founded by gallery director John Daly in 1995, Hillsboro Fine Art is widely recognized as Ireland’s leading 20th-century and contemporary gallery and has now established a significant reputation around the world."

Alan Davie

"Born in Grangemouth, Scotland, in 1920 Alan Davie studied painting from 1937 to 1941 at the Edinburgh College of Art and also learnt silversmithing. A multi-faceted talent from the start, Davie was interested in exotic art, played several instruments, discovered jazz and joined the Cam Robbie jazz band as a saxophonist. While serving in the Royal Artillery between 1941 and 1946, Davie was inspired by reading James Joyce to write poetry himself.

On his return to London, Alan Davie was particularly taken with the work of Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso exhibited there, which left a lasting impression on him and made him seek contact with modern English painters and their work. Taking Paul Klee's pictorial language as his point of departure, Davie was already working in a manner close to Abstract Expressionism when he linked up with the tradition of early 20th-century Scottish modern art. After his marriage to the artist Janet Gaul, Davie abandoned painting for jazz for a while.

In 1948 Alan Davie met Peggy Guggenheim, who introduced him to early American Abstract Expressionism. Much impressed by the work of Jackson Pollock, Davie returned to painting. 'Music for a Pagan Dance' (1949) is Davie's first public foray into the new abstract 'all-over' style of painting. From then on a semi-automatic method of painting would be characteristic of Davie's approach to his work. Confirmation of Davie's painting came with Peggy Guggenheim's purchase of one of his works.

In 1950 Davie had his first one-man London show, at Gimpel Fils (in 1946 he had already had one at Grant's Bookshop in Edinburgh), where he continued to show regularly. In 1956 Davie went to New York. Primitive art now inspired him to a powerfully gestural approach to painting; in 'Footprint Image' he combined vehement brush strokes with his own footprints. Action Painting became important and Davie sought to contact the conventional painting process by working rapidly on the floor, adding pieces of rubbish, dripping paint and turning pictures around and over.

In the 1960s Davie switched from 'all-over' to compositions of real and fictive signs shaped by contours. Music, to which Davie again began devoting more time in the 1970s, has remained a constant in his life. Considered by many to be one of the most important British artists of the post-war era, his work is distinguished by spontaneity, exuberant colour and improvisation.

One of the few artists from his generation who enjoys truly international recognition, his work can be seen in galleries and museums worldwide, including Tate Modern, London; The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museu de Arte Contemporanea, São Paulo."

http://www.hillsborofineart.com

The Paul Kane Gallery

"The Paul Kane Gallery was established in 1997 -in its original venue in South William St.-to promote the work of contemporary Irish artists through a regular program of exhibitions, both in South William St. and elsewhere.

In it's new space at 6 Merrion Square, The Paul Kane Gallery continues as before but is widening its remit to include a selection of International Artists such as Tom Hammick, Basil Beattie, and Jane Bustin."

http://www.thepaulkanegallery.com/

"'WE ARE WHERE WE ARE''

Corridor
“ We are where we are” is an exhibition of new works by Eoin Mac Lochlainn, it explores the human dimension to the economic downturn, empathising in particular with those on the margins of society.

Artist’s Statement :
I take images from the media as the subjects of my paintings. It is easy to become inurred to the individual stories that lie behind any of these images, but by choosing one and making it the subject of a painting, I try to emphasise the importance of that human story and, in a way, to subvert the notion of the “15 minutes of fame”.

Over the last year much has been written about empty hotels, tenantless apartment blocks and ghost estates, an estimated 300,000 units vacant or unfinished. At the same time we read about the growing problem of homelessness… My work engages with contradictions such as these but, whilst the subject matter may be tough and the questions raised uncomfortable, my primary intention is to make paintings whose colour and form are equally compelling."

http://www.eoinmaclochlainn.com/

Lisa McNamee of Fire & Ice Theatre Company, Curator, Oliver Cornet & artist Frank Hague

On Thursday's show I spoke to Lisa McNamee of Fire & Ice Theatre Company, Curator, Oliver Cornet, about his collaboration with the Company. And I visited Frank Hague at his studio, to talk about his upcoming show, "Motion Pictures".

"Fire & Ice Theatre Company, in association with the Focus Studio Company are presenting an evening of theatre and art in the newly renovated Focus Theatre. The two plays, both written and directed by award winning Irish playwright, Paul Kennedy and produced by Lisa McNamee are 'Be My Love in the Rain', starring Linda Teehan and 'Down by the River', starring Michael Bates.

Art Curator Olivier Cornet in collaboration with the Fire & Ice Theatre Company and the Focus Studio Company will present an exhibition of drawings, etchings, paintings and photographs by artists who have accepted to respond to the script of "Down by the River" or whose recent work has a resonance with the main themes of the play.

The artists include Yoko Akino, Leila Pedersen, Adrienne Symes, John Fitzsimmons, Jordi Forniés, Stephen Kane, Desmond Kenny, Bartosz Kolata, Daniel Lipstein and Kelvin Mann."

http://olliart.com/

http://www.fireandicetheatre.com/

"MOTION PICTURES by Frank Hague

Dublin artist Frank Hague showcases his new collection of figurative paintings at The Mad Art Gallery in his second solo Dublin show.
Frank’s ideas stem from experimentation with different mediums and mark making. This body of work is orientated around the anatomical exploration of the body and also investigates the head as form to express emotion and movement.

The show will take a place from the 22nd of February until 1st of March at MadArt.

http://frankhague.blogspot.com/

http://www.madartstudio.com/index.php/motion-pictures-by-frank-hague/
Opening night the 22nd Feb 2011 @ 6pm"

Brian Gallagher & Sean Kissane(IMMA)

Artist Brian Gallagher talks about his upcoming show "Scraperboard" and Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, Seán Kissane talks about the upcoming Romuald Hazoumè exhibition at the museum.

http://www.bdgart.com/

http://www.imma.ie/en/page_212315.htm

The Launch of the 20th Anniversary programme at IMMA, author Robert O' Byrne is interviewed about his book, Dictionary of Living Irish Artists and Peter O' Brien of Upstart.

“Against our real world, which by its very nature is fleeting and worthy of forgetting, works of art stand as a different world, a world that is ideal, solid, where every detail has its importance, its meaning, where everything in it – every word, every phrase – deserves to be unforgettable and was conceived as such.” –Milan Kundera, The Curtain

Gavin Murphy makes works through an assemblage of unique fabricated elements, sourced and found objects, video, sound and photography. Using cultural matter as his material-medium, he references art, history and theory to form a spatial and temporal narrative arc made up of intercommunicating texts, combined with an interest in the sculptural possibilities of cinematic structures and mise en scène.

For the Golden Bough, he uses critical and historical documents, texts from Flaubert to Fellini, Milan Kundera and Italo Calvino, and the hidden fabric of Charlemont House itself, to consider specifically the arts as system – ordering knowledge, ideas, and cultural history.

Murphy’s practice has more and more come to question necessity in art, while refusing to define or distinguish the contemporary from the anachronistic, or accept definite perspectives. In this way the works oscillate between the wonder and futility of investigation: The Necessity of Ruins is a spoken work, made of collected fragments of texts and documents pertaining to the ruin, art and literature, the museum, and the novel. Eulogy to the Blank Page is a sculptural rendering of a section of dialogue from Fellini’s 8 ½, for which the artist commissioned a new typeface Personal (Stencil).

Gavin Murphy is a Dublin-based artist and curator. His current project On Seeing Only Totally New Things – of which these works form part – is also to include a film, and a publication in collaboration with Atelier David Smith. He is the recipient of various Arts Council awards, and residencies at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, and currently, Fire Station Artists’ Studios. He is co-curator of the art space, Pallas Projects."

We spoke to Michael Dempsey, the curator of the Golden Bough.

Also on the show, Owen O'Doherty of "Designers in Residence"

"Dublin City Libraries in association with City Architects have announced an innovative collaborative design project for branch libraries, which will explore ways of improving children’s participation. A number of designers will be working with primary schoolchildren to develop proposals for better connecting the library with other places of learning in the local community, whether this is the school, the study place in the home or otherwise.

The scheme will build on the Library service’s relationships with local schools asking how children engage with their local libraries and assisting them in making design proposals for expanding this engagement. The wider aim is to grow a culture of continual learning and sharing of knowledge through the city’s local communities.

A number of libraries have future proposals for renovations or upgrades and designs for these can be usefully informed by the outcomes of this scheme. This will benefit both the library through learning more about the needs of its clientele and benefit the children involved through seeing tangible results from their creative work.

The Council has teamed three architects up with three graphic designers to be “Designers in Residence” at Kevin Street, Raheny and Ballyfermot libraries. The designers are: Architecture Republic, TAKA Architects, George Boyle Designs, Zero-G, Detail and Radarstation. Over the course of the next school term they will work with groups of children from Gaelscoil Míde, Kilbarrack, St. Gabriel’s NS, Ballyfermot Road and The Presentation Convent Junior School, Dublin 8.

The scheme, which is funded by the City’s Social Inclusion Unit, will commence in January, continuing for the rest of the 2010 school year. During this time the different groups of children will be participating in workshops with the designers, with an exhibition of the results to follow at the end of the programme."

Further information is available from DCC City Architects at www.dublincity.ie/cityarchitects

This is the first episode in the new series of 103.2 Dublin City FM's the Artists' Space.

On the show we spoke to Sarah Owens about an exciting new development, ‘The ArtPark’. Which was launched by the Sebastian Guinness Gallery before Christmas. The Gallery will be responsible for the overall curation of the park.

"Located to the rear of the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) in Spencer Dock on Mayor Street Upper, The Art Park project has been created as a community, public art and recreational space for the purposes of a local, national and international contemporary visual arts programme.

Utilising the rear wall of the CCD, The Art Park screen will provide a blank projection canvas for digital media, video art, animation, film, photography and literature. The recreational space of this urban park will provide an additional platform for outdoor sculpture, exhibitions and community initiatives."

and Anne Hodge, curator of "Colour & Light: Caring for Turner's Watercolours"

"The National Gallery of Ireland’s magnificent collection of watercolours by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) will be displayed as usual for the whole month of January. This year the theme is care of the collection, past and present. Henry Vaughan the English collector who bequeathed the collection to the Gallery in 1900 was very aware of how delicate and light sensitive watercolours are. Inspired by the writings of John Ruskin, Vaughan had a special cabinet made to store the works. The Turner display will be complemented by silhouettes and miniatures from the Mary A. McNeill bequest. "

The 10th episode of Dublin City FM's the Artists' Space

http://solart.ie/

http://www.jimmylawlor.com/

http://artoftheheid.blogspot.com/

The 9th Episode of Dublin City FM's the Artists' Space

http://www.oliversearsgallery.com/

http://www.conormcgarrigle.com/

The 8th episode in the current series.

Rachel McAree of the Irish Architecture Foundation talks about "A Space for Learning"

Clare Shanahan of the Apollo Gallery &

Liz Burns, Managing Director of the Firestation Artists' Studio talks about Artur Żmijewski's "Two Monuments"

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