THE STUDIO

URS FISCHER
“Madame Fisscher”, 1999/2000


THE STUDIO
December 1, 2006 – February 25, 2007

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
Charlemont House
Parnell Square North, Dublin 1

Inspired by the presence of the studio of Frances Bacon, which is on permanent view at the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, THE STUDIO sets out to investigate the role, the idea and function of the artist’s studio as the main space of activity in the making and production of art.

The concept of the studio has long captivated audiences with its associations of unbridled creativity, freedom from convention, bohemian lifestyle and struggle for success. THE STUDIO wants to offer an in-depth examination of the historic and contemporary role and function of the studio for artists. What does the studio mean for artists today whose creative production is based on ideas and process and for whom the notion of the permanency of the artwork is often redundant? Addressing this subject provides fascinating insights into art in the contemporary environment and the role and activities of the artist within those structures, social, economic and political, which inform society locally and globally.

THE STUDIO will look into the changes that the idea of the studio has encountered over the last decades and asks whether or not the studio is in fact still the main sphere of creative production for artists at a moment when art has become increasingly idea-based and less dependent on the notion of skill.

Sam Samore: The Suicidist at P.S 1 MOMA

Sam Samore: The Suicidist
October 29, 2006 - January 8, 2007



Playing the role of both actor and director, Sam Samore stages his own death in various ways—strangled with a telephone cord, asphyxiated, overdosed—and examines a macabre psychology in works that are both cinematic and documentary. These black and white pictures evoke both contemporary film noir and a crime scene investigation, and also offer an eerie take on the self-portrait. A sense of absurdist humor and the tragicomic is evident in a number of works in the exhibition. In one picture from the 1973 series, a poster in the background offers an image of a hand holding a flower, and the encouraging words: “Hang onto life for all it’s worth.” The viewers, questioning what appears before them, are themselves investigators at the scene of a drama.-

ALIEN NATION
17 November 2006 – 14 January 2007
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

Yinka Shonibare, MBE
“Dysfunctional Family”, 1999
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Alien Nation is curated by John Gill, Jens Hoffmann and Gilane Tawadros and presents the work of twelve contemporary international artists all of whom explore themes of ‘otherness’ and ‘difference’ through the language and iconography of sci-fi. The witty and provocative artworks on display encompass film, sculpture, photography, installation, drawing and painting and expose a disturbing contemporary narrative in which the media perpetuate a terror of ‘invasion’ from immigrants and asylum seekers (indeed any racial, cultural or ethnic ‘other’), positioning such ‘outsiders’ as the dominant threat to both family and national stability.