126, Artist-run Gallery

Dock Discourse
A series of events in and around the Galway Docks, curated by Aoife Considine.

Opening reception Friday June 11th 6pm with guest speaker Michael D Higgins, TD.

Dock Discourse June 2010 is a four-week exhibition, installation and discussion event project, around the changing nature of the Galway Docks. Initiated and curated by local architect Aoife Considine, Dock Discourse is a multi disciplinary project engaging with artists, thinkers and the general public to comment and question the nature of change taking place in and around the Galway Docks. The works are concerned with ideas of environmental change, development processes, the role of the artist in the changing city along with reconsidering the spaces, structures and habits of this part of the city on the waterfront.

Artists involved in the exhibition are Aideen Barry, Cian Mc Conn, Roisin Coyle, Cecelia Dannell and Jennifer Cunningham with Jim Ricks, Jennie Moran and Michelle Browne carrying out on site installation projects in the middle pier of the docks on the 17th of June. The artists taking part in the project come from a range of backgrounds but a common theme in their work ties them to the project either through the location or interest.

The artists explore both the territory of the real and the imagined, the past and the proposed future brings the debate of how to record and think about elements of this part of the city and the role of utopian visions for the future. The play on the role of utopian constructions is used as a way of not only as a way to propose an alternative future but as a protest of the present. This theme will also be explored through the discussion event with an invited panel of artists, architects, urban thinkers and activists to be held on the 24th of June at 6pm.

The project is kindly supported by Galway City Council, Galway Harbour Company, The Galway Independent, Bar 8 and 126 Gallery.

126 Gallery is Galway's and the west of Ireland’s first artist-led exhibition space. 126 was established in 2006 by local artists in their own living room as a response to the need for more non-commercial gallery spaces in Galway and is currently located on Queen Street in the city centre. 126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that is known for promoting challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions. 126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership.

redress state - questions imagined
A new durational performance artwork by Dominic Thorpe

Dates for the performance:
1pm - 6pm Wed 12th May through Sat 15th May inclusive.
1pm - 6pm Wed 19th May through Sat 22nd May inclusive.
2pm - 7pm Wed 26th May.

From 27th May - 5th June the residue of the performance will be presented in the gallery as an installation.

End of performance reception in the gallery, 7pm Wed 26th May with guest speakers Margaretta D’Arcy and Olive Wilson.

For Dominic Thorpe the action of creating and showing work is an ongoing process of experiencing, communicating and responding, of not remaining silent - of not adding to silence - of not being complicit in silence. This work explores the boundaries of mark-making/drawing and the development of image over time through an intensive durational performance.

redress state - questions imagined questions the nature of the silence and secrecy around the Residential Institutions Redress Board hearings (see www.rirb.ie for more information on the Redress Board). In a performance that will take place for five hours a day for a total of nine days the artist will repeatedly write questions of a confrontational and often detailed nature that he feels would be asked during adversarial hearings like those of the Redress Board hearings.

Any individual accepting a financial settlement at the Redress Board must sign a confidentiality agreement meaning that if they discuss their case or the award they received they face a large fine and a jail sentence. The artist notes: ‘as is clear from the Ryan and Murphy reports, where power, vulnerability, and silence converge - Abuse Happens.’

Dominic Thorpe graduated with an MA from NCAD in 2006 having previously received a first class honours degree in sculpture from GMIT. He has exhibited widely and completed commissions for and worked with a number of organisations and bodies including Wicklow County Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Community Action on Suicide Clondalkin, Finglas Suicide Network, and The Irish Youth Justice Services. He has received bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and the Kildare County Council as well as Travel and training awards from the Arts Council and a research grant from CREATE. Based in Dublin he is currently a member of the Kildare County Art in Health steering group and member of the Dublin based Performance Collective.

126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that is known for promoting challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions. 126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership.

126 is pleased to present Spilth, an exhibition of new work by Christine Clemmesen and Caoimhe Kilfeather – two artists who share an interest in sculptural practice and the relationship between image and form. Through different artistic approaches both artists are drawn to a type of practice that shows evidence of its own making – a sort of honesty where the working methodologies are embraced as an important part of the finished work. For each artist, sculpture’s processes offer the opportunity to adjust the relationship between what something looks like and what it does. Drawing, collage and the use of images is equally important – specifically how these behave in relation to sculpture and how they potentially (re)orientate the viewer to the work.

Spilth provides an opportunity for the work of both artists to be explored through an understated overlap between each practice; where aspects of each other’s work provide a relevant context for the experience of both.

Christine Clemmesen’s (b. Copenhagen 1979) production is based on activating the relationships between materiality, space and meaning. Her work consists of sculpture, installation, photography, prints and collages, which exist in her practice as equal components.

The configuration of works in this show is essentially about looking at time-based and relational acts. The new series of prints are primarily made from found newspaper images, and are a way of including a more distant, yet always regenerated and dense image world. The works combine abstract form with the representational, and thus convey the possibility of discovery and new meaning.

Caoimhe Kilfeather (b. Dublin, 1979) often uses existing systems, objects or images as catalysts to generate alternative narratives and forms. This enquiry stems from an interest in the ostensible normality of the world and the possibilities for its transformation. Working across a wide variety of media – the use of specific materials is regularly associated with the conceptual development of the work – as is a link between these materials and the processes and methods used to manipulate them.

The work in Spilth reflects two approaches in her practice; one, an intuitive investigation of the translation of drawing or image into sculptural form and how material is implicated through this transformation. The other stems from an interest in the act of prolonged looking (or familiarity) and the seeming intuitive understanding of objects which results.

126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that promotes challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions. 126 is supported by the Arts council, the Galway city council and our membership.

126 presents:

Package from China
New works by Ben Sloat

March 19th through April 10th, 2010.

Opening reception: Friday March 19th 7pm.

126 is pleased to present new works by U.S. artist Ben Sloat. Package From China examines the economic and cultural relationship with China through the exchange of their manufactured products on the global market. Infused with themes of consumerism, material, and value, Sloat looks back to the origins of China’s contemporary boom: Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour of China in 1992, opening the region to expanded economic trade. Package From China is the Boston based artist’s first solo show in Europe.

Deng’s famous adage “To Get Rich Is Glorious” is constructed into a large text piece, made from cheaply made materials found at a 99 cent store across from the artist’s studio. Propaganda posters of Deng from that era are repainted in duplicate and triplicate in different Chinese painting factories, commodifying Deng’s iconography in a situation of his own creation. Each of these paintings is signed by the once anonymous factory painter, allowing the illumination of their perspective on the situation to emerge.

Those, and other works, serve to highlight the nuances and complexities of China’s evolving presence as a location for the production of desire and ideal, including its own.

Born in New York City in 1977, Ben Sloat received a B.A. from UC Berkeley (‘99), and an MFA from Tufts/Museum School (‘05). Recent solo shows include those at Safe-T Gallery in Brooklyn, OH+T Gallery in Boston, Laconia Gallery in Boston, Front Gallery in Oakland, CA and the ACC in Taipei Taiwan. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Boston Herald, Boston Globe, Taipei Times, and Oakland Tribune. In 2009, Sloat was a faculty Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan.

126 was established in 2006 by local artists in their own living room as a response to the need for more non-commercial gallery spaces in Galway and is currently located on Queen Street in the city centre. 126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that is known for promoting challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions. 126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership.

126 presents:

It means...
A new solo show by James Merrigan.

February 11th through March 6th, 2010.
Opening reception: February 11th 7 – 9pm.

126 is proud to present a new solo show from Wicklow based artist, James Merrigan. it means... is a mixed-media installation that plays with language and image to announce a set of truths through proclaimed “misconceptions.”

Through a series of grammatical clichés and signifiers, Merrigan situates politics, capitalism, and potential horror in a set of fabricated arenas. These "arenas" reference the morning TV news/ chat show; the blue-collar small town; the city-convenience store; the generic - filmic motel room and the political stage.

James Merrigan's current work positions itself at a distance from his source, America. He presents a certain skewed displacement in works that use fictitious elements, cinema, movies (horror film), popular culture, American vernacular, science-fiction, in a DIY, low-tech style aesthetic, that has an uncanny sensibility. Something uncomfortable (that can become humorous,) resides in the work. In his work, America is presented as the great subject, gradually being disseminated through language games and broken narratives. The audience is left with crudely cut fractions of a bigger happening that centre around ideas of crisis, horror, ritual, and the fear of banality.

James Merrigan is an artist living and working in Wicklow. He completed a BA in Fine Art at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art & Design in 2004 and is a 2008 Graduate from the MFA program at NCAD. Awarded NCAD Graduate Studentship (2008), he has had previous solo exhibitions at Queen Street Gallery & Studios, Belfast and thisisnotashop, Dublin and has been selected for various group shows including; the Emerging Irish Artist Group Show, “It Goes On,” at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin; PROJECTOR at FOUR Gallery, Dublin (2009); and most recently in the 126 3rd annual members’ show at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Jan - Feb 2010.

126 was established in 2006 by local artists in their own living room as a response to the need for more non-commercial gallery spaces in Galway and is currently located on Queen Street in the city centre. 126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that is known for promoting challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions. 126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership.

126 with the RHA presents:

The 3rd Annual 126 Members' Show
VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR

Part of the Artist Curates series at the RHA.

Opening reception January 14th 6 - 8pm, runs until February 27th.

As part of our continued commitment to support our membership, 126 is proud to present it's third annual members' show hosted this year by the Royal Hibernian Academy. 126 is grateful for the financial and moral support of its members and each year offers this special opportunity to exhibit their work.

The membership was asked to respond to the theme 'Video Killed The Radio Star' and 126, artist-run gallery has curated a range of work which reflects the diverse membership, from emerging artists to those more established, working in a variety of disciplines, including: painting, video, works on paper, sculpture, installation and photography. The works speak of and to society at a time of perceived change with responses that range from the critical and cynical to those with a more playful and humorous tone.

Artists showing are: Paul Murnaghan, Dominic Thorpe, Angela Darby, Fiona Chambers, Jim Ricks, David Finn, Padraig Robinson, Kevin Mooney, Austin Ivers, Nina Amazing, Timothy Acheson & Jennifer Cunningham, Kathryn Maguire, James Merrigan and Breda Lynch.

Membership is open to all who support the aims and ethos of 126. Please visit our website www.126.ie for more information on becoming a member.

This project has been made possible by the RHA.

Il y a quotidian - There is everyday is the first solo exhibition by Galway based artist Eimear Twomey. The exhibition featuring, video sound and text explores society's tendency toward the spectacle. Television and the media brings together lives and identities which were formerly secret or discrete. Influenced by the hyperreality of mass culture, the parameters of the represented and the roles of the actor and the spectator do not clearly begin or end.

Eimear Twomey graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Galway and Mayo Institute of Technology in 2009. She is part of the Knee-Jerk collective and recently exhibited at Rosa Parks Gallery.

November 6th - 28th, 2009
Opening reception: Friday, November 6th, 6 to 8pm (in conjunction with the TULCA opening at the Fairgreen, 6-8pm)
After-party at Bar No. 8

Open everyday of Tulca, 1 to 6pm
Regular gallery hours: Thursday - Saturday, 1 to 6pm

126, supported by TULCA Visual Arts Festival 2009, is pleased to present new work by Ken Fandell. This is his first solo project in Ireland and in Europe. Fandell often approaches site-specific pieces for sites that he is removed from. Between Me and Galway Bay is a varied investigation of contemporary mythologising, commodifying and romanticising of Ireland, done from a distance of more than 3,500 miles.

The creation of this site-specific body of work continues Fandell's engagement with the effects of considering the quotidian alongside the romantic grandeur of time and space. Fandell was asked to create a small body of new work to respond to the Galway region, an area he has visited many times. As the focus of this exhibition Fandell 'stitches' together photographs into a long scroll that dominates the length of the gallery. Other works include video and sound-based pieces. Fandell's tongue-in-cheek approach uses points of reference such as Frank A. Fahey's song Galway Bay , Robert J. Flaherty's film Man of Aran and a Chicago pub called 'Galway Bay' near Fandell's residence. Through this installation Fandell scrutinises issues of distance, repetition, commodification and absurdity through an oscillation between the poetic and the crass, the romantic and the banal.

Ken Fandell (USA, b. 1971) has exhibited widely nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Defining Moments in Photography, 1967-2007 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, (Chicago, IL); In Words: The Art of Language at The University of Delaware (Newark, DE); Antennae at the Houston Center for Photography (Houston, TX). His work is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art, New York and is currently hanging in the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. He has received awards from Artadia and The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. He lives and works in Chicago.

October 15th – 31st 2009
Opening reception Thursday October 15th 7 – 9 p.m.

“Space is always an open space, we are those who close it.” - Giancarlo Toniutti

form-reform-transform is the first solo exhibition of works by Irish artist Sarah Dunne. With a background in music, Sarah’s practice has been continuously questioning the relationship of sound to the object and the spatial experience of sound. While art and music have closely coincided for centuries, the boundaries between these fields are becoming increasingly ambiguous. In exploring the architectonic possibilities of sound in space, Sarah’s installations and drawings give voice to an acoustic presence, challenging sculptural, architectural and perceptual definitions of space.

Sarah Dunne is a visual artist and musician based in Dublin. She completed her BA at Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork in 2006 and her MA at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton in 2007. She is currently undertaking a PhD in the sculpture department at the National College of Art and Design and is a researcher with the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCam).

126 is Galway’s and the west of Ireland’s first artist-led exhibition space. 126 was established in 2006 by local artists in their own living room as a response to the urgent need for more non-commercial gallery spaces in Galway and is currently located in the city centre.

CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY I'M NOT COMPLETELY NAKED
A group exhibition of recent undergraduates from Galway and Limerick

As part of a curatorial exchange for the month of October, Monster Truck Gallery & Studios with 126, Galway's artist-run gallery, are proud to present a selection of young artists from GMIT Cluain Mhuire and Limerick School of Art and Design's 2009 undergraduates. This exhibition is a chance to showcase emerging talent from art colleges in the west and an opportunity to sample their Degree shows in Dublin. The artists deal with a variety of distinctive themes through a range of media, demonstrating an aptitude to their practice that is individual and assured. Works Include: installation, sculpture, works on paper, video, painting and photography. The artists featured are: Alan Bulfin, Mary Trait, Grainne McHale, Niamh O'Beirne, Grainne Kelly, Emma Grice.

This show is part of a curatorial exchange between 126 and Monster Truck. Both are artist-run organisations who share similar goals that encourage experimentation in their approach to producing exhibitions and aim to provide emerging artists with a platform. To coincide with this event Sharon Phelan (one of Monster Truck’s 7 curators) will be working with the artist Sarah Dunne who will be exhibiting at 126 from the 15th to the 31st of October.

Show runs til October 10th.
Will be open til 9pm on Culture Night, Friday, September 25th.

The exhibition features video, photography and mechanical sculpture, including a new kinetic installation consisting of two mobilised record players both playing the same record. As the record players move around the gallery encountering various obstacles including the gallery walls, each other, and the legs of anyone attending, they create a constantly refreshing cut-up soundwork sourced from their needles skipping across the vinyl and composed by their choreographer, chance. It is fitting that amongst the collection of records that will be playing simultaneously on different days for the duration of the exhibition is an interview with Merce Cunningham and John Cage, collaborators and pioneers in their engagements with chance in choreography and music respectively.

O'Kennedy is a Dublin-based artist who's work to date predominantly sets up or records combinations of movement and chance. In Skip Roll Bump Scratch O'Kennedy continues his grappling with tensions resulting from struggle, striving and purposefulness in the face of a seemingly absurd and random world.

Peter O'Kennedy graduated with a Masters in Visual Arts Practice from IADT, Dublin, in 2008. His most recent solo exhibitions include Situation at Pallas Contemporary Projects, February 2009, and Tracking Beacon NY 12508, at 92, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, in 2008. He exhibited Lost Luggage, a kinetic installation for Fringe Festival, Georges Dock, Dublin, Ireland, 2007 and Jonny Axelsson performing Akrodha, a performance and video screening at The Baroque Chapel, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland, 2006.

126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership.

www.pallasprojects.org

MYTHOLOGIES
The work of 7 emerging contemporary San Francisco Bay area artists.

126, Galway's artist-run gallery, is proud to present seven San Francisco Bay area artists for this exchange exhibition with Blankspace Gallery (Oakland, CA). Each exhibiting artist created works that deal with personal, historical and modern mythologies, some which are quintessentially American, others more universal. Works include video, installation, sculpture, works on paper, painting and ceramics. The artists featured are: Gina Tuzzi, Samara Halperin, Brian Caraway, Lena Reynoso, Crystal Morey, Sam Lopes and Renée Gertler

126 is proud to present a group exhibition curated by Blankspace in Galway Ireland. Blankspace has worked with 126 for over a year to produce exchange opportunities for local artists from both regions. After an all Ireland call for work responding to the theme of 'How Do You Know?' the artist-run gallery 126 curated a diverse range of works and practices currently on show in the Bay Area. Both galleries share similar missions and goals when it comes to producing exhibitions; 126 and Blankspace are both artist-run exhibition spaces that promote strong conceptual approaches and experimentation in art making.

Similarly to Ireland, over the last 5-7 years a diverse and internationally significant visual arts scene has emerged in Oakland, CA. It is in this development that 126 and Blankspace play significant roles in the development of visual arts in their respective cities. Blankspace is an artist-run contemporary art gallery in Oakland, California with a focus on exhibiting emerging artists in a wide range of media. Blankspace seeks to foster solid relationships with artists, collectors, curators, non-profit spaces and other contemporary art galleries to expand the Bay Area arts community.

126 was established in 2006 by local artists in their own living room as a response to the need for more non-commercial gallery spaces in Galway and is currently located in the city-centre.

www.126.ie

Image: Gina Tuzzi

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126 with Blankspace Gallery (Oakland, California) present:

After an all Ireland call for work responding to the theme of 'How Do You Know?' the artist-run gallery 126 curated a diverse range of works and practices to be highlighted in the Bay Area.

Approaches range from the medical and methodical to those of chance and humour. The show features a range of media from painting and collage to video and installation. Artists showing are: Vera Klute, Paul Murnaghan, Padraig Robinson, Christopher Banahan, Jackie Nickerson, Emma Houlihan, Adelle Hickey, Bernie Masterson, Emmet Kierans, Fiona Chambers, John Jones, Theresa Nanigian, Paul Hickey, Helena O’Connor, Tanya O’Keefe and James Hayes.

Blankspace is proud to present a group exhibition curated by 126 in Galway Ireland. Blankspace has worked with 126 for over a year to produce exchange opportunities for local artists from both regions. Bay Area artists will be exhibiting work in Galway, Ireland opening August 19th. Both galleries share similar missions and goals when it comes to producing exhibitions; 126 and Blankspace are both artist-run exhibition spaces that promote strong conceptual approaches and experimentation in art making.

Similarly to Oakland, over the last 5-7 years a diverse and internationally significant visual arts scene has emerged in Ireland. It is in this development that 126 and Blankspace play significant roles in the development of visual arts in their respective cities.

126 was established in 2006 by local artists in their own living room as a response to the need for more non-commercial gallery spaces in Galway and is currently located in the city-centre.

www.126.ie
126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership.

Blankspace is an artist-run contemporary art gallery in Oakland, California with a focus on exhibiting emerging artists in a wide range of media. Blankspace seeks to foster solid relationships with artists, collectors, curators, non-profit spaces and other contemporary art galleries to expand the Bay Area arts community.

www.blankspacegallery.com

blankspace
6608 san pablo ave
oakland, ca 94608
510-547-6608

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126 presents:

IT’S ABOUT TIME
Works by HANK WILLIS THOMAS

July 15th through August 15th, 2009
Opening reception: Wednesday July 15th, 7pm.

126 is pleased to present It’s About Time, Hank Willis Thomas’s first solo exhibition in Europe. The exhibition follows his solo show at Jack Shainman Gallery (New York) this spring and the publication of his first monograph Pitch Blackness by The Aperture Foundation last fall. Employing visual language and materials commonly used in mass-media Thomas presents a range of works from the last eight years in this mini-retrospective. Works range from vinyl and cardboard cutouts to video and manipulated photo-based works. Together they trace African-American history through visual culture in an attempt to dissect, reinterpret, and re-imagine iconic moments from the “black past” and to investigate the complexity of race in the United States in the 21st century. Thomas appropriates imagery and language from a variety of sources including posters announcing slaves for sale, as well as books, magazines, and advertisements. GI Joe, Air Jordan and Johnny Walker are points of reference that appear in the work. The show features an installation inspired by the portrayal of African-American women in advertising and large-scale reproductions of contemporary ads juxtaposed with strikingly similar examples from the past, both of which explore expressions of cultural exploitation by media. Also included are the collaborative videos Winter in America made with Kambui Olujimi about a tragic murder in Philadelphia, and Along the Way a video mosaic about the city of Oakland created by the public arts group Cause Collective of which Thomas is a member.

Hank Willis Thomas has exhibited his work at venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. He was included in the recent exhibition, “After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy”, at the High Museum, Atlanta, GA; in Frequency at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2005; and in the 2006 California Biennial at The Orange County Museum of Art. His work is featured in several public collections including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. His photographs have been published in numerous books and publications including: Reflections in Black: A History of African American Photographers (W.W. Norton 2000), 25 under 25: American Photographers (Power House Books 2003) and Black: A celebration of a Culture (Hylas Publishing 2004).

hankwillisthomas.com

126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that promotes challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions. 126 is supported by the Arts council, the Galway city council and our membership.

Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 1-6 or by appointment.

TWILIGHT AVENGER
Video works by KELLY RICHARDSON

July 7th through July 12th, 2009

Opening reception: Wednesday July 8th, 8pm
There will be a one-on-one artist talk between Richardson and Galway based director and writer Katherine Waugh, Wednesday July 8th at 126 from 7-8pm

Kelly Richardson will be showing two video works, Twilight Avenger and Wagons Roll, in a dual screen installation at 126’s new city centre gallery.

Kelly Richardson’s primary interest is in exploring simultaneity, affect and the use of cinematic language to create part real /part imagined landscapes, offering visual metaphors for modern ‘reality’, a wavering hybrid of fact and fiction. With an interest in creating contemplative spaces loaded with double meanings, the work explores notions of simultaneity as a way of summating feelings associate with the hugely complicated world we have created for ourselves; magnificent and equally dreadful. Richardson questions our place in the world, with allusions to political, cultural, societal and environmental issues and points to something greater than ourselves.

Kelly Richardson was born in Burlington, Ontario, Canada in 1972. She studied fine art at the Ontario College of Art & Design (AOCAD with honours) and media studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (MFA studies). Her works have been exhibited internationally at various venues including the Sundance Film Festival, USA (2009), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Quebec (2009), Busan Biennale, Korea (2008), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, USA (2008), Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal, Canada (2007), Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, UK (2005), Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2004), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2002-2003) and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2002). Her work was recently acquired by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (Montréal, Canada) and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington DC, USA). She was long listed for Canada’s pre-eminent prize for contemporary art, the Sobeys Art Award two years running (2008 and 2009) and will be the featured artist for this years Americans for the Arts National Arts Award held in New York City. She lives and works in the United Kingdom.

www.kellyrichardson.net

"Sports Bar is a place of leisure.
A place where you can relax and hang out with your friends.
Some time ago they tried to close it down.
Soon they lost interest and probably forgot about it.
Now we are just waiting for the next wave."

Sports Bar is the first solo show in Ireland of Dutch artist Frank Koolen. Additional to the show at 126, films by Frank Koolen will be on show at the Volvo Ocean Race village across the street from 126. You are very welcome to come over to the sports bar to see some ambitious sportsmen working out and to have a drink with the peculiar guests.

The work of Frank Koolen can be described as an ongoing search for the ideal combination between the beauty of discovery and the happiness of recognition. A moment in which the everyday and the magical seem to collide, creating unexpected logic.

Frank Koolen is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After finishing a studies in Fine Arts at the Utrech School of Arts he attended de Ateliers in Amsterdam. At the moment he is a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Solo shows by Frank Koolen are: The Tropical Years at W139, Amsterdam (2009), Tourist Trophy at Ruang Mes 56 Gallery, Yogyakarta (2007), and The Story of The and The at Stadsgalerij, Heerlen. Some of the group shows he participated in are: Locations at Museum de Paviljoens in Almere (2008), Drawing Typologies at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2007), and Curacion Geometrica at the Reliance Gallery in London (2007).

Maaike Gouwenberg is an independent curator based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that promotes challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions.

126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and our membership.

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For our grand re-opening 126 presents:

Dog Skipping Pegasus
by Fergus Byrne

7-9pm Saturday May 9th, 2009
To be opened by Galway City Arts Officer James C. Harold
The show runs to May 23rd, 2009

This is a show of recent work by Fergus Byrne. The opening will be marked by a performance, Dog Skipping Pegasus, a spoken word piece while skipping. This repetitive action aims to have a hypnotic effect. The combination of this and a spoken text sees the artist layering previous performance activities to create an intensity of action. The text was written by the artist and has been learned by heart. Words thus become physical shapes, part of a larger structure of sounds rhythmically linked, their vocal shapes and extension of the body’s physical action.

The text is rhythmically descriptive of obligation to endure and the aspiration to transcend this, resulting in the notion of a winged dog. The gesture of the skipping produces drawings, which will be shown in the gallery.

Additionally, this is 126's grand re-opening at our new city centre location. Opening reception from 7-9pm. An after-party will held at Bar No. 8 on the docks.

126 is a voluntarily led, artist-run gallery that promotes challenging and experimental works that would not be seen in commercial galleries or conventional institutions.

126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and our membership.

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126 with Pallas Contemporary Projects present a joint collaboration project:

Unsolicited Fabrications: Shareware Sculptures
Stephanie Syjuco

Opening reception: 6pm – 8pm Friday, 1st May 2009
Exhibition continues: 2nd – 30th May

Pallas Contemporary Projects is proud to present Unsolicited Fabrications: Shareware Sculptures, a unique installation by Stephanie Syjuco. Her first solo exhibition in Ireland displays a collection of strange hybrid of forms via many different authors, a unique opportunity to encounter artworks that were never meant to be physically realized.

Syjuco’s installation of hand-made sculptures is based on a shared database of “artworks” created by users of SketchUp, a 3-D modelling software made by Google. Designed as a simple and easy-to-use free version of CAD software, SketchUp has garnered a growing following of amateur designers who use it to model virtually everything from common household items to fantasy architectural designs. These digital designs can be uploaded to a freely accessible database to share with other SketchUp users in their own projects, many of which are created by non-artists. Based on these models, Syjuco produces a physical representation and in essence become the “unsolicited” fabricator of the sculpture. (While the original designer of the work will be attributed, their permission will not be requested to execute the work, since the design was in essence considered shareware). Issues of authorship, collaboration and production brings into question who the real “artist” is in the equation. Is this work a collaboration, a knock-off, or perhaps even a fabricated favor, and does the shared platform for this content give permission to make it really happen?

Stephanie Syjuco is a visual artist whose recent work uses the tactics of bootlegging, reappropriation, and fictional fabrications to address issues of cultural biography, labour, and economic globalization. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, her objects mistranslate and misappropriate iconic symbols, creating frictions between high ideals and everyday materials. This has included re-creating several 1950s Modernist furniture pieces by French designer Charlotte Perriand using cast-off material and rubbish in Beijing, China; starting a global collaborative project with crochet crafters to counterfeit high-end consumer goods; photographing models of Stonehenge made from cheap Asian imported food products; and searching for fragments of the Berlin Wall in her immediate surroundings in an attempt to revisit the historical moment of “the end of History.”

Born in the Philippines, Syjuco received her MFA from Stanford University and BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been included in exhibitions at PS1, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The New Museum, SFMOMA, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, and the California Biennial. In 2007 she led counterfeiting workshops at art spaces in Istanbul, Beijing, and Manila, and in December 2008 had a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, that explored the legacy of Modernism and the Third World. She has taught at Stanford University, The California College of the Arts, and Carnegie Mellon University. She lives and works in San Francisco.

This exhibition is a joint collaboration project with 126 Galway. 126 is Galway's and the west of Ireland’s first artist-led exhibition space. As a unique development PCP will be bringing Peter O’Kennedy to exhibit in 126 in 2009.

http://www.stephaniesyjuco.com
http://www.stephaniesyjuco.wordpress.com

Pallas Contemporary Projects
111 Grangegorman Road Lower, Dublin 7, Ireland
Opening Hours: Thurs - Sat, 12 - 6 pm

http://www.pallasprojects.org/

Pallas is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City Council.
126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and our membership.

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126 for Live@8 presents

Let Us Play

Featuring the work of: Cory Arcangel and Paper Rad, Sam Fuller, Tom Dale, César Velasco Broca, Carmen Hasselbusch, Tim Smith, Wholphin, Jon Sasaki, Advanced Beauty Sound Sculpture Collection, Tom Scholefield, Robert Hodgin, Fernando Sarmienta, Kutiman, Paul Robertson and the Crawford College Performance Society.

Curated by Dave Callan.

8pm Wednesday March 25th Bar No. 8, The Docks, Galway.

Live@8 is a regularly programmed free evening of screenings, live art and music.

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126 Presents:

The Catalyst Members' Show
Our 2nd Annual Members' Show swap with the Belfast artist-run gallery, Catalyst Arts

February 5th — 28th

Opening reception: Thursday, February 5th at 7pm.

A selection of works from Allotments , the Catalyst Arts Members' Show.

126 was set up on the model of Catalyst Arts. The galleries have a shared ethos of providing space and opportunities for artists at various stages of their careers, experimentation and a strong commitment to their membership bases. These Annual Members Shows provide a prime opportunity for early career artists to exhibit alongside more established artists. The richness and diversity of practice in the membership is best reflected in the open submission policy. The exhibitions this year will run simultaneously in both galleries.

Features the work of: Cian Donnelly, Jane O' Sullivan, Martin Carter, Neal Johnson, Zoë Murdoch, Aileen Lambert, Fionnuala Doran, Jaromir Svozilik, Caragh O'Donnell, Piia Rossi, Peter Richards, Ben Craig, Sinéad Bhreatthnach-Cashell, Lucas Dillon, Hannah Casey, Miguel Martin, Hannah Casey, Sisley, Sinead Ferry, Paddy Gould, Cathrine Devlin, James Hepburn, Andy Brown, Mic Fortune, Amy Russell, and Sally Houston.

www.catalystarts.org.uk

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126 Presents:

The 2nd Annual 126 Members' Show

As part of our commitment to encouraging and supporting the greater Galway visual arts community, 126 is proud to host its second annual members' show. 126 is grateful for the financial and moral support of its membership, so once a year we open the gallery to them as a sign of thanks.

By taking this unique democratic approach, this show highlights the diverse strengths and approaches of 126's membership, which varies from students, to unrepresented emerging and local artists to those established at an international level.

We have an open membership available to anyone who supports our aims and ethos. Please visit our website www.126.ie for more information on becoming a member today.

The show runs through January 29th and will travel to Catalyst Arts in Belfast for February.

New work by Cian McConn
Featuring collaborations with Vivienne Griffin and Kay Merryweather.
Curated by Mary Nally

November 27th – December 13th , 2008
Thurs – Sat, 12-5pm or by appointment.
Opening reception: Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 7pm

"We inhabit a universe with which we are out of key, man is
bewildered, troubled and obscurely threatened…"

McConn has spent two years living and working in New York City. This exhibition is a commentary on his experiences of America in uncertain times. His inspirations come from the environment which surrounds him, whether that is working in an office or a restaurant. His work addresses his own struggle to find not just a job but a place to be, a place to call home even if its just for a while.

By using combined media – video, collage, photography, performance – an assemblage of ideas is created. The work embraces a low-tech approach and creates simple, poetic pieces, in an attempt to communicate how vulnerable we are to the ploys of a fickle world.

Using humour, elements of romanticism and borrowing from schools of thought such as the Theater of the Absurd and The Situationist International, Cian McConn to comes to terms with an urban environment in which everyone is seemingly vying for attention through fashion, the media and desire.

I've Become a Magpie also opens up the creative process to involve other artists in a collaborative role. For this exhibition McConn will show a piece from a series of photographs he is currently working on with New York based Irish artist Vivienne Griffin and work from an ongoing video series with free lance musician and performer Kay Merryweather.

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126 for the Tulca season of visual art presents:

Blackflash

New work by Mark Cullen

Nov 1st - 22nd
Opening reception: Thursday, Nov 6th, 7pm.
After party @ Bar No. 8 with DJ Whitelightning, 9:30 til close.

Blackflash: A disorientating condition when an occurrence from a fictional past intercedes in the mind of the present, perceived as a real event, or as a continuum of happening.

An instance of remembering an experience that may or may not have happened when one has 'blacked out', lost consciousness, or when one has disconnected from ones own subjectivity, through the result of an immersive experience in an alternate reality, an hallucination, or such as a through a 'letting go' engagement with fiction, with music or with ones daydreams.

An uncomfortable 'snap back' effect may be experienced as one returns to a pre-blackflash state.

Mark Cullen explores cosmologies, playfully engaging our senses, he jolts our position in relation to our surroundings and our imagination. Making use of cinematic and theatrical devices, Cullen directs installations that draw on conventions of the carnivale to engage the viewer in a participatory encounter. He is interested in implicating the viewer within arts ability to stretch logic, time, material and experiential possibilities, and to entice the viewer into a consideration of a cosmological experience.

The stars, the heavens, the planet, atomic material; how they are represented in popular science and science fiction, and how in turn it is subjectivised in our imaginations is a launch pad for this work. Questions of humankind's evolution interpenetrates science fictive subjectivities.

Mark Cullen was born in Dublin in 1972. Works include MAIM XI for Irish Museum Modern Art, Temporary Portable Reservoirs at The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin and Siege House, London, Cosmic Annihilator, an installation at Pallas Heights and Open EV+A (curated by Dan Cameron 2005) Limerick City Gallery. Recent works include STAR P*WER at Flicker, The Burren College Gallery, Star Gazing at 52° North at Synaesthesia Sat, Workhouse Birr Arts Festival. In 2005 he completed a Masters in Visual Arts Practices at DLIADT and was an award winner at EV+A 2005. In 2007 he attended a residency at El Levante in Rosario, Argentina. Cullen was curator of Darklight Digital Film Festival from 1999-2004.

In 1995 with Brian Duggan he was the co-founding partner of Pallas Studios, Dublin. Pallas through their various guises and programmes have been key exponents of experimental art practice in Dublin. He is also a director of Pallas Contemporary Projects a new space for experimental art in Dublin.

Opening reception 7pm October 2nd, 2008
with a sound based performance by Pseudo Nippon at 8pm

Artisit? is a creative project that began in 2006 with the aim of creating a platform for artists emerging from college to display their work that would in turn help to bridge the gap that often exists between art education and professional practice. Through a series of art events, exhibitions and parties, Artisit? will showcase the work of these artists from around the world with various locations and venues around Galway city playing host to a range of site specific artwork, installations, video, photography, drawing, print, performance and interventions from cutting edge graduates of the finest national and international art schools.

Performances by Dan Monks, Sinead McCann and Naomi Sex
Opening reception – 7pm Saturday September 27th 2008

For this collaborative weeklong project, the artists will use the behaviour traits of feral pigeons, bowerbirds and washing machines as reference points to explore our relationship with the urban system of governed spaces and the power structures that exist within them. Working in a similar manner as Thursday’s workshop, the artists’ week long investigation will consist of the development of micro-performances, the continuous structural modification of the gallery (so as to delineate performance areas and viewing points; this will entail the building of walls, corridors, and platforms), and the collection of audio recordings. Additionally, the entire process will operate under an open doors policy and will culminate in a performance on 7pm, Saturday September 27th 2008.

ALL AFTERNOON – Thursday September 25th 2008. Opening reception at 7pm. Limited spaces, please RSVP: contactg126@gmail.com

Dan Monks, Sinead McCann and Naomi Sex have been invited by 126 to use the gallery space as a centre for performance workshops. The artists will provide a one-off professional training workshop, as well as develop a series of micro-performances with third-level students at GMIT and the Burren College of Art. Envisioned as a collaboration, this project will explore themes of family structure, home, and power structures.

The two-day workshop will begin through simple exercises designed to stimulate the audience, regardless of prior experiences with performance. Various performative strategies will be delivered through participatory manoeuvres. Imaginative prop construction will be encouraged. A series of small-micro performances will be developed, culminating in an exhibition that evening at 7pm, Thursday September 25th 2008.

Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
A performance and temporary installation by Dan Monks

126 is pleased to make possible an unique evening of performance and temporary installation. Glasgow-based performance artist Dan Monks will intervene on the streets of Galway. He will be using only the streets, the company of pigeons, a shopping trolley and a lot of cardboard.

Dan Monks will be traversing Galway with a shopping trolley, gathering cardboard from the outside of shops, from the backstreets, from bins, etc. Dan and his makeshift materials will converge with audience members at Spanish Arch from 7-11pm and over the course of the night the cardboard will be built into a miniature 'city'.

Additionally, Dan will be feeding the local birds in and around the 'city' and supplying sound-based excursions for the enjoyment of the passers-by, the birds, and himself.

Dan Monks was borne in 1981 in Dublin and raised in the suburbs. In 2005 he moved to Glasgow to attend the Master of Fine Art program at the Glasgow School of Art. Negotiation, collaboration and utterance are three words he keeps returning to in relation to his work. He lives and operates, most often, in Glasgow.

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G126 presents:

Accumulations is an exhibition of sculpture and drawing that have been produced through the labour intensive accumulation of simple elements. The sense of growth of the work over a period of time is essential

The sculptures use pre-processed materials; the artist is interested in their transformative potential. Central to the sculpture are the relationships that are formed between the found material, the processes of construction, and the resulting forms. The sculptures are essentially abstract but are intended to be suggestive of various structures such as cells, fungi, landscapes or cityscapes, and standing figures. Large drawings are composed of simple, geometric elements; Freehand drawings lead to a distortion, away from the geometric towards the organic.

Niall de Buitléar was born in Dublin in 1983 where he currently lives. After graduating from D.I.T. with a BA in fine art in 2006 he was awarded the year-long graduate residency at Flaxart Studios in Belfast. His work has recently been shown at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, the Lab in Dublin, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Queen Street Studios in Belfast, and at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius. This summer he undertook residencies at Ard Bia Berlin and Limerick City Gallery of Art.

DADALENIN

by Rainer Ganahl

July 14th – August 16th 2008
Opening Reception: 7pm Thursday July 17th

Rainer Ganahl is a Swiss artist based in New York. His work encompasses grand narratives and Google searches, EBAY and embroidery, explores how the incidental and banal are inextricable from the political. He has recently shown at the Istanbul, Venice and Moscow Biennials. G126 is delighted to make possible his first appearance in Ireland.

DADALENIN is an ongoing project that asserts that V. I. Lenin was a founding member of the Dadaist movement; That Lenin was a regular at the Cabaret Voltaire when in Zurich in 1916; That he operated in disguise and most other Dadaists weren't aware of it; That Lenin even wrote poems for Tristan Tzara, had a secret relationship with him and participated in a diverse range of early Dadaist advances. In the latest Irish installment of this project Ganahl has included James Joyce as a collaborator. Joyce was also present in Zurich at the same time as Lenin and the Dadaists. Ganahl uses DADALENIN to prove these assertions by connecting historical events, artifacts, images, readings, internet searches, even other artworks and historical figures. Making serious points through a comedic methodology, DADALENIN addresses the lost causes of the 20th century's problematic history.

G126 is a democratically run, artist-led gallery and project space in Galway, which promotes experimental artworks that wouldn't be shown in conventional institutions such as commercial galleries.

Open everyday of the Arts Festival 12- 5.
Regular gallery hours are Thursday to Saturday 12-5

Closer to Paradise features new installation work by Hannah Doyle and Michael Murphy. Both are members of Moxie Dublin, an art collective that was founded in 2006 which serves as a platform for emerging artists.

Michael Murphy's work is characterised by a transformation of everyday materials into sculptural works through a laborious process of fabrication. Moxie co-founder Hannah Doyle creates fantasy worlds in miniature, combining multi-layered islands of vibrant colour with children's toys and grandma's kitsch.

Hannah Doyle and Michael Murphy have worked together on a number of collaborative installations including Open Systems, as part of a group show in the Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, and Better on the shelf than in the wrong cupboard for The Lab, Dublin

G126 is the only democratically run artist-led gallery in the west of Ireland. A not-for-profit organization, G126 offers an alternative to museums and commercial galleries.

FEATURES: Nawapol, Santipab Inkong namg, Nontawa, Suchada Sirithanawuddhi, Nitipong Thinthubthai, Jakrawal, Sathit Satarasart, Suthirat Supaparinya, Patomporn Tesprateep, Olarn Netrangsri, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Olarn Netrangsri, Shane Bunnak, Kraisak Chunahawan.

Head or Tail was first exhibited in Dublin in Pallas Contemporary Projects in 2007, organised by PCP and Project 304. This the second exclusive screening of the exhibition in Ireland of new video by young Thai artists, and a new exciting linking between Pallas [Dublin] and G126 [Galway] and Project 304 [Bangkok].

"Head or Tail" or "Hua rua Goy" is the term that Thais use to describe the uncertainty of the situation or simply to gambling with the future. Of course, one will be a winner and one will walk away a loser. With the South East Asian political style, one never know the future from the past or past from the present. Lives go on no matter who or what will be declaring the "Leader" of this exotic Oriental paradise.

This collection of media and video works has been created by generation that has been immune by the changes both subtle and dramatic. The new technologies are their friends and information is their "teachers" those flashing on the monitors or on the dials of their mobile phones. There is a great deal the yearning for the past and their definition of the "past" ranges from a few hours ago to yesterday those to them, sounded like a fairy tales.

G126, Ballybane Ind Est, Tuam Rd, Galway, Ireland
Gallery hours: Thursday - Saturday, 12 - 5 pm