Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
58 October/November 2023 October/November 2023 59
JO BAER: Coming Home Late in
the Land of the Giants
Galleries East Ground, IMMA
Baer’s paintings, in their bold fl atness and confounding
use of space and plains, hint at a background in
abstraction. The works are boldly proportioned and
combine a historical collage mixing elements of
landscape, with Neolithic, Egyptian and medieval
forms. Grays and whites are mediated by pastel soft-
greens, yellows, and reds. Small fi gurative fi gures dot
the works like punctuation marks. Solid, joyful and
riveting.
Ends 21 January, 2024
ANNA MADDEN: Seven Paintings
IMMA
In the rooms adjacent to Baer’s exhibition we fi nd seven
recent paintings by Anne Madden. These works are of a
di erent tone, with titles like ‘The Death of Anne Lovett’
and ‘Antigone Buries Her Brother’. Politicl, they address
Gallery Reviews, by Seanán Kerr
1. IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
the kind of existential wounding of women in particular
which spread through culture and myth. The boldly
coloured pointillist style is a touch too loud for the
subject matter, albeit blood and fi re are fundamental to
notions of rebirth and cycle too.
Ends 21 January, 2024
HOWARDENA PINDELL: A
Renewed Language, West Wing
Gallery
IMMA
On fi rst glance, this contains a perplexing mix of
artefacts, large collage works, prints, sculpture and
video. The domestic-seeming large abstract works, with
soft colours, most readily resemble the packaging on
cleaning products or bed linen and feature dots and
numbers. Then follow political works and it’s tempting
to project the ethos of the latter onto the former. This
would be a mistake. The video interview located towards
the end of the show itself explains matters. The fi lm
‘Free, White and 21’ includes the artist casually
ARS
GRATIA...
Jo Ber: Dusk (Bnds nd End-Points)
58 October/November 2023 October/November 2023 59
describing incidents of racism she has
personally experienced to a disbelieving
white alter ego. They include being tied
down by a teacher for asking to go to the
bathroom.
A much more recent work ‘Rope/Fire/
Water’ puts forward the thesis that lynching
never stopped, but merely continues in the
form of police killings. A strong show with a
compelling artist who has never previously
been exhibited in Ireland.
Ends 30 October, 2023
2. CULTURE NIGHT
GalleryX
Culture Night is a funny one: a great initiative
but artists themselves are not all enthusiastic.
Iin my own studio only 11 out of 60 or so
artists were interested in partaking.
One of the problems is how to decide what
to see, especially in Dublin.
This year we decided to park ourselves in
the ever-reliable GalleryX on Hume street for
an evening’s entertainment with artist
Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule: a soft
spoken, bare-footed, mullet/dreadlocked,
Australian, polymath-cum-sorcerer. His
performance was as much about ritualistic
power as musicality. The artist hopped from
foot to foot chanting, while playing the violin
in praise of Hecate, Eros and other Hellenistic
Gods. A performance of a few songs/rites
was followed by a screening of his
marvellously weird film ‘Solve et Coagula’
which starts of with an erotic invocation and
retells the Orphic myth, featuring death,
beheading, and some quite graphic sex
scenes. He combined ingenious animation
tricks with try-hard after-eects trickery.
Best culture night I’ve had in years!
22 September, 2023 only
3. ATSUSHI KAGA: Here I
am, Mother’s Tankstation,
41-3 Watling St
There’s a lightness and serene joy in Kaga’s
lagomorph-themed paintings that many aim
for, but few reach, his charming show ‘Here I
am’, is no dierent and shouldn’t be missed.
Ends 25 November, 2023
4. EVA INTERNATIONAL:
various sites
Limerick
Featuring fifteen artists and seventeen
locations, it’s a lot to take in during one day,
or even two. I have mixed feelings about this
year’s show: there are some excellent works,
particularly at site number 5 in a surreal
office building setting of Gardens
International, which oers three very solid
video/installations. But the theme ‘The
Gleaners Society’, using a term for
agricultural harvest o-cuts, “alternately
serving as an artistic subject, a political
metaphor, and a curatorial methodology to
explore and propose art’s relationship to
society”. But it doesn’t quite hit the mark.
It’s both too vague — what counts as an o
cut? — and too specific. It includes over 45
presentations by Irish and international
artists and collectives,As with a lot of
environmentally-themed art, much of it
depends on its own importance and it forgets
to be interesting. This is Ireland’s premier
and only contemporary art Biennale. We
shouldn’t be getting ‘o cuts’ so much as
prime cuts.
All the same it’s well worth the visit and the
wander around the city is fun. I would
recommend starting in 4, a charming mural
by artist Navine G Dossos painted in
Limerick’s only vegetarian restaurant, the
Grove. Then hit 5 and 6 before getting the bus
out to Limerick University (or taking the canal
walk if you have the time). Then return to
town and viewthe rest at your leisure. Site 3
is a snug in the lovely pub, the Commercial.
Be sure to check the day planner on the Eva
website as some venues are (frustratingly)
only open on certain days.
Ends 29 October, 2023
Orryelle Defenestrte-Bscule:
40th EVA Interntionl - Irelnd’s Biennil of Contemporry Art
