Imagine Limerick
13 March – 23 May 2004
ev+a 2004
Limerick, Ireland
www.eva.ie
Curator: Zdenka Badovinac
Image credit: Dorit Margreiter, Untitled (Los Angeles), 2004
The Exhibition Imagine Limerick
Limerick, the host city of ev+a, is a small Irish city that is more or less unknown outside Ireland. (Local politicians are trying, among other things, to create a recognisable image for the city in order to attract as many tourists as possible.) In the context of the exhibition Imagine Limerick, the name of the city represents something that does not yet have a widely recognised image and so remains a metaphor for a unknown. Only that which is known, which has an image, exists in the (post)modern world.
To have an image is an imperative of the present time. In the broader international context, Limerick still exists somewhere between image and the absence of image, between market and unmarket. Limerick shares this fate with most smaller cities that fail to make the list of tourist destinations. And it is precisely for this reason that Limerick, in a world ruled by images, is something special. Everyone who goes to Limerick can freely, without any predetermined images, form his or her own independent idea about it. Limerick stands for all the possible spaces that do not lie in the centre of the world or its communication networks and that, for this reason, can become spaces of our imaginations.
Today it is becoming increasingly important to draw attention to how dangerous various forms of generalisation can be and how easy it is for modernisation to become a global process of uniform thinking. For this reason, then, the exhibition Imagine Limerick makes a stand for spaces of unmarket and imagination.
The aim of the exhibition is to draw attention to the ideology of the visible, existence of conflicting interpretations and to the illusory nature of the known.
Zdenka Badovinac, Curator
ev+a OPEN and INVITED ARTISTS:
Carlos Amorales (Netherlands/Mexico); Yuri Avvakumov & Alyona Kirtsova (Russia); Maja Bajevic (Bosnia); Sarah Browne (IRL); Dieter Buchhart (Austria); Gerard Byrne (Ireland); Ben Cain &Tina Gverovic (UK/Croatia); Mircea Cantor (Romania/France); Phil Collins (IRL); Mark Cullen & Brian Duggan (IRL); Ann Curran (IRL); Alexandre da Cunha (Brazil); Janine Davidson (IRL.); Ayse Erkmen (Turkey); Vadim Fishkin (Russia/Slovenia); Leanora Hennessy (IRL.); IRWIN (Slovenia); Emily Jacir (Palestine); Emilia & Ilya Kabakov (USA/Russia); Johanna Kandl (Austria); Ziga Kariz (Slovenia); Michael Klien (Austria) Volmar Klien & Ed Lear (Austria/UK); Borut Korosec (Slovenia); Christine Mackey (IRL); Katrina Maguire (IRL); Dorit Margreiter (Austria); Maxine Mason (UK); Paul McAree (UK); Eline McGeorge (Norway); Aisling O’Beirn (IRL); Roman Ondak (Slovakia); Vanessa O’Reilly (IRL); Alan Phelan (IRL); Anri Sala (Albania/France); Efrat Shvilly (Israel); Dimitar Solakov & Nedko Solakov & Vaselian Solakov (Bulgaria); Malin Stahl (Sweden); Mladen Stilinovic (Croatia); Apolonija Sustarsic (Slovenia); Fiona Tan (Indonesia/Netherlands); Alexandra Vajd (Slovenia); Anton Vidokle & Julieta Aranda (USA/Russia/Mexico); Sally Timmons (IRL)
exhibition of visual + art
ev+a, a collaboration among artists, curators, sponsors, workers and committee members, presents yearly to audiences of and in Limerick the testimony that the best of contemporary art offers for the assessment, understanding and celebration of the contemporary culture we all share.
ev+a an artist-centered exhibition, has become Ireland’s premier annual exhibition of contemporary art. It offers a wide ranging programme of events that integrate local, national and international communities in the celebration of contemporary art and culture.
Open ev+a the original approach, is an annual open submission exhibition in which all artists are encouraged to enter work in all materials, media, and styles. Each year since 1979 an internationally experienced, renown, curator, an “outsider” unfamiliar with the Irish art scene, single-handedly assesses the submissions (typically 500 works of art), selects the exhibition, decides on the character, and layout of the exhibition in the galleries and alternative venues in Limerick City, determines the awards, and contributes a statement/essay and conceptual character to the ev+a catalogue.
Invited ev+a, a special section begun in 1994, is a biennial event in which the Open ev+a adjudicator of the year personally invites the participation of artists of international status, curates and places their work in Limerick City and its environs, thus providing a counterpart to the Open ev+a section.
Further information on the web site: www.eva.ie
