The Centre For Dying On Stage is a research body that generates new artistic undertakings, anchored to notions of disappearance and performativity. The Centre’s online archive collects and collates instances of deaths that have occurred in performative settings in the public domain.
This exhibition at Project Arts Centre marks the centre’s first iteration, bringing together a selection of artworks and performances to explore that moment when the viewing body moves from passivity into action. In the gallery, The End, a work by Christodoulos Panayiotou, stands as a static temporal testament to an event long-passed. Paused and immovable, it announces its own presence with graphic clarity and, in so doing, marks the absence of another. In contrast, Dina Danish’s deadpan diptych – Stop, Sun! Continue, Sun! – gradually animates the slow fade-in of the future, with the artist instructing the performance of solar elements outside of its frame. In Meggy Rustamova’s image series, Green black out, monochrome pictures are pasted to the present, recalling unknowable moments of infinite potential, now lost in the sludge of human error. The entire situation is sliced in half by Karl Burke’s Taking a Line – a spatial perambulation in mild steel. This work conveys a sculptural presence so keenly felt that it choreographs movements around its own physical stature. And all the while, the sense of stillness is punctured by the scratched sound of Dan Graham’s voice – invoking the audience: observing and articulating their every move; calling their faraway presence into being.
As part of the exhibition, the gallery will play host to a series of weekly performance events, taking place every Thursday from 24 July–28 August inclusive. During these informal evenings, the space will be transformed into a veritable dive bar, where visiting artists will host events, performances, lectures and screenings, serving aptly constructed cocktails. Your attendance is hotly anticipated.
Participating artists:
Karl Burke (b. Sligo, Ireland, 1974) lives and works in Dublin. He graduated with a diploma in Fine Art followed by a degree in Interactive Multimedia from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire. Solo exhibitions include Taking a Line at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, 2011 and Method C at King John’s Castle, Limerick City Gallery of Art, 2010. Burke has recently shown at the The MAC, Belfast as part of the two person exhibition with Maud Cotter in The Air They Capture Is Different, 2013 and in group exhibitions including The empty set at Maria Stenfors, London, 2013; Into the Light, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 2012; Time out of Mind, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2012; Conquested, Temple Bar Galleries + Studios, Dublin, 2011 and Nothing is Impossible at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburg, 2010. Burke also produces music under the name Karl Him and has produced a number of soundtracks for theatre, working with Dublin based companies Loose Canon and Brokentalkers.
Dina Danish (b. Paris, France, 1981) currently resides in Amsterdam. Her work combines conceptual art's preoccupation with language and structure with an interest in humor, misunderstanding and superstition. Danish’s recent solo exhibitions include Four Friends Fought Furiously For The Phone at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, NL; Double Bubble Gum, Doubles Bubble at Galerie Barbara Seiler, Zurich and Re-Play: Back in 10 Minutes at SpazioA, Italy. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Kunsthall Oslo, de Appel Arts Center in Amsterdam, Beirut in Cairo and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Most recently, she performed with de Appel Arts Center at the Stedelijk Museum and performed Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata at the Cairo Pavilion of the Amsterdam Biennial. Danish studied in both Cairo and San Francisco and has taken part in various artist residencies including the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Spinola Banna in Italy, AIR Dubai and PiST/// in Istanbul.
Dan Graham (b. Illinois, US, 1942) lives and works in New York. He has published numerous critical essays, and is the author of Video-Architecture-Television (1980). His work is represented in the collections of numerous major institutions in the United States and Europe, including Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Tate Gallery, London. He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Castello di Rivoli, Museo d' Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England; The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago; Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; and has been represented internationally in group exhibitions at Documenta 7, Kassel, Germany; Art Institute of Chicago; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; P.S. 1, New York; Marion Goodman Gallery, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, among other institutions. In 2009, the first North American retrospective of his work Dan Graham: Beyond was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. Following which, it travelled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Models and Beyond, Graham’s most recent large scale solo-show took place in 2014 at de Pont Museum, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 2014.
Krõõt Juurak (b. Tallinn, Estonia, 1981) is a choreographer and performer whose work, which comprises of performances, presentations, texts, workshops and mood shifts, challenges fixed definitions of choreography and performance. She graduated in dance and choreography from ArtEZ, Arnhem in 2003 and obtained an MA in Fine Arts from the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. She has presented her work in a variety of forms at venues including Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam, 2014; Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam, 2013; Venice Biennale, 2013; Mindaugas Triennial, Contemporary Art Center, Villnius, 2012; ImPulsTanz, Vienna, 2012; de Appel Boys School, Amsterdam, 2012; CIAP Hasselt, Belgium, 2011; Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck, 2010; Kunsthalle Wien project space Karlsplatz, Vienna, 2010; Tallinn Art Hall, 2009 and deSingel, Antwerp, 2008.
Christodoulos Panayiotou (b. 1978, Limassol, Cyprus) lives and works between Paris and Limassol. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Casino Luxembourg; CCA Kitakyushu; Camera Austria, Graz (all 2013); Rodeo, Istanbul; Centre d’art contemporain de Bretigny; Museum of Contemporary Art St. Louis (all 2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig; Norrlands Operan, Sweden (both 2011); Kunsthalle Zürich; Cubitt, London (both 2010) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 2009, among others. Recent group exhibitions include: The 8th Berlin Biennale; If Not Always Permanently, Memorably, Spike Island, Bristol and The Magic of State, Beirut, Cairo. In 2011, he received the Future of Europe Prize from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig and in 2005, he won the 4th Deste Prize from the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Athens. Panayiotou has been an artist-in-residence at Capacete, Rio de Janeiro, 2011; Iaspis, Stockholm, 2009 and at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 2008.
Meggy Rustamova (b. Tbilisi, Georgia, 1985) lives and works in Brussels and Ghent, Belgium. She obtained her MA in Fine Arts at Kask School of Arts in Ghent and studied for a year at Universität der Künste in Berlin. Most recently, she completed a two year post-academic residency program at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Recent exhibitions and projects include (dis)Location, Kaaitheater, Brussels; screenings at Wiels, Beursschouwburg and Q-O2 in the frame of Performatik festival (2013). Group exhibitions Watou arts festival, 2012 and Coming People at Smak, Ghent, 2011–12. She also took part in Coup de Ville, Sint-Niklaas, curated by Stef Van Bellingen and presented works in the group exhibition Perpetual Travellers curated by Pieter Vermeulen in Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, both 2013.