It is utterly apt to have this all consuming question planted before the next generation of aspiring artists whilst paying homage to the late director of NCAD, Noel Sheridan. His performance work filmed by Hobba in ’94 explored the reasons to pursue this path, stating “if you do art as a second choice it will show in the work” and “you must be oppositional to any manifestations of the superstructure” and while you must do bargains with all of these, meeting their agendas will never benefit your work.
Here Oísín Byrne and Vaari Claffey revisit the framework with practising visual artists invited to respond to Sheridan’s provocations. We have the likes of Isadora Epstein using magic as her prism of exploration and Gary Farrelly stating that, “problems are the bread and butter of an artist to cultivate and not resolve” and that they must use their “radical egocentric disposition to believe whatever they want to believe is true.” Essential pondering.
NCAD Gallery until February 15.
Talks series
Tuesday 31st January 2023, 1.15PM
A Walk-Through the Archive with Valerie Connor
Tuesday 7th February 2023, 1.15PM
Why Be A Curator
Vaari Claffey, Why be a curator? response to the ‘Why be an artist? (after Leigh Hobba and Noel Sheridan)’ filmed performance.
Tuesday 14th February 2023, 1.15PM
On Collecting for Archives
Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator: Head of Collections at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) in conversation with Vaari Claffey, discusses some highlights from the Noel Sheridan Archive at IMMA.
