The Souvenir Shop 1916-2016 | Rita Duffy
Opening Sunday 24 April 2016
Time: 2-5pm
Exhibition open 25 April 2016
13 North Great Georges Street
Dublin 1
Supported by The Arts Council which forms part of the Government’s Ireland 2016 Programme, Celebrating the Centenary of the Easter Rising 1916 in art and ideas.
www.artscouncil.ie
How Rita Duffy approaches the historic watershed in Irish history that is represented by the 1916 Rebellion, reflects her interest in the magical and transformative nature of the imagination when confronted with puzzling and complex realities: the mind adjusts and draws on humour, absurdity and ultimately survives. In the creation of a shop, inspired by Proclamation signatory Tom Clarke’s tobacconist, selling and displaying objects of skewed meanings juxtaposed against original function, the complex relationship of truth to notions of value, the market place, ideology and power relations, along with the fluid part played by the audience, is explored.
Working closely with the Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) and with the Cavan Arts Office, Duffy makes the corner shop paraphernalia where the object and the ideology of revolution present a conundrum: what is for sale, what choices are there? And what is represented by the humour, drawing on the psychology of the Abject? When ideology, life and death are concerned, what seems banal may be acts of survival. This Art installation styled as a shop, governed by the rules of supply and demand, will be installed in 13 North Great George’s Street, Dublin 1, selling everyday life props which the artist has imbued with historically populist signifiers of rebellion. The value of these ‘props’ for sale, will be defined according to the emerging rules of this 2016 marketplace.
Accompanying this shop will be an exhibition of work by Rita Duffy that suggest how the transformation of these ‘props’ into artworks, perhaps sacred cows, might happen. Mechanisms around acquisition of value, is at the heart of this installation.
Included in that public domain is our shared history – Duffy asks what the idea of truth in history can be and how does commemorative activity embed and continue the legacies, making history a tool in the arsenal of the status quo. When this is carried out against a consumerist backdrop and active participation in the market, rules of economics collapse in a field of fluid and interpretative value, nothing is as it seems. Referencing contemporary ideas of the public and private domains, Duffy asks where does the signifying power find its source, when meaning is so fluid, when even a physical site becomes elusive – the shop references tenement living or colonial power? What are the gender power relations at work?
The Souvenir Shop by Rita Duffy curated by Helen Carey is one of the major projects commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Art 1916-2016, marking the centenary of the 1916 Rebellion, acknowledging the support of Cavan Arts Office and with help from Rhonda Tidy,
The Irish Country Women’s Association, graphics by Ciaran Hurson, photography by Stanislav Nikolov, Arts & Disability Ireland. A full List of acknowledgments will be added shortly, closer to the time of opening.
For further information, please contact Helen Carey on helcarey@gmail.com
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The Souvenir Shop by Rita Duffy - marking the 1916 Rebellion
ART: 2016 is the Arts Council’s programme as part of Ireland 2016. It is a diverse and distinctive public showcase of Irish art which will be presented across Ireland and abroad throughout the year. Key programme strands include the Open Call National Project Awards, which feature cutting-edge, contemporary art events in dance, visual arts, poetry and music; the Next Generation Bursary Awards which highlight the work of eighteen rising stars of Irish art; and A Nation’s Voice, an open-air, free concert at Collins Barrack on Easter Sunday, featuring new choral and orchestral work by Shaun Davey and Paul Muldoon, and the voices of a 1,100-strong choir. The programme also includes a selection of national touring productions.
ART: 2016 is supported by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht through its Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme and is created with a range of partners; local, national and international.
Opening Sunday 24 April 2016
Time: 2-5pm
Exhibition open 25 April 2016
13 North Great Georges Street
Dublin 1
