OPEN e v + a 2007
A Sense of Place
March 29 – June 24, 2007
CURATOR: KLAUS OTTMANN
City-wide venues
Limerick, Ireland
For more information, please call e v + a at 353 (0) 61 318240 or 353 (0) 87 9477042 or visit www.eva.ie
“Where are we at all? and whenabouts in the name of space?”
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
OPEN e v + a 2007, Ireland’s pre-eminent annual exhibition of contemporary art, opens to the public on March 29th. Selected by New York-based independent curator Klaus Ottmann, the exhibition will present 32 artists from Ireland, Continental Europe, and the United States in traditional and nontraditional sites throughout Limerick that were chosen by the curator, which includes the Limerick City Gallery of Art, Belltable Art Centre, City Hall, the Hunt Museum, King John’s Castle, and St. Mary’s Cathedral, among others.
For art to be experienced or observed, it has to be emplaced put in place, however temporarily. An national exhibition with an international character such as e v + a, which is rooted deeply in one place, one history, and one culture, yet embraces the right to diversity within its borders, must inevitably focus on the dialectic of emplacement and displacement. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney speaks of the “two often contradictory demands” under which Irish poets labor: “To be faithful to the collective historical experience and to be true to the recognitions of the emerging self.” According to Heaney, the two ways in which a place is known one is the lived and illiterate; the other, learned and literate co-exist “in a conscious and unconscious tension” in the artistic sensibility. For two months, the city of Limerick will be the limit and the condition of all the art and related events, where the artistic sensibilities of those at home and those displaced will co-exist in a conscious and unconscious tension.
Participating artists:
Shelley Corcoran (Ireland); Patrick Corcoran (Ireland); David Dunne (Ireland); Melissa Earley (Ireland); Barry Foley (Ireland); Eric Glavin (Ireland); Tony Gunning (Ireland); Amy Hauft (United States); Ashley Holmes (United Kingdom); Ronnie Hughes (Ireland); Eithna Joyce (Ireland); Jesper Just (Denmark); Orla Keeshan (Ireland); Joanne Lefrak (United States); Miriam Lohan (Ireland); Sean Lynch (Ireland); Vanessa Marsh (Ireland); Enrique Martínez Celaya (United States); Anthony McCall (United States); Conor McGarrigle (Ireland); Margot McLean (United States); Marie Louise ODwyer (Ireland); Eamon OKane (Ireland); Alix Pearlstein (United States); Christopher Reid (Ireland); Andrei Roiter (Russia/United States/Holland); Aura Rosenberg (United States); Matthew Schenning (United States); Wolfgang Staehle (United States/Germany); Siobhán Tattan (Ireland); Thorns Ltd. (Norway); and Suzannah Vaughan (Ireland).
About the Curator:
Klaus Ottmann, an independent curator and scholar based in New York, is the author of numerous articles, essays, and books on art and philosophy, including The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition; James Lee Byars: Life, Love, and Death, and The Essential Mark Rothko. Ottmann has curated over forty exhibitions, including Still Points of the Turning World, SITE Santa Fe’s Sixth International Biennial (2006); Life, Love, and Death: The Work of James Lee Byars, (Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2004); and Wolfgang Laib: A Retrospective (Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and traveling to 5 additional museums, 2002-04). He is currently writing a book on the philosophy of the French painter Yves Klein and preparing a traveling survey of paintings and sculptures by the American artist Jennifer Bartlett (2009-2010).
The e v + a story
A group of Limerick artists began e v + a in 1977 as a way of bringing their work as contemporary artists into mutual close encounters with audiences so that, together, sense and meaning could be made in and of the world all shared. More than two decades on e v + a is still an artist centred exhibition and has become the Republic of Ireland’s premier annual exhibition of contemporary art. It now offers a wide ranging program of events that integrate local, national, and international audiences in a communal celebration of contemporary art and culture. Previous e v + a curators include Katerina Gregos (2006), Dan Cameron (2005), Zdenka Badovinac (2004), Virginia Perez-Ratton (2003), Apinan Poshyananda (2003), Salah M. Hasan (2001), and Rosa Martinez (2000).
e v + a 2007 – Sponsors & Patrons
The successes of e v + a have depended firstly on all the participating artists. But success also depends on the patrons and sponsors who have in the past and continue to give generously financially or in kind. The e v + a organising committee is extremely grateful to all the e v + a sponsors and patrons, whose continued support is invaluable to the impact and influence of the exhibition.
The Arts Council, Limerick City Council, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Sisk, Failte Ireland, The Belltable Arts Centre, The Hunt Museum, The Bourn Vincent Gallery, St. Marys Cathedral, Philips Ireland, Clancys
Contact person for press or further information;
Paul OReilly; e v + a administrator,
Tel : 353 (0)61 318240 or 353 (0) 87 9477042
Email : info@eva.ie
Web site www.eva.ie