e v+ a 2005 — open

curator: Dan Cameron (USA)

ISBN 978 0948037 207    240 pages (paperback)   24x17cm   279 col illus   artist index

• features 72 Irish and international artists • colour illus, artist’s statement and short biog for each artist • curator’s essay by Dan Cameron – “Perambulations” • afterword by Paul M O’Reilly – “An assessment: post- or para-”

EXTRACT

"In shaping this year’s edition of e v+ a, I have tried as much as possible to let my direct experience of the city of Limerick guide my instincts in the choices of artists and the development of an installation framework. One of the particular curatorial freedoms I permitted myself was that instead of feeling obliged to discriminate between stylistic camps, I wished to follow an impulse to engage works that fell into modes and practices that might at first glance seem mutually exclusive. If asked why – and that is, after all, the question a curatorial statement is purported to address – I would say that it is because something about the city of Limerick pushed me to open myself towards a way of looking at art that tried to locate kindred spirits in completely dissimilar artistic attitudes.
          Some of this attitude on my part has to do with Ireland’s superb economic rebound within the EU’s embrace, and the impact this has had on a city like Limerick, which finds itself both expanding and contracting in a number of quite evident ways (exurban flight being the most troubling), struggling to hang onto its core civic values while simultaneously staying open-minded in the face of broad demographic and cultural shifts that require ever-expanding ideas of what it means to be Irish. I kept getting whiffs of the ways that Limerick is being seen as a key economic player in Europe’s long-term high-tech race, and found myself wondering how that growing influx of new energy (and, presumably, wealth) will affect this tough, gritty city’s definition of itself as place where culture, above all else, is nurtured, consumed and celebrated.
         Something of the borderline romantic underpinnings that seem to inform my relationship to e v+ a could probably be traceable to my own Irish ancestry, which is both prominent (despite the Scottish surname) yet blurry enough that while I can’t exactly call up my long-lost cousins and invite them to the opening, I do feel entitled to that shiver of recognition when I look westward from the mouth of the Shannon and imagine someone who eventually begat me, gazing more or less in the direction of my Lower East Side apartment, pondering the kind of life he was going to face in America. At the same time, it’s a humbling experience to be in the country of one’s ancestors, and to recognise for the first time things about oneself (to say nothing of one’s relations) that are suddenly, and startlingly, familiar."

— Dan Cameron

FEATURED ARTISTS
2-4-page spread per artist (incl colour illus, artist’s statement, biography)

Ignasi Aballí (spain) / Albano Afonso (brazil) / Tonico Lemos Auad (brazil/uk) / John Beattie (ireland) / Alan Boardman (ireland) / George Bolster (ireland) / Lola Rayne Booth (ireland) / Muireann Brady (ireland) / Kate Byrne (ireland) / Anne Cleary + Denis Connolly (ireland) / Aoife Collins (ireland) / Regina Corcoran (ireland) / Mark Cullen (ireland) / Colm Desmond (ireland) / Jeanette Doyle (ireland) / Brendan Earley (ireland) / Tim Elford (ireland) / Brendan Flaherty (ireland) / Frank Hallinan Flood (ireland) / Barry Foley (ireland) / Michael Fortune (young e v+ a) / Andreas Gefeller (germany) / Luis Gispert (usa) / Susan Gogan (ireland) / Maurice Gunning (young e v+ a) / Niall Harkin (ireland) / Anthony Hobbs (ireland) / Guy Hundere (usa) / Karl Hunter (ireland) / Nancy Hwang (korea/usa) / Andrew Johnson (wales) / Ann Kavanagh (ireland) / Caoimhe Kilfeather (ireland) / Patrick Killoran (usa) / Aileen Lambert (young e v+ a) / Trióna Langan (ireland) / Dinu Li (uk) / Karin Ludmann (germany/uk) / Breda Lynch (ireland) / Chad McCail (uk) / Conor McFeely (ireland) / Bea McMahon (ireland) / Susan MacWilliam (ireland) / Alan Magee (ireland) / Brian Magee (ireland) / Damian Magee (ireland) / Attracta Manson (ireland) / Fergus Martin (ireland) / Jason Middlebrook (usa) / Michael Minnis (ireland) / Renata Mooney (ireland) / Trish Morrissey (uk) / Carrie Moyer (usa) / Janet Mullarney (ireland) / Caoimhghín Ó Fraithile (ireland) / Eamon O’Kane (ireland) / Deirdre O’Mahony (ireland) / Niamh O’Malley (ireland) / Melanie O’Rourke (ireland) /Seamus O’Rourke (ireland) / Cruz Ortiz (usa) / David Pearson (ireland) / David Phillips (usa) / Paul Rowley (ireland) / Chris Sauter (usa) / Martin Shannon (ireland) / Dave Smith (ireland) / Hannah Smolenska (ireland) / Gerard Staunton (ireland) / Siobhán Tattan (ireland/uk) / Caroline Tobin (ireland) / Kukuli Velarde (peru/usa) / Kay Walsh (new zealand/uk) / Ivan Witenstein (usa)