Tag: art

Fata Morgana

Posted on by Catalyst Arts

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FATA MORGANA.

October 19 – November 09, 2012

Opening: October 18, 7pm – 9pm

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Persijn Broersen | Stuart Calvin | Phil Collins | Martin Healy | Margit Lukács | Tim Millen

What is reality and how is it defined?

Catalyst Arts presents Fata Morgana, a group show featuring selected
works by local, national and international artists engaging with
aspects of ‘reality’. The exhibition reflects on how artists question,
negotiate, examine, (de-) construct and manipulate our perception and
experience of reality by exploring the cinematic, the artificial,
fantasy and the mythical in a variety of different mediums.

Fata Morgana will include a number of artist talks and screenings in the gallery.

Saturday 20 October

2pm – 3pm

Artist talk by Dublin-based film maker and photographer Martin Healy

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8pm – 10pm.

Film Screening with popcorn

Fellini’s masterpiece, ‘8 1/2’

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Saturday 27 October

Film Screening with popcorn

Disney epic, ‘Fantasia’

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Saturday 03 November

Film Screening with popcorn

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NECROSPECTIVE

Posted on by Catalyst Arts

Preview Opening Thursday 9th August 6pm – 9pm
Exhibition 10th August – 31st August
Featuring Artists | Motohiko Odani | Takeshi Murata | Thomas Johnson | Alexis Milne | Craig Fisher————–Necrospective explores the relationship between violence and acting out. Freud’s death drive has been described by Jean Baudrillard as a “nostalgia for a state before the appearance of individuality and sexual differentiation, a state in which we lived before we became mortal and distinct from one another”. Baudrillard discusses this subconscious desire in relation to the project of science and technology, which he suggests, is driven by a quest for immortality, exemplified through cloning and cryogenics. Science and technology also have the effect of manifesting homogenous and uniform objects and experiences, which embody the formal qualities of the death drive. In this sense he suggests that the project of science is “to reconstruct a homogenous and uniformly consistent Universe.” This clone of the real world, in a technological form, embodies the formal qualities that satisfy the death drive; repetition and homogeneity.The show will explore the relationship between Baudrillard’s notion that science and technology produce objects and experiences that embody the death drive and Freud’s notion that the death drive leads people to re-enact (act out) and repeat traumatic experiences. This relationship can be realized by viewing technology as a form of performance or acting. The resultant technological object / experience is a kind of travesty, a fake or re-enactment of nature. The works in the show will explore the new sanitised invention of the world, our technologically mediated environment, the environment in which abject and mucky nature has been eradicated. This environment is presented as a world in which the death drive is satisfied, where violence and the abject have been displaced through a technological, man made infrastructure, suggesting that, through our engagement in a technologically mediated world, we have suppressed our fear of mortality and absolved ourselves of responsibility, distorting our relationship with the origins of all our actions; “real,” unmediated nature.

V I C I N I T Y

Posted on by Catalyst Arts

Catalyst Arts presents VICINITY, a group exhibition investigating temporary, adaptable and transitory methods for exploring Belfast city. Artists work in an engaged manner using the mile radius of the gallery as a starting point to make new work in the gallery and at offsite locations.  Artists:

Bbeyond ‘fare’
fare utilised the transient communal site of the back of a black taxi inviting the audience to share an intimate experience with the artists as their taxi makes it way through the city.  Ten taxis queued in Squeeze Gut Alley at the galleries entrance and begun their journey at 7pm sharp.  Artists – Anne Quail, Fergus Byrne, Pavana Reid, Rainer Pagel, James King, Tina Hopp, Felipe Faundez, Chrissie Cadman, Sinead O’Donnell & Charlotte Bosanquet, Phillip McCrilly & Kim McAleese, each made live performances in the taxis

Jean-pierre Bertrand
Brussels based artist, Jean Pierre Bertrand,  travelled to Belfast to make new work for Vicinity, his hexagonal concrete blocks can be found at six locations on the outskirts of Belfast

Fiona Larkin ‘Wolfs Den’
Larkin invited participants to borrow a custom embroidered ‘Wolfs Den’ jacket from the gallery, in return she asked that participants allowed her to follow and video them.  The documentation of which was incorporated into the installation.

Shiro Masuyama ‘Legal Parking’
Masuyami has worked nomadically all over the world, recently moved out of Berlin and now based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  For Vicinity Masuyami exhibited ‘Legal Parking’ for information on the project please follow the link.  Legal Parking 

Jim McCracken
McCracken is a belfast based print and street artist who created a site specific flyposted work in the gallery for Vicinity.

Seamus Nolan
Nolan created a site specific installtion ‘pantone’ within the gallery by painting the back wall a mixture of  the three colours of the Irish flag, mixed in equal quantities.

MA art in public
Students on the University of Ulster MA Art in Public course used Catalyst as a research hub and installation area where they worked on projects which engaged with the are,  using a range of media.  On the last day of Vicinity Pauline Hadaway, director of Belfast Exposed Gallery chaired a discussion on their project entitled ‘walking as research’

zones of response
zones of response developed an interactive project,  participants were invited to explore the area on foot,  then; using their mobile phones, text words they would like to see removed form the city to a designated phone number.  The words were then projected onto the gallery walls revealing a textual narrative of Belfast city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(dis)playing the other

Posted on by Catalyst Arts

(dis)playing the other

This exhibition will explore ways in which artists today continue to challenge, subvert, or deconstruct hegemonic notions of heteronormative identity in contemporary visual culture.

Through video, photography, drawing, painting, and installation, the work on display will offer an eclectic and dynamic representation of ‘other’ in today’s society.

Exhibiting artists:

Breda Lynch (Limerick)

Gavin Devine (Belfast)

Ins A Kromminga (Berlin)

Jenny Keane (Belfast)

Quinnford + Scout (Manchester)

There will also be a series of glorious accompanying events running alongside the show. Please email the gallery at catalystarts@gmail.com to reserve a place for any of the following:

Ins A Kromminga – Intersex Identities and Politics

Saturday 16th July 6pm Catalyst Arts

An informal lecture followed by a Q&A session with critically acclaimed international artist Ins A Kromminga, which will address a significant gap in public knowledge on the subject of Intersexuality as well as offer fascinating insights into the artist’s life and work.

(dis)playing the Other Film Night

Thursday 21st July 8pm Catalyst Arts

A selection of cinematic delights selected by artists Quinnford & Scout. Details of which will be announced nearer the time.

Breda Lynch and Jenny Keane in conversation

Wednesday 27th July 7pm Catalyst Arts

 As part of (dis)playing the Other, artists Breda Lynch and Jenny Keane will host an evening of engaging discussion, offering insights into their respective artistic practices and their work on show as part of the exhibition.

Pride Week tour of (dis)playing the Other at Catalyst Arts

Thursday 28th July 2pm

An afternoon introduction and tour of the show with Catalyst curators Eoin Dara and Kim McAleese.

Artist talk: Gavin Devine

Friday 29th July 2pm Catalyst Arts

Following on from the success of his recent degree show at the University of Ulster, Devine will be discussing his intimate portraits of an older generation of LGBTQ individuals in Northern Ireland.

Catalyst Critical Mass as part of Belfast Pride Parade

Saturday 30th July

Get your wheels out and come join the Catalyst Bike Gang as part of Ireland’s largest LGBT parade. Further details to be announced in the coming weeks.

Margaret Dragu

Posted on by Catalyst Arts


Margaret Dragu aka  Verb WomanThe Adjectives

Saturday 14th May

12:00 – 1:00pm CHAIR YOGA CLASS(If you are in town this is a gentle yoga class to start your Saturday)

5:00 – 6:00pm BINGO, CROSSWORDS & TEA(With Mad Dog McKenna Bingo calling)

7:00 – 8:00pm Performance “VERB WOMAN: a discreet dictionary” with the ‘Adjectives’.

La Dragu’s performance is ‘about forgetting and disintegration, dusoyted gustiruesm conflicting eye witness accounts, Alzheimer’s memory loss; like sand slipping through an open hand…the disintegration of memory, history and technology using verbs from daily life and verbs collected from Alzheimer’s patients’…

8.00pm onwards – VERB WOMAN: mending and LIVE Eurovision Screening (BYO) Bring your droopy hems, torn shirts and clothes with missing buttons [but no blue jeans] for Verb Woman to mend for you

You can also join us LIVE from 5pm in Catalyst Arts by logging onto http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ladragu

¿@#!*$ (Comics Show)

Posted on by Catalyst Arts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ¿@#!*$ (Comic Show)

List of artists: Simone Lia / Phil Barrett / Fionnuala Dorn / Malcy Duff / Chris Ware / Travis Millard / Tom Gauld Audience numbers:

Absence Launch Party Thursday 21t April – Local artists andy Luke and Stephen Downey (Cancertown, Slaughterman’s creed) launch their latest work ‘Absence’

Secret Cinema

Comic Zine Fair 23rd April

 

Pretty Circus presents ‘Live music and Live drawing’ Sunday 1st May

Members Show, Divine Creation

Posted on by Catalyst Arts


Divine Creation

Catalyst Arts’ Annual Members Show

Catalyst Arts would like to invite all members to submit work for the 2011 members exhibition, scheduled to open on 17th February and centred upon the notion of ‘Divine Creation’.

Each member is eligible to submit one piece of work in any medium, but we would ask that members take into consideration the large amount of submissions annually received, all to be displayed in the gallery, and to tailor the scale of the work accordingly.

Annual membership for 2011 is £20 waged / £10 unwaged, and new members may pay this when submitting their work or through Paypal on our website (www.oldcatalystarts.hilken.co.uk).

Deadline for submission: 5p.m. Thursday 10th February.

Work may be submitted in person from 8th-10th February from 11am-5pm or via post or email (catalystarts@gmail.com).

Switched

Posted on by Catalyst Arts

switch poster

Switched

Date: 2 September 2010

Adrian Duncan & Fiona Marron

Of Process

Both artists’ current work takes, as its shared root, physical, speculative and necessary human activities, which are used as tools for investigating other, less tactile, human activities and processes. These physical activities reveal a process that is used to view the less tactile processes from a different angle. Duncan and Marron share an interest in addressing the complications inherent in attempting to define such an abstract topic. In the manifestation of these ideas, metaphors are introduced that provoke thought and enquiry into our claims to knowledge.
Duncan’s work overlays everyday empirical investigative activities upon less obvious processes of measurement. His work at first illustrates the flaws in this scientific method (the problem with induction, statics, etc.), particularly when applied to dynamic systems. The work attempts to marry one method of measurement with another seemingly incomapatible system, and from this, investigating how institutional structures are formed and changed. This is done with reference to Popper’s Objective Knowledge.
In her sculpture and video installation Marron pursues her interests in the relationships between labour, knowledge and value, using the mining industry as a model. Combining appropriated text from sociologist Alvin Gouldner’s 1954 field report of an American gypsum plant and footage from the realms of production at a present-day Irish mine, Marron examines the ‘many standpoints in terms of which the raw data of factory life can be ordered and made meaningful.’ (Gouldner 1954)
Adrian Duncan studied and worked as a structural engineer in the UK and Ireland for over a decade before returning to study fine art at IADT. His practice is based in sculpture/installation, video, writing and drawing. He has exhibited at Pallas Contemporary Projects, The Joinery and The Lewis Glucksman, UCC. He is assistant editor of Paper Visual Art to which he also contributes. Fiona Marron was born in Co. Monaghan in 1987 and graduated from Fine Art at Dublin Institute of Technology last year. She has had solo exhibitions at The Joinery, Dublin (2010) & FOUR gallery, Dublin (2009). She has participated in many group shows including Reverse Pedagogy III, a residency and exhibition hosted by The Model, Sligo (2009).

Until the Light Takes Us

Posted on by Catalyst Arts


Until the Light Takes Us [2008ce]

1 August 2010 18:00 –

Vinyl Reclamation

A Lughnasa reaping for Danse Macabre

Catalyst Arts, Sunday 1st August 2010ce, 6pm

Until the Light Takes Us [2008ce]

Until The Light Takes Us tells the story of black metal. Part music scene and part cultural uprising, black metal rose to worldwide notoriety in the mid-nineties when a rash of suicides, murders, and church burnings accompanied the explosive artistic growth and output of a music scene that would forever redefine what heavy metal is and what it stands for to other musicians, artists and music fans worldwide.

Until The Light Takes Us goes behind the highly sensationalized media reports of “Satanists

running amok in Europe” to examine the complex and largely misunderstood principles and beliefs that led to this rebellion against both Christianity and modern culture.

To capture this on film, directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell moved to Norway and lived with the musicians for several years, building relationships that allowed them to create a surprisingly intimate portrait of this violent, but ultimately misunderstood, movement. The result is a poignant, moving story that’s as much about the idea that reality is composed of whatever the most people believe, regardless of what’s actually true,

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Vinyl Consummation

Vinyl Consummation documents an event held on the first of May 2010ce, celebrating the sacramental dimension of the vinyl record; a ritual rendition and subsequent immolation of Buzum’s album ‘Belus’, executed high in the hills of South Armagh.

Marking Burzum’s inaugural artwork following Varg Vikernes’ emergence from the darkness of prison, Vinyl Consummation called forth Burzum’s hymn to the God of Light Belus on the feast-day of his Celtic equivalent Belenus, in the ritual landscape of Ulster’s Mythic Heart.

Vinyl Consummation brings to light folkish and pop-cultural mythologies in a contemporary rite, blending Norwegian Black Metal and Iron-Age Ulster in a rebirth of subcultural desire.

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Event scored by Jordan Hutchings

An Ichor Inc. event in association with Catalyst Arts

Catalyst Arts, 5 College Court, Belfast, BT1 6BX.

T: 02890 313303  E: catalystarts@gmail.com  W: www.oldcatalystarts.hilken.co.uk