PRESS RELEASE
MINISTER LAUNCHES IRISH REPRESENTATION AT 53rd VENICE BIENNALE – WORLD’S LEADING VISUAL ARTS SHOWCASE
30th April 2009
Minister Martin Cullen, TD launched the Irish representation at the Venice Biennale at Iveagh House (80 St Stephens Green) on Thursday 30th April at 1pm.
Caoimhín Corrigan, Irish Commissioner for Venice, together with artists Sarah Browne and Gareth Kennedy, will represent Ireland at the Biennale, the world’s most prestigious international visual arts showcase.
Ireland’s representation at the 53rd International Art Exhibition features two artists whose art practice centres on an engagement with people, as a core element of their work. The technically accomplished and visually engaging artworks they produce operate both within and beyond the traditional ideas of the art world.
Minister Martin Cullen, TD commented: “I wish Caoimhin, Sarah and Gareth every success in Venice and acknowledge the commitment and support of Culture Ireland who, in partnership with the Arts Council, initiated this important showcase opportunity for visual artists. This showcase is not alone a focus on these two artists but is a means of attracting attention to the depth and strength and diversity of a generation of visual artists working in Ireland. Ireland's record of creativity has always been high and our culture is a hugely important feature of how the Irish are viewed worldwide. It is our calling card.”
Sarah Browne has commissioned a bespoke hand-knotted carpet from Donegal Carpets, a company renowned for its prestigious tradition of producing rugs for Irish embassies abroad, as well as from state institutions such as The White House and Buckingham Palace. Local women, most of whom now work in the Heritage Centre which has replaced it, were re-employed to make the carpet, designed by Browne with reference to modernist designs such as the work of Eileen Grey (who also commissioned Donegal Carpets to create some of her iconic pieces) using only the surplus wool stocks remaining at the factory. A separate 18mm film work features the workers discussing their sense of connection with their labour and their experience of producing a hand-crafted work which resonates strongly with the notion of ‘nationality’.
Gareth Kennedy mixes elements of art, architecture, performance and design in his practice. For Venice, Kennedy explores the subtleties of local economies and creativity in the animation of civic spaces. He transplants buskers from Dublin city centre into the aspiring civic spaces within Dublin’s Docklands, and subsequently to the port setting of Venice. Using busking as a micro-economic and socio-economic act, he surveys the architecture and ambitions of these settings and their respective relationship to the performing artist.
Kennedy Browne is the name under which the two artists author a discrete body of work, distinct from their individual practices. For the 53rd International Biennale, a new video work from Kennedy Browne addresses Dublin as a city of 167 languages. The work features a segment of text by American economist and leader of the Chicago School of Economics, Milton Friedman, on how the pencil exemplifies the potential of the free market economy, spoken by a volunteer cast in over 40 languages, located in the iconic trade union setting of Liberty Hall overlooking the city.
Ireland at the 53rd International Art Exhibition/La Biennale di Venezia is located at Instituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Calle della Pietà, Castello 3703. The 53rd International Art Exhibition, directed by Daniel Birnbaum and titled Making Worlds will be open to the public from 7th June to 22nd November 2009 in the Giardini and Arsenale exhibition venues in Venice. A Press Preview of the Irish Pavilion will take place on Friday 5th June 2009.
Culture Ireland is proud to support a major new project by John Gerrard at the Venice Biennale. Animated Scene features three new works as large-scale projections and is curated by Jasper Sharp and Patrick T. Murphy, Director of the RHA Gallery. Further information from: http://www.johngerrard-venice.net/
The Irish Pavilion in Venice is jointly located in the same venue alongside the Northern Irish pavilion, which this year features the work of artist Susan MacWilliam. The co-location of the two pavilions will serve to highlight the impressive range and strength of Irish visual arts practice across the island of Ireland.
Ireland at the Venice Biennale is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland.
Further information available from:
MadelineBoughton@dast.gov.ie
+ 353 631 3906 + 353 87 7977827
Editorial Notes
The Venice Biennale was born by a resolution by the City Council on 19th April 1893, which proposed the founding of a "biennial national artistic exhibition" to take place in the following year, to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto and Margherita of Savoy. The event in fact took place two years later, on 30th April, 1895. Since then, the Biennale has grown in stature and representation and is now considered the world’s foremost international showcase for visual arts.
The 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 was the most attended Biennale to of the past twenty-five years and one of the most visited in the whole history of the exhibition. The 42 free entrance National Pavilions spread around the city of Venice, hosted in historical buildings and churches, were visited by more than 827,000 people.
Biographies
Caoimhín Corrigan is Arts Officer of Leitrim County Council and curator of The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon, where a very exciting visual arts programme has been established in less than three years. Corrigan, who will act as both Commissioner and Curator, previously initiated and led the highly acclaimed Visualise programme of temporary public art projects and international exhibitions in Carlow from 2000 - 2004, while also acting as lead advisor on VISUAL – The National Centre for Contemporary Art. His curatorial approach in both Carlow and Leitrim has been marked by a commitment to artist-led work which seeks to engage directly with publics/audiences, and he has worked with previous Venice Biennale participants Mark Garry and Stephen Brandes (Ireland), Adrian Paci (Albania) and Alfredo Jaar (Chile), as well as working with a number of previous commissioners from Ireland and abroad.
Gareth Kennedy has already exhibited in Ireland, England, Scotland, USA and Thailand. His practice concerns itself with experiential work and solutions to matters that often arise as a confluence of the global and the local. Although grounded within his background as a sculptor, his practice embraces contemporary realities inherent within economic, environmental, social and aesthetic realities. He has consistently sought to walk the line where his works function as art, and are clearly recognised as art, but also act as an interface with everyday situations.
Since she graduated from NCAD, Sarah Browne has participated in projects, residencies and artist exchanges in Ireland, Japan, Iceland, and the UK. Along with exhibiting in these countries, she has also presented her work in Poland and China. In 2006 she was awarded the Apexart international residency in New York. Her work is an investigation of macro social structures through discussion with micro-audiences. Through dialogue with different voices, her work touches on ideas of happiness, life satisfaction, and a sense of aspiration, identity and belonging. Her practice includes exhibitions, publishing, collaborations and critical writing.
Culture Ireland was established by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism in 2005 as the state agency for the promotion of Irish arts worldwide. Culture Ireland creates and supports opportunities for Irish artists and companies to present their work at strategic international showcases, festivals, venues and arts markets. The agency comprises a board of directors appointed by the Minister and an executive staff led by the Chief Executive, Eugene Downes. Further information on Culture Ireland is available on www.cultureireland.gov.ie