‘Studio’

A view from the basement studio of Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy, ‘Desperate Optimists’

ARCHITECTURE REPUBLIC & FORMWORK STUDIO

Opening: 6pm – 8pm, Friday 30th September 2011

‘Studio’ is an exhibition of photographs of and from artists’ studios, made or selected by the artists themselves.

An image of each artist’s studio is accompanied by a view from the studio, a view placing the artist in a wider physical or conceptual context. Over the weekend of 30th September – 2nd October the photographs will be presented in Formwork, also an artist’s studio, and a building designed by the architectural practice, Architecture Republic.

While contemporary artists operate within a network of locations, engagements, and modes of production this exhibition concentrates on the specific space of the studio, a primary site of production for each of the artists involved. A studio can be many things, factory, laboratory, refuge, reading room, storage area. A studio’s layout, contents, and atmosphere are formed by and in turn influence the things that happen there. A repository of actions, materials, and thoughts, the studio is usually a private place, a place of origins and distillations, a corollary to the public sphere of the gallery and museum.

Designed by Architecture Republic, the building housing the exhibition was commissioned by John Graham. A compact building (25sqm) in the garden of Graham’s Drumcondra home, Formwork is a poured in-situ concrete structure and quite different from the traditional idea of an artist’s studio. Becoming a gallery for the duration of this event, sites of production and presentation are conflated to offer a complex view of how artists inhabit and operate the studio.

Artists: John Beattie, Karl Burke, Felicity Clear, Desperate Optimists (Joe Lawlor & Christine Molloy), Aleana Egan, Jason Ellis, Fergus Feehily, Richard Gorman, Gary Coyle, James Hanley, Hayashi Takahiko, Ronnie Hughes, Stephen Lawlor, Alice Maher, Fergus Martin, Peter Maybury, James McCreary, Paul McKinley, Dennis McNulty, Niall Naessans, Lars Nyberg, Margaret O’Brien, Gavin O ’Curry, Dermot Seymour, Corban Walker.

Curated by John Graham.