Visual Artist’s Newsheet: July/August 2009
Uncovering Wisdom at Random
E v + a 2009’s colloquies on Contemporary Art and Culture (Friday 15 th – Sunday 17th May)
In the historic King’s Island Quarter of Limerick city, alongside a refurbishment of the original Potato Market, in a colourful row
against a railing by the edge of the river, sit a line of ordinary recycling banks. For e v + a 2009, an Argentinean artist called
Eduardo Navarro positioned a pine hut, not unlike a garden shed, between two of the plastic bins, encouraging locals to donate
their recyclables for him to transform into tiny objects and books. During a bus tour of the exhibition venues as part of the e v +
a 2009 Colloquies, I overheard somebody suggest, in a totally throwaway comment, that the piece was remarkable simply in that
it had managed to survive thus far without being burned down. Anyone who pays even the vaguest of attention to news sections
of the Irish media will not need to have this comment contextualised. Navarro’s hut, entitled From Your House to My House,
was probably the singular most important piece of work in this year’s exhibition. Not for what the artist ever intended it to be,
but for the meaning it took on of its own accord, the symbolism impressed upon it by the geography and the society in which it
was situated.
The e v + a Colloquies on Contemporary Art and Culture take place every second year, bringing together past e v + a curators,
invited guests, artists and the general public for a weekend of conversation, discussion and debate. After the launch of the
catalogue for OPEN e v + a 2009 / Reading the City, Paul O’Reilly (the e v + a administrator) introduced the first session by
explaining how the colloquies began and have so far continued as a gathering with no imposed, preconceived idea of what to talk
about, the structure already being there in the thoughts and experiences of those participating.”1 There were to be no devised
topics, no prescribed subjects, no chairing of the proceedings.
He even promoted the benefits of having a quick sleep during
sessions, as justified by Immanuel Kant’s philosophy that the three best times for thinking were just before going to sleep,
straight after waking up, and in the midst of an argument. While I didn’t notice anyone falling asleep, there were certainly a few
stimulating and enthusiastic disagreements over the course of the days that followed.
Angelika Nollert and Yilmaz Dziewior, the e v + a 2009 curators, were joined by invited guests Klaus Ottoman (curator of e v +
a 2007), Adam Budak (Curator of Kunsthaus, Graz), Keren Detton (Director of Le Quartier, Quimper, France), Sean Kealy
(Director, Model Arts, Sligo) and the critics Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith, Dr.Birgit Sonna, Uta Maria Reindl and Jens Asthoff.
Also present were Mike Fitzpatrick (Director of Limerick City Gallery of Art) and Hugh Murray (Director of MOLA, Murray
O’Laoire Architects and Chairperson of the e v + a committee.) Overall, the subsequent conversations tended to look to the
specifics of e v + a as a model through which to address the broader complexities of the art world. Such was the wide-ranging
experience of the invited professionals; comparisons could be drawn with examples across the globe, from the San Paulo
Biennale to Kassel’s Documentas and Munster’s Sculpture Project.
There is much to be talked about in relation to, and arising from the continuously changing structure of e v + a. Conversations
swelled to encompass issues from curatorial practice and institutional support to audience and community activism. The e v + a
committee have pushed every push-able boundary across the 33 years of the exhibition’s existence, only rarely deviating from its
Open Submission policy. The practicalities and pitfalls of Open Call selection procedures were examined in detail.
For the 2009 exhibition, Nollert and Dziewior initially approached the 560 applications with no fixed agenda, allowing the theme
to surface naturally from the work submitted. The result, Reading the City, was a very cohesive and challenging exhibition that
dealt with ‘multiple perceptions of urban space’.2 As Open Calls generally attract a younger generation of artists, this kind of
curatorial approach succeeds in pressing a finger straight to the pulse of the contemporary scene, underscoring the most
prominent issues concerning 21st century practitioners from Ireland, Europe and beyond.
Of course the format is not without its flaws. Artist/photographer Deirdre Power raised the issue of artists ‘googling’ curators to
establish their predilections in advance, then tailoring the proposed artwork accordingly. The curators themselves expressed
concern that their choice to discriminate according to a particular dominant theme would instantly exclude very strong work
simply because it was off-subject. John O’Reilly, a Dublin-based artist whose paintings were chosen and on display in the City
Gallery, declared that he would not be offended if the general tone of the exhibition transpired to block his specific access. He
emphasised the singular importance of the opportunity, for younger and emerging artists especially, to have their work assessed
by such esteemed and experienced outsiders looking in.
Saturday morning’s tour of the exhibition venues led to discussions surrounding reception and audience throughout Saturday
afternoon. Limerick City Council Arts Officer and secretary of the committee Sheila Deegan related how e v + a has needled its
way into the psyche of the city’s inhabitants, who now tend to automatically attribute anything slightly peculiar or misplaced
(such as Nevin Aladag’s exterior curtains on the Hunt Museum or Diango Hernandez’ blinking streetlights outside City Hall) to
the annual exhibition. This gave rise to much talk about the importance of community engagement and the possibility that e v + a
should be making attempts to forge a more embedded role in the locality. Klaus Ottoman questioned the value and feasibility of
introducing extended residency programmes, workshops and talks, extending the process in order to produce a more lasting
result. Susan Holland, of Limerick City Gallery of Art, argued that Young e v + a (the exhibition’s programme of education and
outreach projects) already achieves this to a certain extent, and Paul O’ Reilly reiterated that e v + a had never existed in order to
help artists make art, but to support the unstructured innovation of talented local and international practitioners.
Later in the afternoon’s proceedings, Adam Budak remarked that the clear majority of work selected for e v + a 2009 was lens
based, and it was conceded that this had become the norm for the exhibition in recent years. It was debated whether it was a
curator’s responsibility to find ways of coaxing artists back in the direction of more traditional or three dimensional form - in the
case of Limerick, perhaps by producing an exclusively sculptural e v + a at some point in the future.
During the Sunday
colloquies, Paul O‘ Reilly talked about how the earliest exhibitions had consisted solely of traditional painting and sculpture, and
how the works were sold and went directly into people‘s homes. He reminded us that today’s world is so saturated with imagery;
people perceive and process information differently. Adam Budak had talked about how the vast majority of contemporary
artists, if asked to tell a story about a place or respond to a situation, will find it most obvious and easy to do so through the
narrative of film or photography. The profusion of lens-based media is merely a sign of e v + a changing in line with changes in
contemporary art practice, which is merely changing in line with the world.
Such is e v + a’s reputation, the international guests were curious as to the existence, or lack thereof, of similar endeavours,
specifically for Ireland‘s capital city. Conversation about the rumours of an impending Dublin Biennale shed light on fears that
this could threaten to dispel funding from e v + a. Yet every topic of discussion over the course of the weekend had made it
1
2
Paul M.O’Reilly, in correspondence
A.Nollert & Y.Dziewior, from the OPEN e v + a 2009 catalogue essay entitled Reading the City, pg.15
abundantly clear that various aspects, practices, quirks and individuals, not least the specific contexts of Limerick city, its vibrant
artistic community and even the difficult social situations that tarnish the city’s reputation, combine in such a way as to render e v
+ a utterly unique and thoroughly inimitable.
I have never been to Limerick before, and I was surprised to find that the streets were not, in fact, paved with prostrate stab
victims. The weekend was fun and accessible - the colloquies proved both an insightful and enjoyable experience, peppered as
they were with anecdotes and storytelling of exhibitions past. The Limerick art community exuded a welcome and a warmth that
felt at odds with the often diffident self-importance of the Dublin scene.
The colloquies wound-up with inevitable speculation as to what the future has in store for Ireland’s Premier Annual Exhibition of
Contemporary Art. It was considered whether it is becoming necessary to implement a more forceful administrative structure, in
order that e v + a can survive into the future more-or-less as it is now. I cannot help but think that it would be a shame to risk
limiting the exhibition’s significant freedom or scope in any capacity. At the moment it is the committee that selects each year’s
curator, but always on the advice and recommendations of the national and international art community. The curator is then
trusted absolutely to create an exhibition that is interesting, engaged and challenging. As with Nollert and Dziewior, often the
show takes its own shape according to the primary concerns and working methods of the submitting artists themselves. Like
Eduardo Navarro’s hut that found it‘s own meaning in a row of plastic bins, like the colloquies that roamed in all directions and
uncovered clarity at random, e v + a stands aside in a world filled with filofaxes and blackberries that compete to instruct our
lives.
Sara Baume