Orla Barry
10 Sep - 10 Oct 2005
W139 presents:
ORLA BARRY (IR/BE)
...mixing with the sound of a fountain
A solo presentation
10 September - 10 October 2005
Opening: Friday September 9th, 2005, starting 9 p.m.
In September 2005, W139 will be presenting the first Dutch solo exhibition of the Irish artist Orla Barry (1969, Wexford – lives and works in Brussels). Barry’s visual work is rooted in language and symbols and is driven by the tension between visual and literary representation. The artist composes poetic prose – textual fragments that bring together philosophical meditations, casual thoughts and biographical fact as well as fictional elements and (nonsensical) sound associations. In her photographic series, publications, films and performances, Barry dwells on themes such as linguistic intoxication, proximity and distance, melancholy and frivolity, friendship and family relationships, the things that bring us together and those that keep us apart.
W139 will be organizing the Dutch premiere of Barry’s new film, entitled Portable Stones (2005), which could previously be viewed at SMAK in Gent (BE), Camden Arts Centre in London (GB) and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin (IR). Barry has been working on Portable Stones as a production since 2003. It can be seen as a fragmented associative story dealing with two characters – a man in a shack on a northern beach and a girl in a tent standing in a deserted graveyard – who live in a kind of ‘linguistic isolation’ and who explore different forms of indirect communication. Their thoughts become pure sound, a choir of voices that alternately run counter to one another and sound in unison. Barry works with the multiple meanings of words and gestures, with rhythms and (aural) colours. This interplay makes the 60-minute film strongly reminiscent of an atmospheric, moving visual poem.
In addition to Portable Stones, Barry’s W139 presentation includes The Barmaid’s Notebook (1991-2001), an installation that centres on the concept of ‘faction’ and consists of an accumulation of existing and ‘invented’ material – ranging from photographs to scribbled notes – that Barry collected while earning a living as barmaid. Finally, the artist has integrated the work Wideawake in W139’s canteen: a performance registration in which a clearly confused and agitated young woman voices her existential turmoil in a ‘monologue interieure’ that is spoken out loud. Together, these three works show an interesting development in Barry’s work, which runs from the strictly ‘autobiographical’ to the ‘abstract-personal’, or, as Chantal Ackerman once put it: “the more particular I am (as an artist), the more I address the general.”
2. W139 at Elf:
Vuur – a project by Floor Meijers
Premiere: Friday, September 9th, 2005
Artist Floor Meijers (Tilburg, 1980) will be realizing a new work for the 12-section projection screen in 11 restaurant_bar_club , involving an ingenious play with multiple perspectives and camera positions.
Over 9,000 years ago, man, who already knew fire as a natural phenomenon, discovered that he could make it himself by striking a piece of flint against another stone or by drilling in a dry piece of wood. This called a new strategy for survival into being. At present, making fire oneself, without using any artificial accessories, is considered an archaic activity, to be observed in the so-called archaeological theme parks for living history.
Four actors, wearing the trappings of prehistoric man, were invited by Meijers to reenact this ‘activity’, which is both trivial and alienating to the contemporary viewer. The simple act of making fire is recorded by twelve cameramen – as if it were an exceptional occasion. They approach the group of ‘primitives’ from various angles, in an attempt to capture the essence of the moment. At the same time, they fail to stay out of one another’s picture. The cameras register both the situation that they wish to document and the act of filming itself.
ORLA BARRY (IR/BE)
...mixing with the sound of a fountain
A solo presentation
10 September - 10 October 2005
Opening: Friday September 9th, 2005, starting 9 p.m.
In September 2005, W139 will be presenting the first Dutch solo exhibition of the Irish artist Orla Barry (1969, Wexford – lives and works in Brussels). Barry’s visual work is rooted in language and symbols and is driven by the tension between visual and literary representation. The artist composes poetic prose – textual fragments that bring together philosophical meditations, casual thoughts and biographical fact as well as fictional elements and (nonsensical) sound associations. In her photographic series, publications, films and performances, Barry dwells on themes such as linguistic intoxication, proximity and distance, melancholy and frivolity, friendship and family relationships, the things that bring us together and those that keep us apart.
W139 will be organizing the Dutch premiere of Barry’s new film, entitled Portable Stones (2005), which could previously be viewed at SMAK in Gent (BE), Camden Arts Centre in London (GB) and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin (IR). Barry has been working on Portable Stones as a production since 2003. It can be seen as a fragmented associative story dealing with two characters – a man in a shack on a northern beach and a girl in a tent standing in a deserted graveyard – who live in a kind of ‘linguistic isolation’ and who explore different forms of indirect communication. Their thoughts become pure sound, a choir of voices that alternately run counter to one another and sound in unison. Barry works with the multiple meanings of words and gestures, with rhythms and (aural) colours. This interplay makes the 60-minute film strongly reminiscent of an atmospheric, moving visual poem.
In addition to Portable Stones, Barry’s W139 presentation includes The Barmaid’s Notebook (1991-2001), an installation that centres on the concept of ‘faction’ and consists of an accumulation of existing and ‘invented’ material – ranging from photographs to scribbled notes – that Barry collected while earning a living as barmaid. Finally, the artist has integrated the work Wideawake in W139’s canteen: a performance registration in which a clearly confused and agitated young woman voices her existential turmoil in a ‘monologue interieure’ that is spoken out loud. Together, these three works show an interesting development in Barry’s work, which runs from the strictly ‘autobiographical’ to the ‘abstract-personal’, or, as Chantal Ackerman once put it: “the more particular I am (as an artist), the more I address the general.”
2. W139 at Elf:
Vuur – a project by Floor Meijers
Premiere: Friday, September 9th, 2005
Artist Floor Meijers (Tilburg, 1980) will be realizing a new work for the 12-section projection screen in 11 restaurant_bar_club , involving an ingenious play with multiple perspectives and camera positions.
Over 9,000 years ago, man, who already knew fire as a natural phenomenon, discovered that he could make it himself by striking a piece of flint against another stone or by drilling in a dry piece of wood. This called a new strategy for survival into being. At present, making fire oneself, without using any artificial accessories, is considered an archaic activity, to be observed in the so-called archaeological theme parks for living history.
Four actors, wearing the trappings of prehistoric man, were invited by Meijers to reenact this ‘activity’, which is both trivial and alienating to the contemporary viewer. The simple act of making fire is recorded by twelve cameramen – as if it were an exceptional occasion. They approach the group of ‘primitives’ from various angles, in an attempt to capture the essence of the moment. At the same time, they fail to stay out of one another’s picture. The cameras register both the situation that they wish to document and the act of filming itself.