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VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow Local Authorities Arts
Office & Carlow Arts Festival Éigse present Everything can be
done, in principle, a commissioned artwork by Brian Duggan,
curated by Helen Carey.
Special event, 8 June: a musical
performance on the opening night by David Mansfield, the original composer
for the film Heaven's Gate. Further screenings and talks to be
announced.
Exploring the potential of the post Habermasian
public realm in the 21st century as defined by actions rather than talk,
Brian Duggan's work Everything can be done, in principle
invites the public to find their private space in his installation
of a barn within a contemporary cathedral of Contemporary Art, in his
exploration of a story from 122 years ago, which is inspired by its
cinematic interpretation.
Outlined in the banditti of
the plains by A.S. Mercer (1894), a band of fifty-two cattlemen and
hired gunmen invaded Johnson Country, Wyoming, in April 1892, killing and
terrorizing the settlers. Through the installation of a timber and canvas
roller skating rink within the gallery, Duggan's ambitious work transports
gallery visitors through the frontier lands of Wyoming and American Western
Cinema, as seen in Michael Cimino's Heavens's Gate (1980). Duggan
invites the public to participate in a public activity, to skate with an
element of costume, in the place and time of the Johnson County's war,
suggesting this trope allows Ireland of the 21st century to explore
constantly shifting notions of social identity.
Within the
extraordinary galleries of VISUAL Carlow, in a collaboration between VISUAL
Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow Local Authorities Arts Office, and
Carlow Arts Festival Éigse 2012, visitors will glide across a
pristine timber floor where social integration seems entirely possible. As
in Cimino's Heaven's Gate, this haven exists against the realities
of resistance and harsh economics, against a world in the full throttle of
seismic change, in terms of progress and innovation—a new world of
railways, immigrant workers, pioneering construction, evolving power, and
government organization—all moving into a new era. Duggan suggests
the lens of Cimino's version of the cattlemen / homesteader conflict in the
American frontier serves to allow the individual and the collective to
re-negotiate how they co-exist. He also proposes the inherent
fragility of parallel versions of history in physically creating the space
within a space. Walter Benjamin suggests rupture as catharsis, and in
Everything can be done, in principle, Duggan suggests inhabiting a
constructed space as a starting point for this.
Within this new
commission the urgency around happiness and basic safety, even its
possibility, uncovers a social tension in this exquisite troubled place.
Proposing participation as a necessary part of the Spectacle, Duggan
suggests it is also a personal journey in public.
Cimino's film
Heaven's Gate is a film which broke all the rules and supported true
art through an often ruthless pursuit of authenticity, to the extent of
challenging the prevailing powerful studio system. Often seen as the
beginning of money men era, Heaven's Gate marked a changing moment
for maverick auteur film directing and the role of the producer. It
also branded the Western in clear class struggle, selected social agenda
terms.
Brian Duggan (b. 1971) lives and works in
Dublin. His practice examines the prevailing conditions when things go
wrong, and the sites of stress and breakage. Citing well known
historical events as well as the overlooked small dramas of the everyday,
he brings physical challenges into the gallery as an interrogative method,
exerting pressure and pushing boundaries. From 1996 to 2009, Duggan was a
co-founder and co-director of Pallas Studios, Heights and Projects one of
the longest running independent artist run spaces in Ireland. He has
received many awards, including Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland,
and South Dublin County Council. In 2011, he was selected for the Artist
Residency Program in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. He was
commissioned to make new work for the inaugural Dublin Contemporary 2011.
Solo exhibitions in 2012 include RuaRed Dublin; group exhibitions in the
Lyndecker gallery Spain, National Sculpture Factory Cork, Limerick City
Gallery of Art, and Braziers Supernormal UK. His work is included in the
Permanent National Collections of the Hugh Lane Gallery and the Irish
Museum of Modern Art.
Helen Carey is currently Director /
Curator of Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland. She curates independent
projects concerned with cultural identity, historical events and the public
realm. She previously was inaugural Director of the Centre Culturel
Irlandais Paris.
A new joint commission by VISUAL Centre for
Contemporary Art, Carlow Local Authorities Arts Office, and Carlow Arts
Festival Éigse 2012.
Supported by the Arts Council of
Ireland.
www.visualcarlow.ie
www.eigsecarlow.ie
www.everythingcanbedone.com
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