Dublin Contemporary

     DUBLIN CONTEMPORARY has been mentioned many times when I visited Ireland since 2009. Many people in the art scene in Ireland had talked about it or mentioned it at least briefly whenever some kind of questions raised up about the fact that the social economy has gone far down, and some significant amount of tax will be spent for this giant exhibition in Ireland. Well, that was initial concern of everyone whom I have talked to about this show from the first place. Ireland, indeed, is suffering from blames and blames from many people about wrong handling of the whole country in terms of their economy. The exhibition, however, keeps going on their own track with the ironic theme of Terrible Beauty—Art, Crisis, Change & The Office of Non-Compliance.

Entrance of Dublin Contemporary at Earlsfort Terrace

     

      Finally I went to see this show. The first artistic director, Rachel Thomas was gone, but two Chilean curators, Jota Castro and Christian Viveros-Fauné  were in charge of DC. This also have been another issue that people have kept talking about :why Chilean curators? According to the history of Dublin Contemporary on their website, 

Thomas held the position of Artistic Director, on secondment from The Irish Museum of Modern Art, for the formative period of the project from February 2010 until January 2011. Thomas returned to IMMA to take up new projects after her secondment.

Therefore, I believe so! 

     Now, I want to talk about some interesting artwork I have seen in the show. The best thing I love the most was David Yi's squid with ink. What a fantastic idea! It just looks like a fish market where people, auction, sales, sounds, visual effect of fish going on, but the exhibition space with this huge squid gave such a different atmosphere within the context even with the ink or some salt water coming out from it. 

      All the room at Earlsfort Terrace were not repaired. The space shows as it was, so this squid looks as if it was laying on the ground as bare foot walking on the street, which I think makes sense in many ways. However, it was not the best way to show for other works sometimes. It's debatable.

       Dublin Contemporary is meaningful in terms of gathering all art scenes in Ireland into one period of art festival. A lot of artists, curators, collectors gather at the same time and support art through DC. It gives such a big strength for the art society in Ireland.

       DC might need more unique characteristics, though. There are so many biennial exhibitions in the world. As an art festival, each city put different reasons why they need one. Why does Dublin need one as well? It might need more research on this in advance.