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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2018
Festival
Sam Keogh, Integrated Mystery House, 2018, performance and mixed media installation; performance at the 38th EVA International 2018; photograph by Deirdre Power; courtesy the artist and EVA International
Dismantling the Monolith MARY CONLON CATCHES UP WITH INTI GUERRERO, CURATOR OF THE 38TH EVA INTERNATIONAL, CURRENTLY SHOWING ACROSS MULTIPLE VENUES IN LIMERICK CITY.
Mary Conlon: In developing the 38th edition of EVA International, you have replaced the standard ‘monolithic’ biennial model with a more complex ecology of exhibitions. Can you explain this curatorial strategy? Inti Guerrero: It is a proposal that corresponds to the simultaneous multiplicity of perception that audiences today have developed, alongside the advent of social media. In other words, in a biennial imagined as an ecology, people can navigate back and forth through entirely distinct bodies of work and different constellations of meaning, and yet not feel the need to force a single, dominant meta-curatorial framework upon every single artwork in the show. This isn’t to praise eclecticism for the sake of baroqueness, or to fall into cultural relativism of meaning, but to allow more freedom to the experience of an exhibition of this nature. This strategy is also connected to the decision of not giving a title to the 38th EVA International. While researching EVA’s archive, I noticed that for EV+A in 1990, the curator (then called adjudicator), Saskia Bos, radically proposed giving a title to the exhibition for the very first time in its history. Bos’s show, titled ‘Climates of Thought’, told a story and proposed a concept – the ‘monolithic aspiration’, as she suggested in the exhibition catalogue. My intention of departing from this curatorial tradition of naming the exhibition, is primarily meant to emphasise the word ‘International’ in the biennial’s existing title. In our current state of nationalisms, hard borders, protectionism and a dismantling of the liberal belief in “never again”, the term ‘international’ suddenly carries an important weight. I believe this must be celebrated. Despite its modest scale and the fact that it does not operate from an ‘art capital’, EVA has been a forerunner in understanding the world through art within a transnational, transcultural and
international dialogue since its foundation. In my view, this is what we must still celebrate. MC: The thematic inquiry of the 38th EVA International is underpinned by Irish historical and art historical concerns. How did you balance national concerns with the international expectations of the biennial format? IG: This edition sees a significant increase in artists from Ireland, compared with recent editions of EVA. Most notably, along with active Irish artists of our time – such as Sam Keogh, whose newly commissioned sci-fi work is currently showing at Cleeve’s Condensed Milk Factory, and Isabel Nolan, who presents new versions of her chandeliers of colour – we have also incorporated specific pieces by art historical figures, including works from the 1920s and 1930s by Seán Keating, Mainie Jellett and Eileen Gray. It is these artists and their works that underpin the narratives on hope, idealism and, ultimately, the deception of the nationhood project. The biennial seeks to curatorially reframe these early twentieth century artists within the context of present-day discussions. While researching Jellett, for example, it was remarkable to find that within her fauvic and cubist experimentation abstracting the icon of Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus, she paradoxically dedicated work to reproduction and even abortion. The ideological field of debate surrounding pregnancy is also found in the work of international artists, like Sanja Iveković. Keating’s magnificent paintings depicting the construction of the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme have a more prominent representation. The main constellation of works at Limerick City Gallery of Art and Cleeve’s Condensed Milk Factory features practices addressing the subjects of electricity, light, power and related metaphors. The construction of pow-
