Oneiriography
Simon and Tom Bloor, Michelle Deignan, Ruth Ewan, Ragnar Kjartansson
Curated by Chris Fite-Wassilak
Green on Red Gallery, Dublin
3 June – 2 July 2010
It was a glorious bright day, you remember. The preterite day; then never again spoken of, not directly. The proscenium: a room, what of a place where no one ever lived, the walls mostly blank, an off sort of noncolour. Definitely hazy corners pasted with gum and solder that breaks with the blunt shoulder of the sun. From outside, either a bar from a passing gramophone of a song half recognised or mollusc shells dropping on concrete.
To rephrase Stephen Dedalus, history is a dream from which we have yet to awake. From sleep to the presentness of waking, towards the representation, construction, portrayal, moulding, transformation and distortion of dreams, the dream (Greek, oneiros) is also a whole spectrum of proxies: aspirations, ideals, unrealised thoughts and unexplained lands.
‘Oneiriography,’ curated by Chris Fite-Wassilak, brings together the work of Simon and Tom Bloor, Michelle Deignan, Ruth Ewan, and Ragnar Kjartansson in an attempt to mark the blurred, unknown distance between what is and what has come before. Rather than the dominant, Freudian understanding of both dreams and history as an encoded ‘royal road to understanding’ that creates a causal chronology, the artists here question the shared narrative desire of history and its dreams, exploring its displaced remnants and supposed dead-ends. Shards of reconstructed stories and possible historical occurences partially emerge, tracing the ripples of absent and elusive events. ‘Oneiriography’ is a historiography of dreams, an ambiguous space in which the past is reconfigured in an attempt to open up new meaning for the present.
Green on Red Gallery
26-28 Lombard Street East, Dublin 2
Tel. +353 1 671 3414
Tuesday - Friday 10.00 - 18.00, Saturday 13.00 - 16.00
Simon & Tom Bloor were both born in Birmingham 1973, they live & work in Birmingham and London . Recent solo projects include Hey for Lubberland! Ikon, Birmingham (2009); As long as it lasts, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2009); Kiosk7: OudWestKiosk, Smart Project Space, Amsterdam (with Gavin Wade, 2007); The Ballad of Gunpowder Joe, MOT International, London (2007) and Modes of Civic Life, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2006). Group exhibitions include A Stranger's Window, Moot project, Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Nottingham (2010) The Lobby, Cell Project Space, London (2009), Beck's Fusions, Contemporary Art Society, Castlefield Arena, Manchester (2008) and Folkestone Triennial (with Nils Norman & Gavin Wade, 2008). They are currently developing a new project for Modern Art Oxford to be launched in September 2010.
Michelle Deignan was born in Dublin and lives and works in London. She has most recently exhibited her work in 'Terror and the Sublime: Art in an Age of Anxiety' at the Crawford Gallery, Cork; 'Event Site: Presentation and Screenings on The Place of Artist' Cinema' at Picture This Atelier, Bristol and at 'Trajector Art Fair', Brussels. Her forthcoming exhibitions include 'Based on a True Story" at Artsway, in the UK from 3 July - 31 August 2010.
Ruth Ewan is a Scottish artist based in London. Her work has been shown as part of Art Sheffield (2010), Frieze Projects (2009), Altermodern: Tate Triennial (2009) and Younger Than Jesus (2009) New Museum, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘El nuestro es el mundo a pesar de todos’, Kiosko Galeria, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (2009), 'A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World', Ancient and Modern, London (2009), 'Fang Sang', ICA, London (2008) and ‘Did You Kiss the Foot that Kicked You?’, Artangel, London (2007). Forthcoming solo projects include 'Dreadnoughts' at Chisenhale, London and 'The Brank' at Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt, Germany. She is represented by Rob Tufnell, London.
Ragnar Kjartansson is a performative artist who combines elements of visual art, music and theatre. He lives and works in Reykjavik; recent exhibitions include ‘The End,’ Hafnarborg, Iceland, Iceland’s representative at the 2009 Venice Biennale, Performa 2009, New York, the 2nd Turin Triennial, and Manifesta 8, Rovereto, Italy, as well as a forthcoming exhibition at Luhring Augustine, New York in June this year.
Chris Fite-Wassilak is a writer and curator based in London. He is a regular contributor to Frieze and the Visual Artists Newsletter, as well as writing for FlashArt, Artforum.com, Artpapers, Art and Australia, and Circa. Recent curatorial projects include the Hayward Touring exhibition ‘Quiet Revolution,’ and ‘Automatic’ co-curated with Gavin Murphy. www.growgnome.com
