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You are here: Home / LACE / 2015-2019 / Activating Pangea: Acts to Objects

Activating Pangea: Acts to Objects

 

Activating Pangea: Acts to Objects
Curated by Ciara Scanlan & Matthew Nevin of MART Gallery Dublin
Opening Reception: March 15, 2018 7-10PM
Exhibition Dates: March 16 – April 29, 2018
Featuring works by Aine Phillips, Amanda Coogan, Helen Mac Mahon, Margaret O’Brien, Katherine Nolan, Eleanor Lawler, Laura O’Connor, and Jane Fogarty.
The opening night will feature performances by: Amanda Coogan, Eleanor Lawler, Cindy Rehm, Thinh Nguyen and mothertongues (Meital Yaniv & Kim Ye).

The MART Gallery curators Matthew Nevin & Ciara Scanlan are delighted to invite you to the preview of ACTS TO OBJECTS at 7pm on March 15, 2018  at LACE Los Angeles.

The exhibition is the final in a three year programme titled “Activating Pangea”, a series focused on the promotion of Irish Contemporary Art in Los Angeles curated by MART’s Matthew Nevin & Ciara Scanlan. Acts to Objects brings together artists from Ireland and LA that span a number of generations, in order to explore the role of spectacle in feminist practice today.

Art and cultural practice often seeks to challenge the primacy of the visual in Western culture, as dominated by a “pervasive masculinised privileged gaze” (Irigaray). To affect change women artists too have sought ways to refute, undermine and evade this primacy of the visual in art practice in order to find a “visual language and a voice that can be heard” (Mary Kelly).

So too, have artists harnessed and heightened the spectacle of the visual as means to staking a claim to the authorship of cultural practice, and thereby a form of subjectivity.  It is in the tradition of these ‘attention grabbers’ that the artists in this show employ strategies that arrest and twist the gaze, that clamber for visibility. The artworks play with and investigate the idea of art as spectacle, whether refracting and manipulating light, playing on expectations of material form and colour, or performing acts that intervene in social space and norms.

As a set of work disparate in form, from sculpture to performance, together they speak to ideas of spectacle. The artworks shun the lingering forces that continue to undermine women’s right to cultural authorship, unapologetic in staking their claim to visibility. The philosophical terms that frame westernised art practices assert ‘calling attention to’ as a critical strategy: these artworks glisten, tousle and shout.

The exhibition is staged in Los Angeles, the locus of production of the Hollywood spectacle, that much early feminist discourse critiqued for its dominant gendered narratives that constantly position women as passive objects to the active masculine look, that continues to persist in new forms.  Bringing together artists from Los Angeles and Ireland that span a number of generations, in order to explore the role of spectacle in feminist practice today.

‘Activating Pangea’ is three year series of exhibitions curated by MART {Dublin}, who will work with Los Angeles based galleries and art fairs to strategically promote leading Irish Contemporary Visual Artists.

The Curators: Matthew Nevin & Ciara Scanlan.

Since 2008, Dublin based curators Matthew Nevin & Ciara Scanlan have sought to create opportunities by conceiving creative platforms to support artists from all stages of their careers to test new ground. As a curatorial partnership they have curated over 100 artists through several international exhibitions across Ireland, UK, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Japan, Jackson Mississippi, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. In 2013 the curators launched The MART Gallery & Studios {Dublin, Ireland}; housing two large galleries in a renovated old fire station and have expanded their studio network to host over 120 members in seven7 studio buildings across Dublin.

Click here to see the review by Wall Street International (Art).

Visit www.mart.ie

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Filed Under: 2015-2019, Exhibition, LACE Tagged With: 2018, 40 Years at LACE, activating pangea, Ciara Scanlan, LACE, MART, Matthew Nevin

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As part of a special Mother’s Day celebration in As part of a special Mother’s Day celebration in 1990, Freshly Wrapped Candies headlined a two-night celebration of motherhood at LACE, featuring an eclectic group of artists, musicians, poets, and performers. 

Among them was Anna Homler (@homlerian), who will be performing with Jeff Schwartz and David Javelosa (@microwave_buddha) during “ENDURANCE” next Sunday, May 17. 

Pictured here: Freshly Wrapped Candies performing; swipe to see the event’s flyer. Wishing a lovely weekend to all the moms and mother figures!
Printed Matter’s 2025 LA Art Book Fair is happen Printed Matter’s 2025 LA Art Book Fair is happening soon at the ArtCenter College of Design! From May 15-18, stop by Booth C13 to say hi to the LACE team and browse our publications. 

LAABF (@printedmatter_artbookfairs) features artists and collectives, small presses, institutions, galleries, and much more. Check out their website for a full calendar of events. We hope to see you there! @printedmatterinc
Happening May 16 and 17, “ENDURANCE” presents Happening May 16 and 17, “ENDURANCE” presents performance art and interdisciplinary work by elder artists. 🔶 

Pictured here is “BLACK GOLD/FEVER,” a 2011 multi-media performance by Ulysses Jenkins. The performance called back to the artist’s 1980 piece, also performed at LACE, entitled “Columbus Day: a doggerel.” Utilizing dance, video projections, music, and spoken word, “BLACK GOLD/FEVER” measured the toll placed upon the environment and Indigenous peoples. 

See Ulysses Jenkins and the Dark Bob as part of “ENDURANCE.” This event is free to attend with RSVP. Tickets are going quickly, and LACE has created a wait list to accommodate interest. Click the link in our bio for more information. 

Please note: Because seating is very limited for this program, we ask that if you can no longer attend, you release your ticket so someone else may attend. Performance line-up subject to change.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth at Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth at the @latimes Festival of Books this past weekend! 

And a big shout-out to our friends in the @latimesfob booth, who are always doing vital work: @centerforlanduseinterpretation, Equitable Vitrines, @gyopo.us and @lapovertydepartment. 

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