Every month, architects and design experts share their recommendations for the latest exhibitions and events from across the country.
THIS MONTH:
Tom Cookson and Sarah Carroll
Tom Cookson and Sarah Carroll work for Hall McKnight and lead a 4th year studio unit at Cork Centre for Architectural Education (CCAE). They recently contributed to Architecture at the Edge Festival 2024 with their exhibition ‘Semaphore’. In 2022, their project ‘Building Societies’ was selected for the IAF’s Housing Unlocked exhibition in Dublin and in 2020 the pair were named runner-up in a two stage RIBA International Competition. Tom was a LINA Fellow in 2022, and his book Shallow Time: The Burren was co-published by the IAF and dpr-barcelona in November 2023.
We begin our recommendations in Belfast, where the Ulster Museum is remembering Joseph Beuys performance from November 1974, with the exhibition ‘BEUYS 50 Years Later’. Beuys redefined the word ‘material’ to incorporate ‘will, speech and thought’. This was central to his broader conceptualisation of art as ‘social sculpture’. He also – like Duchamp – rejected the idea of purely retinal art, whilst celebrating the eye as a ‘sense organ’ which through a broader engagement with the other senses could enable an appreciation of ‘substance’. He communicated his ideas on blackboards in real time in the 1974 event. These artefacts are re-presented in the current exhibition – a petrified version of this magical performance – along with recordings from the original lecture.
A double AAI Site Visit in Cashel and Fethard on 7th December showcases the work of TOB Architect. The tour takes in a pair of houses currently on site. The former is constructed in monolithic clay block walls and the latter timber frame. To support the practice’s wish to use the site visit as an opportunity to raise funds for aid for Palestine, all proceeds from the site visit will be donated to UNRWA and Med Aid Palestine. Don’t forget your PPE…
Is a writer not also a curator? Of words, sentences, thoughts and narratives? ‘Quietly Dispelling the Dark’ at Visual Carlow is a selection of the Art Council’s collection from 1963 to 2021, grouped and gathered by Colm Tóibín’s nuanced gaze. He senses ‘sympathies’ between individual pieces, and explores a ‘hidden tradition in Irish art: a kind of dark abstraction’. The exhibition makes exceptional use of the coffered gallery space. The artworks are heightened by the textured concrete walls. A highly situated affair.
From the town of Carlow to the village of Aughrim, County Wicklow. On Saturday 14th December Kunstverein Aughrim’s Winter Preview is an event designed to give insight into some of the creative processes’ artist Sarah Browne uses within her practice.
