Invitation for allerArt, Bludenz, Austria 2011

Press Information allerArt 2011

From September 8th until October 16th 2011 Stephen Brandes, Sarah Iremonger, Marianne Keating and Mick O'Shea will be exhibiting Sub-plots a cross-disciplinary installation at allerArt, public arts space in Bludenz, Austria.

Sub-plots is a play on the idea that what is presented is not the whole story or plot, the place where the event is taking place has been engaged with and subverted through the different approaches of each artist based on their research.

Stephen Brandes’s participation in the installation, involves the design and production of eight new posters ranging in size from A4 to A0. These posters are suggestive of a golden age of travel, when the previously inaccessible landscapes of the world were opening up to popular imagination and at the same time becoming emblematic of nationalistic endeavour.

From research in Australia, Sarah Iremonger has developed new work for this installation, a mural with text and photographs, based on the work of Austrian/Australian 19th centuary artist Eugen von Guérard whose work is referenced to create a disembodied relationship between the landscape of the Alps at Bludenz and von Guéards landscapes of Australia, in a sense bringing him home.

Marianne Keating has created a text-based work, incorporating the text of French-Cuban author Anais Nin, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are” in reference to the title of the exhibition and how each person can perceive the same event in many different ways. This piece is site-specific, screen-printed wallpaper, that captures the silhouettes of the Austrian alps while created through the use of text.

Mick O’Shea’s sound installation of field recordings creates a sound carpet including spoken words from the texts used by the other artists in the exhibition at once createing a disembodied atmosphere and connecting to the other works in the installation. 

Even though each artist will bring their own style and materiality to the installation the intention is not to have boundaries between the works but to let them migrate into and over each other, the vision being a considered arrangement of composites rather than several visions vying for attention.

This exhibition has come about through and exchange between allerArt, Bludenz, Austria and the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, Ireland.

With thanks to Broken Hill Art Exchange Inc. Desert Knowledge Australia, Outback Business Networks, National Parks Australia, iophotoworks in Cork, South Tipperary County Council and the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh. This project would not have been possible without the help of Culture Ireland.