Special Events 2013
The Gallery of Photography does more than showcase photography exhibitions here in Dublin. We are also a venue for photographers’ book launches & other events. We have even travelled abroad to collaborate with different galleries and photography exhibitions.
Dr. Justin Carville speaking at the Gallery of Photography Ireland
Photo Talks: Dr Justin Carville
‘Topographies of Terror’: Photography, Historical Consciousness and the Celtic Tiger’
Wednesday 6th March
Gallery of Photography is delighted to launch Photo Talks – a series of evening talks discussing photography & visual culture.
Dr. Justin Carville discussed recent Irish photography in the context of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath. Against the backdrop of the cultural shifts in Irish photography in the late twentieth century, Dr Carville explored how both the collective experience and the demise of the Celtic Tiger have been represented in photographic practice.
Dr. Justin Carville lectures in Historical & Theoretical Studies in Photography and Visual Culture at the Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dun Laoghaire. He has extensively written on the subject of photography and Ireland for journals including Photography and Culture, Source and The Journal of Popular Visual Culture. His book “Photography and Ireland” was published by Reaktion Books as part of their “Exposures” series in November 2011.
Images from left: © Anthony Haughey; David Farrell; Varvara Shavrova; Patrick Hogan
New Irish Landscapes
Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing 16th - 31st March
Work by DR. Anthony Haughey, David Farrell, Varvara Shavrova and Patrick Hogan
Curated by Tanya Kiang, Gallery of Photography Ireland
New Irish Landscapes presents the insights of a new generation of Irish artists in a specially curated exhibition at Beijing’s prestigious Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. This important show encompasses economic, political, rural and metropolitan perspectives on contemporary Ireland. Taken together, the work on display builds a powerful portrait of the complex forces shaping Irish society today.
A Public Talk about the work took place on Saturday March 16th. Speakers included artists Dr. Anthony Haughey, Patrick Hogan and Varvara Shavrova and curator Tanya Kiang. The Talk was followed at 2.30pm by the official opening of the exhibition.
About the work:
Anthony Haughey explores how the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economy has impacted on the landscape. Through Haughey’s lens, the ‘ghost estates’ are recast as eerie ‘monuments’. With clear relevance in the Chinese context, the work is a testament to the end of Ireland’s gold rush and the resulting cost of unregulated growth.
David Farrell takes on a political reading of the landscape. Over a period of more than a decade, Farrell has recorded the sites of searches for the bodies of those ‘disappeared’ by the Republican movement during the conflict in Northern Ireland. Re-visiting these remote areas Farrell records how nature has begun to subsume all traces of the searches that have taken place there.
Patrick Hogan’s partly autobiographical project presents an intimate view of his everyday encounters and surroundings in rural County Tipperary. His compelling, psychologically charged images convey a sense of uncertain anticipation. Though modest and focused in geographical scope, Hogan’s powerful work explores expansive existential themes of love, fragility, decay and loss.
Varvara Shavrova adopts the visual language of today’s mobile, urban population to explore the recently twinned cities of Dublin and Beijing. Her ongoing project, Windows on Two Cities contrasts the public life of the street and the private worlds glimpsed through windows. Celebrating the dynamism and diversity of metropolitan life, Shavrova’s work is a human scaled response to the globalisation of the urban experience.
New Irish Landscapes is supported by: Culture Ireland, The Irish Embassy in Beijing, Dublin City Council,
The Arts Council and the Gallery of Photography. Special thanks to Three Shadows Coordinator Jillian Schultz; and to Ciarán Walsh, Declan Hayden and Emma Leonard.
OPEN FORUM 2
Discussions on Contemporary Art & Documentary Photography
Wednesday, April 10th
Photographer Jason Higgins and curator Anna Crudge will discuss contemporary photographic practices from their different perspectives as artist and curator and consider the position of documentary photography in the context of contemporary art.
About the contributors:
Jason Higgins was born in Dublin, and graduated from the University of Ulster in 2001, with a BA HONS in Visual Communications. In 2012 he achieved an MFA-Photograph from the University of Ulster. ‘Black Lung’, his current body of work, is an examination of the marks left by the forgotten coalmines of rural Ireland. www.jasonhiggins.org
Anna Crudge is an independent curator, former facilitator at The Lewis Glucksman Gallery and some-time freelance arts writer. Crudge collaborates with a range of arts organisations and individual practitioners in creating platforms for presentation. Previous projects include Show Me, at Occupy Space Limerick, Re-telling, at The Guest House, Cork, The Reading Room, at the Crawford Art Gallery, and Attention Seekers by Miriam O' Conner for ‘There There’, Cork. Crudge is currently developing a solo show by Richard Forrest for Soma, Waterford.
Rites and Wrongs - (Having Fun with Photography)
Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, Shanxi Province, China, September 19-25 2013.
Work by: Stephen Bull (UK), Miriam O'Connor (IRL) Herman Seidl (OST) + Max Garzarolli (DE)
Curated by Tanya Kiang, Gallery of Photography Ireland
Irish artist Miriam O’Connor has been selected to take part in the Pingyao International Photography Festival, in China, September 19-25. The Pingyao festival is one of China’s key events in the photography calendar. Now in its thirteenth edition, it brings thousands of photography enthusiasts to the ancient walled city of Pingyao in Shanxi province, for a packed week of talks, exhibitions, masterclasses and portfolio reviews.
O’Connor’s colour work, “The Misbehaving Camera” is included in the exhibition “Rites & Wrongs”, curated by Tanya Kiang of the Gallery of Photography Ireland.
Alongside O’Connor’s work, there is a chance for Chinese audiences to see the British photographer Stephen Bull’s re-take on celebrity snapshots “Meeting Hazel Stokes”. The exhibition is also the first showing of “Topkill” a new work by German /Austrian duo Herman Seidl and Max Garzarolli, which looks afresh at the rituals involved in fishing and trophy photography.
“The rich field of vernacular photography is the source of inspiration for all the mistakes often made in snapshot photography – red eye; flash flare; fingers obstructing the lens etc. Indeed ’Topkill’, the collaborative project of Austrian/German duo Herman Seidl and Max Garzarolli, goes so far as to lovingly recreate mistakes, in the construction of a new ‘aesthetics of the error’.”
Irish-born artist Miriam O'Connor also actively welcomes 'mistakes' – liberating her digital compact camera from its strait jacket of pre-set shooting modes. Her 'Misbehaving Camera' is a celebration of the riches of colour and visual texture made with the simplest of materials. Likewise, Stephen Bull's re-presentation of Hazel Stokes' collection effects a curious reversal: by their ritual repetition and their paparazzi aesthetic– it is Hazel Stokes, not the (now forgotten) celebrities she poses with, that becomes anointed with celebrity status. The three projects invite us to look again and take pleasure in the snapshot. They suggest that errors and mistakes are the engine of creativity. Above all, they invite us to have fun with photography. And having fun is something we must all take very seriously.
Jackie Nickerson ‘Terrain’ Book Signing - 12th November
Agriculture is an unavoidable fact of African life: it accounts for 70% of employment on the continent, and 25% of its GDP. Whilst Nickerson's earlier work, Farm, concentrated on how individual identity is made through improvisation, ‘Terrain’ takes a broader view, focusing on the synergy between cultivation, workers and the environment. The result is a new kind of portraiture that steps away from photojournalism, refusing to merely illustrate statistics and moral indignation. ‘Terrain’ instead employs a reduced artistic language to draw attention to important debates around crop specialization, subsistence farming and food security.
‘Terrain’ is about human intervention in the natural landscape, the impact our presence has and the changes it brings about and how, for better and for worse, the world that we make, in turn, changes who we are.
“‘Terrain’ is about us in the landscape, how we change the world we inhabit at every moment of our being human, and how, for better and for worse, the world that we make, in turn, changes who we are.”
Jackie Nickerson (b. 1960, American-born British; lives and works in London, and Ireland) uses photography to materialize her thinking. Her research-based practice stems from extensive, years-long study of histories, processes, places, and peoples before she introduces her camera into the space. Often interpreted as documentary, her photographs layer complex relations and intersections that arise from her knowledge base. Her work has been exhibited in many museums including the Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg; Palais des Beaux-Arts, National Portrait Gallery, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and more.
Leabhar na Bliana 2013 at The Gallery of Photography Ireland
Leabhar na Bliana 13th November
The Gallery of Photography Ireland were delighted to host the annual ‘Leabhar na Bliana’ awards. The ceremony is a celebration of Irish-language publishing.
President Michael D Higgins was in attendance to give the top awards to two books from publishers in the west: Leabhar Mór na nAmhrán, which won Gradam Uí Shúilleabháin best book in Irish for adults; and Gráinne Mhaol, which was awarded Gradam Réics Carló for the best publication for young readers.
Connemara-based Cló Iar-Chonnacht have produced a bible of a book in Leabhar Mór na nAmhrán, the big book of songs, with 400 sean-nós songs from the four corners of Ireland brought together under one cover. Collected and edited by Micheál Ó Conghaile, Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg and Peadar Ó Ceannabháin, the book contains the complete text of each song with notes on who composed them and where they originated.
Meanwhile, Mayo’s Cló Mhaigh Eo travelled the high seas themselves in search of Gráinne Mhaol, a full-colour graphic novel which tells the story of the famous pirate queen Granuaile. The text, written by Brazil-based Gisela Pizzatto and illustrated by Bruno Bull, has been translated into Irish by Donegal native Iarla Mac Aodha Bhuí
Science Week
We were delighted to host an installation for Science Week, which ran from 10-17 November. The theme was ‘Exploring the XTRA-Ordinary’, which called on the public to go ‘behind the scenes’ of everyday life and explore the extraordinary processes taking place in front of our eyes.
Nan Goldin
‘From the collection of…’ is an initiative by Gallery of Photography inviting Irish collectors to showcase a particular work from their collection. The selected photograph will be on display for a six-month period, giving the public ample opportunity to view otherwise inaccessible original prints.
Photograph Details:
Nan Goldin
Mash Naked at the Bar Rouge, Tokyo
C-print, Artist’s Proof * 1, 1998
Signed and dated by the artist on reverse
From the collection of: Brian Keegan
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