2016’s Galway International Arts Festival has begun and will run until July 24th.
Festival 2016 sees the return of the Festival Gallery at the former Connacht Tribune Print Works at Market Street, which hosts a major new exhibition, One Hundred Years And Four Quarters, by acclaimed Irish artist Hughie O’Donoghue.
A hundred years on from the events of the 1916 Easter Rising the four characters O’Donoghue has evoked in these new works are the revolutionary, the soldier, the sailor and the peasant. Through their differing perspectives the events of 1916 are alluded to in an attempt to explore the subjective and fugitive nature of truth. This exhibition, commissioned by the Festival, forms part of the official Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme.
Commenting at the Visual Arts 2016 Opening, Minister Heather Humphreys T.D. said: “It is fitting that this flagship festival includes an exhibition exploring the events of 100 years through a variety of perspectives. There are many other highlights in this year’s Visual Arts Programme and I would like to wish all of the artists and those involved in organising the festival the very best for the weeks ahead.”
Festival Artistic Director and curator Paul Fahy commented on the exhibition: “In late 2014 we began discussing the idea with Hughie O’Donoghue of creating a major body of work, in response to the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, and the Irish experience in Europe during World War 1. Hughie has long explored themes of memory, history, myth, humanity and war, and for this exhibition he excavates events from one hundred years ago in these grand-scale, strikingly visual paintings, constructions and sculpture.”
Making Ireland Modern explores the relationship between architecture, infrastructure and technology in the building of a new nation. Constructed as an open matrix of drawings, photographs, models and other artefacts, the exhibition presents ten infrastructural episodes spanning a period of one hundred years form 1916-2016. The exhibition was conceived as the Irish Pavillion for Venice 2014 and will run at the Bailey Allen Hall at NUI Galway.
Artist Ruth McHugh’s collaborative and experimental lens-based project Spectres of Modernity is concerned with architecture, place, truth and fiction in relation to the ephermeral nature of modernity. The project was born out of the ongoing observation of the final moments of the Ballymun high-rise housing on the outskirts of Dublin. The project is underscored by the participation of the Ballymun community, and runs at the University Art Gallery at the Quadrangle in NUI Galway.
Galway International Arts Festival, Galway Arts Centre and SASA Gallery Australia present Border Crossings, which investigates cross-cultural issues surrounding ethnic conflict, the legacy of colonialism and the challenges of reconciliation that are relevant to both Ireland and Australia. The show will run in Galway Arts Centre at Dominick Street, Galway.
Galway University Hospital Arts Trust will present The Savage Loves His Native Shore, which draws from three years of enhancing the patient experience of haemodialysis treatment at Merlin Park, with a special focus on works that explore the landscape of the West of Ireland and its inherent culture and traditions. It will run at University Hospital Galway in the main hospital corridor.
Galway City Museum will present Creative Wave exploring the growth and energy of the creative movement associated with Galway and the West of Ireland. The exhibition provides a style defined by imagination and skill devised by emerging and established artists, designers, craftspeople, filmmakers and other practitioners. Featuring work from graduates and students of GMIT’s Centre for Creative Arts and Media and Letterfrack campuses.
The Centre for the Creative Arts and Media at GMIT in Cluain Mhuire will host Impressions Art Books, its first art book exhibition and showcases experimental and innovative artists’ books.
126 will present Foreign Bodies, the work of Italian artists Elisabetta di Sopra, Giancarlo Marcali and Ilaria Margut in a multi-disciplinary exhibition of textile, video and photography. The exhibition will run at St. Bridget’s Place, Woodquay.