my work

Sunday Times Review of Bookish: When Books Become Art

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There was a review of Bookish: When Books Become Art by Gerry McCarthy in the Sunday Times. He was lukewarm on the show in general and I didn't agree with some of his criticisms but he was positive about my piece. Here are the paragraphs where he dicusses my work.

There is humour in Bookish, notably in a piece by Niall de Buitléar. He spent time in the Boole Library in University College Cork, meticulously trawling the volumes for found objects. The result is the Found Bookmark Project, a collection of things which people have used as bookmarks and have little in common aside from being flat.

After so much sombre reworking of meaningful cover images and miscellaneous pieces of careful conceptualism, De Buitlear's piece is a reminder of the real life of books. It points us back to readers, without whom they are just lifeless assemblies of ink and paper. It offers us an intriguing glance into the lives of these anonymous people, with their shopping lists, holy pictures and letters of complaint.

By embracing the human aspect, De Buitlear enlarges interface between books and art. The rest of the show maps the territory with careful attention to detail but the Found Bookmark Project offers us a new port of entry into it.

Bookish at Lewis Glucksman Open

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The exhibition "Bookish: When Books Become Art" at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery at UCC in Cork opened last night. My favourite piece in the show is John Latham's film which shows every page of the Enclyopedia Brittanica at high speed. The text has a strange, rythmic pulsing quality that appears animated and images flash up intermittently.

I also particularly enjoyed the sculpture by Jonathan Callan which is similar to the one pictured below:

callan_books.jpg

My own contribution to the show consists of three wooden tables with objects that were found between the pages of books in the UCC library. The work also includes a video which presents a letter written in 1979 and a song by Joan Baez the handwritten lyrics to which I found in a book.

Letter from 1979 Found in Library Book

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Below are some excerpts from a letter I found in a library book at UCC while working on The Found Bookmark Project for a group show at the Lewis Glucksman gallery.  The letter is dated 1979 and a note has been added by another student which is dated 1983.

2 mount pleasant, gardiners hill, Cork

3rd December 1979

Dear Mr Quigg,

I am prompted to write this letter because, once more, the encyclopaedia of philosophy has been vandalized. This encyclopaedia as, no doubt, you are aware, is housed in the reference library and is constantly in use by staff and students. Not only has volume 7 been missing for some years, but today I also noticed and reported that a huge portion of volume 4 has also been cut out by some "wanton". Because I have constantly reported the fact that vloume 7 is missing to no avail, I have now little confidence that the missing portions of volume 4 will be replaced in the immediate future, which is why I have decided to write to you...

...As it now stands it is notoriously easy not only to rob books and journals but also to steal other people's belongings from the library. It would seem ro me to be totally unfair, and somewhat naive to expect students to leave bags and coats outside the library area, or in the case of the reference where they are not in the owner's view, where there is no one to attend to thse belongings. Many people, including myself, have had our possesions taken from these areas. In the case of the science library that area for coats and bags is inadaquate and one's coat is often knocked off and trampled upon...

...I trust that my complaints and suggestions will not go unheeded,

yours sincerely,

Anne O' Neill (M.A, Student)

April 1983

This Anne O'Neill person sure knows how to complain!

Jimmy Lynch (1st year student)

Work in Progress for "Bookish" at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery

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Here is a preview of some of a new version of my Found Bookmark Project which I am working on for an exhibition called Bookish at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork. I searched the library at the University and collected a lot of material that had been left behind between the pages of books. I found some interesting stuff including a letter dated 1979 with a note added by another library user in 1983. The letter is a complaint about vandalism of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and library security in general.

Here are some scans of objects:

nihilismweb.jpg

brownmould.jpg

asthma.jpg

maths2.jpg

target.jpg

 

Residency and Exhibition News

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I will be travelling to Berlin in a few weeks to take up a 5 week residency at Ard Bia Berlin. I  have also been invited to participate in a group show at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork this summer. 

My show at the Red Stables opened last night with an "in conversation" type discussion with Alan Phelan. The show runs until Sunday and I'll be out at the gallery at lunch time on Sunday when the Visit Studios bus arrives. Then I'll be rushing back into town to be in my studio (at Pallas Studios on Foley Street) for the remainder of Visit.

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Events in April

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Selected work from my first solo show at the Lab will be touring to the Red Stables in Raheny for a week. I'll also be including some pieces of work that were not in the Lab show.  

To launch the show I will be discussing my work with Alan Phelan at the Red Stables at half 6 on Monday 14th March - all are welcome to attend.

The exhibition coincides with Visit Open Studios weekend. The Red Stables is one of the venues participating in Visit on Sunday 20th April. There will be a wine reception at the gallery at lunchtime on the Sunday during Visit.

My studio at Pallas Studios on Foley Street (up the road from the Lab) will also be open to the public on Sunday 20th April.

http://www.visitstudios.com

http://www.redstables.ie/

Exhibition Reminder

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Solo Exhibition at the Lab 

Preview: 15 Feb 6-8pm Exhibition continues until 22nd March

"An exhibition of new sculpture and drawing by Niall de Buitléar opens on the 15th February at the Lab.

Niall de Buitléar presents a body of work produced during and shortly after his year long residency at Flax Art Studios in Belfast. The sculptures are made from found materials largely collected from the streets of Belfast and Dublin. The works tend to be built up from an accumulation of smaller parts which come together to form a more complex whole in a similar way to how an organism is made up of cells. The drawings and sculptures are directly linked. Both employ similar processes of accumulation to achieve a sense of organic growth over time. The works are begun with a general sense of form but over the course of their production tend to deviate from what was initially expected. The work is essentially abstract but the forms are consciously suggestive of various structures such as cells, fungi, landscapes, and standing figures.

This is the artist’s first solo exhibition. It was awarded to him as a part of the Launch Awards Program in 2006."

First Solo Show at the Lab

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Niall de Buitléar - Solo Exhibition at The Lab, Foley Street, Dublin 1  

Preview: 15 Feb 6-8pm Exhibition continues until 22nd March

 

An exhibition of new sculpture and drawing opens on the 15th February at the Lab. 

"Niall’s methodological approach, a forging of symbiotic relationships and resonance between the initial building blocks, the processes of manipulation and the resultant forms, appears to be shifting focus. With recent works such as White Cube (woven cable ties) and Untitled (burnt matchsticks), Niall appears to have prioritised a commitment to a primarily sculptural practice. The sculptural processes have in turn led him to a new approach to drawing involving the accumulation of simple building blocks...The shift in emphasis away from the rigidly conceptual practice, away from a strict set of rules in the earlier work to a more flexible, fluid approach, sign posts a new trajectory in his practice. What remains central is the use of found materials, which means in even the most abstract of his sculptural work there is some recognisable element. In this the work can be seen to embody a coexistence of the abstract and the figurative that enable his new articulations to remain tangibly rooted in the world of the everyday. "

- extract from an essay by Peter Richards which accompanies the exhibition.