Front cover: Diana Copperwhite: Retro Girl (detail), 2003, oil on linen, 40 x 40 cm;
photo Anthony Hobbs; courtesy the artist
CIRCA 109 Editorial Adviser:
Robert Peters
Theme: Painting
Painting in Ireland now Painting
here is thriving. Aidan Dunne picks out some names
and trends.
"One of the most striking things about current
Irish paintings is the way the long-term trajectory
of an artist's work gradually becomes apparent."
Suburban Landscapes Landscapes
are the archetypical form of painting, the style
most often taken into the home. Sarah Browne looks
here at the domestication of painting in a real
environment.
"Within Ireland's increasingly homogenous landscape,
littered with the fallout of Bungalow Bliss
and the ethics of the flatpack housing estate, what
kind of landscape paintings do we choose to purchase
and display in these houses, within this landscape?"
Why nothing can be accomplished in painting, and why it is important to keep trying Often
painting seems stuck in a loop of trying to justify
itself. James Elkins surveys the struggle.
"...it is interesting to listen closely to
the relaxed tone of the current discourses on painting
Ð they drift, they are indulgent in regard to logical
argument, they take pleasure in very small occasions
and try not to look too far afield or compare things
that appear too different Ð and ask if the tone
represses an anxiety about the possibility that
there may, in fact, be significant form beneath
the scattered surface of the present moment."
Why paint? A vox pop CIRCA
asked some lapsed and current painters their thoughts
on painting.
"In the background also was the desire never
to slide from serious, 'professional' attempts at
communication into a recreational, aesthetic cul
de sac of self expression."
Material matters: The conservation of modern art Paintings
can be very fragile, and contemporary artists' tendencies
to reach for unusual media can produce equally unusual
long-term problems. Mary McGrath looks at some of
the issues surrounding the passage of contemporary
production into posterity.
"For example, fibretipped pens, oilsticks,
feathers and poster paint can be combined on paper
to create an unstable image that will self-destruct
from what is colourfully described by conservators
as 'inherent vice'. "
Surveying contemporary painting What
is painting about now? Who are the main players,
and what are the driving ideas? Caoimhín
Mac Giolla Léith presents his analysis.
"...contemporary painting is knowingly and
determinedly gratuitous."
Feature
Dislocate,
regenerate and flow - Part III: the mercurial curatorial Part
III of a three-part investigation by Regina Gleeson
into globalisation's impact on art practice.
"Contemporary curation has a considerable brief:
to be able to shift and change in response to the
light-sensitive needs of screen-based work, the
tactile aesthetic of handmade work, the spatial
requirements of installation work, the front-end
interface of cyber work, the suitability of back-end
manipulations of technology, the potential for obtrusive
audio pollution by sound works, site specificity
for architectural collaborations, awareness of branding
references in design collaborations, access to written
work in literary collaborations, accessible time
spans for performances..."
