Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin, Jan 29 to March 6, 2004.
"Visions for the future of mankind" is a presentation of The Utopian World Championship, which was made for Temple Bar Gallery and Studios in Dublin. It was exhibited at a two-man show together with Irish artist Brendan Earley in 2006. On the blue painted wall is a map of the world "drawn" with white tape, on which the home town of each of the many competitiors and jurors in the Utopian World Championship appears as colored dots. Prints of photograpic documentation from many of the events that were held as a part of the championship also appear on the map as does the destinations for the world tour 2003. The map is accompanied by the Utopian World Championship web site and furniture.
More about the Utopian World Championships>
Review in Recirca online>
PRESS RELEASE
Preview Thursday January 29th
Exhibition runs January 30th - March 6th
Temple Bar Gallery & Studios
5-9 Temple Bar
Dublin 2
Ireland
This exhibition brings together the work of two artists who have responded in radically different ways to contemporary anxieties about planning or imagining 'a better future'. Though there is considerable aesthetic distance between their work, these artists share an interest in developing innovative processes, both bringing a high level of formal self-awareness to their chosen modes of representing the rapidly transforming global environment.
The primary focus of Swedish artist Jon Brunberg's work is 'The Utopian World Championship', a collaborative, multi-disciplinary project designed to encourage original 'Utopian' thinking. Brunberg and his colleague Annika Drougge from the artist-run organisation SOC.Stockholm (whose members arrange the competition) are the project leaders for 'The Utopian World Championship' and for this exhibition Brunberg has chosen to prepare a presentation based on the international progress of the contest. The presentation, which is entitled "Visions for the Future of Mankind" features a large-scale map of the world onto which Brunberg has attached information about the participants in the championship, the ongoing world tour, the members of jury and details of events that have taken place to date. In addition, two seating areas create space for further reading as well as allowing gallery visitors to enter the competition online via a dedicated computer station (www.soc.nu/utopian). For these seating areas Brunberg has chosen to use IKEA furniture from his native Sweden, allowing even the design qualities of the setting to implicitly refer to another utopian ideal - IKEA's ambition to deliver the perfect home at affordable prices.
In Brendan Earley's work the objective is less about finding new ways of constructing the future than it is about finding the means to 'make do' with the conditions of the present. Earley's response to what he terms the 'anxieties of modernity' is a form of resistance to newness, many of his works being assembled or presented with the aid of discarded materials or cheaply available technology. In his work 'City At Night', for instance, Earley makes use of his own home-made video projector to display an image of what at first appears to be a modern city filmed in sinister night vision. On closer inspection, this imposingly gloomy city-scape turns out to be a collection of styrofoam packaging from the artist's studio. Images of the city recur in Earley's work and in particular he provides distinctive views of modernist tower blocks which in this exhibition are represented both in the form of a large-scale photographic print (developed by the artist from a Camera Obscura image) and in a series of detailed felt-tip drawings. Crucially, this artist's range of self-consciously limited or low-tech approaches offers a marked contrast to the utopian aspirations of such influential styles of architectural design.
For more information about these artists please telephone Declan Long on 01 6710073 or email info@templebargallery.com. The exhibition will be open to the public Tuesday - Saturday 11am-6pm (late opening Thursday until 7pm).
Declan Long