2016 05 September/October | The VAN & miniVAN

The miniVAN

From gritty urban graffiti to abstract surrealism, The miniVAN deftly navigates the ever-evolving artistic landscape, reflecting the pulse of modern culture.

Inspired by the pioneering spirit of Visual Artists News Sheet, The miniVAN sets out to redefine the landscape of contemporary art, providing a comprehensive platform for both established artists and emerging talents. As we honour the roots of the past, we fervently embrace the spirit of change, envisioning a future where art continues to inspire and challenge the human experience.

Packed with captivating features, exclusive interviews, and thought-provoking editorials, each issue of The miniVAN is a collectible art piece in itself. Readers can expect insider insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and a celebration of the unsung heroes shaping the artistic zeitgeist.

The visionary team behind The miniVAN comprises renowned art writers, respected artists and curators, and passionate creatives dedicated to curating an enriching experience for readers and artists alike.

The miniVAN invites you to embark on an extraordinary journey that transcends the boundaries of imagination. Whether you’re an art aficionado, a budding artist, or simply curious about the transformative power of visual expression, The miniVAN promises to ignite your passion and broaden your horizons, bringing you from the inside of an artist’s studio to the wide realm of creative practices that exist outside of how we think of visual art.

Embracing Complexity

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FIONA WHELAN TALKS ABOUT THE ONGOING PROJECT ‘NATURAL HISTORY OF HOPE’ AND EXAMINES SOME OF ITS HISTORICAL ROOTS AND TENSIONS. In a 2012 lecture, Tom Finkerpearl used Monty Python’s popular 1979 satirical film The Life of Brian to illustrate a point about a crisis in the art world. [1] At an angry confrontation between the People’s Front of Judea, which the character of Brian had joined, and another activist group, the Campaign for a Free Galilee, Brian calls out to suggest that they should in fact be fighting their common enemy: the Romans. Finkerpearl uses this comedy moment to highlight a tendency in the art world to become consumed in ideological…

The Art of Inclusion

For the September/October issue of the Visual Artists’ News Sheet, I’m focusing on forms of participation and collaboration. This concern stems from a continued insistence in my own practice as a curator in a local authority on interrogating the work of artists working in social, participatory contexts. We are thinking of participation as progressive – as preferable to elitism, exclusion and bureaucracy, for instance – but we need to think of the value of participation as completely dependent upon the value of the project in which one participates. It tells us a lot about how art and artists are being routinely interrogated. And I think this is extremely flawed. In…

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Capillarium

Selected from an open call for applications and commissioned by Queen’s University Belfast, Capillarium (2016) by Kevin Killen is a work located outside the recently-built Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, an interdisciplinary research centre building on the Health Sciences campus.

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Semi Colonials

The closing event for ‘Eva 2016: Still (the) Barbarians’ was the culmination of one the most well received Eva exhibitions in recent years. Reflecting the scope and complexity of the biennial itself, the presentations and discussions were diverse and ambitious, representing a range of both Irish and international offerings on postcolonial discourse. Curator Koyo Kouoh began by introducing Alan Phelan’s “counterfactual” film Our Kind (2016), which imagines a future for Roger Casement had he not been executed in 1916.

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Two Birds/One Stone

Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin, 10 June – 7 August ‘Two Birds/One Stone’ is an absorbing exploration of materiality. Janet Mullarney has chosen works by a wide range of artists from the last two decades which explore the complexity, tactility and associative power of materials. The exhibition features work by Cecily Brennan, Dorothy Cross, Maud Cotter, Aleana Egan, John Gibbons, Tony Hill, Mary Kelly, Alice Maher, Eileen McDonagh, Locky Morris, Paul Mosse, Helen O’Leary, Niamh O’Malley, Adrian Paci, Rachel Parry, Alan Phelan, Kathy Prendegast, Linda Quinlan, David Quinn, Eddie Rafferty, Charles Tyrrell, Michael Warren and Daphne Wright.

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Creative Peninsula

Ards Arts Centre, 5 – 14 August ‘Creative Peninsula’ doesn’t operate like a curated exhibition because it isn’t one. It bears mentioning yet seems obtuse to point out, given that exhibition making isn’t really what this collection of work is about. ‘Creative Peninsula’ is a yearly presentation by Ards and North Down local authority, the premise of which is simply to showcase artists and makers within the area. As a result, the work within it is hugely diverse in focus, media and rigour. However, as is often seen in similar wide reaching events – studio collective exhibitions, for example, or final-year student presentations – grouping practices solely on shared geography is…

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Forms in Action

RHONA BYRNE AND YVONNE McGUINNESS SPEAK ABOUT THEIR COLLABORATIVE PUBLIC ART COMMISSION ‘MOBILE MONUMENTS’. Commissioned by Fingal County Council Arts office for their 1916 Commemorative Public Art Commission, ‘Mobile Monuments’ was produced as part of the 1916 Centenary Programme over a six-month period. The project involved three trikes with mobile sculptures, which turned into performance platforms becoming ‘forms in action’. The budget for the project was €35,000 and our proposal was selected through an open call submission with two rounds.

I Have Nada So Far But I Remain Optimistic

David Fagan, Tactic, Cork, 23 June – 20 July 2016 Sometimes I find it interesting, on my first encounter with an exhibition, to pretend I am illiterate. A brightly lit, concrete-floored rectangle. A white sentence on a red floating partition. Three separate clusters of green glass beer bottles. On one wall, a black and white photograph of four suited and bespectacled persons unknown; on the opposite, a colour photograph of two men in a pub, one to the rear, one to the fore. A pedestal upon which a ticket and ticket receipt are propped, another sentence in the crook of the wall, this time in red. A video, one moment showing…

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Would You Die for Ireland?

John Byrne, The LAB, Dublin, 24 June – 10 August 2016 The official 1916 commemoration on Easter Sunday was a conservative if dignified solution that marked the de facto centenary of the foundation of our state. Designed to avoid controversy or soul searching, the event sidelined years of colossal social and economic upheaval in favour of a traditional military parade by the Irish Defence Forces. And they did it very well. In contrast, but arguably hidden safely in the margins, John Byrne’s exhibition ‘Would You Die for Ireland?’ is part of the LAB Gallery’s series of exhibitions supported by Dublin City Council’s Commemoration Fund, which asked artists “to consider what…

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