Action and Live art in Ireland.
from the IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) ‘What is Performance Art/’:
“Live performance from the visual arts in Ireland is currently a vibrant practice, grounded in responding with the physical body and psychological self. There are many theories on how and why this kind of practice has developed, with suggestions that such evolution is closely connected to the Troubles, amid which artists felt conventional forms of art making failed to express the experiences happening outside the door of the studio.
The significance of Alastair MacLennan within Irish practice cannot be underestimated: a teacher in Belfast from the mid ‘70s, MacLennan asks his audience to witness and co-inhabit the visceral territories he explores. In 1988 MacLennan made a seminal work, The Burn, in the shell of the building adjoining the old Project Arts Centre in Dublin. In an eight hour non-stop actuation (MacLennan’s term for his performance installations), he moved slowly around the burned-out shell of the building amid rubble and specifically placed objects, including pigs’ heads and burned-out flags, electrifying the sitespecific installation with the human body.
Another important point of reference is Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland’s performative stance in response to the political situation in Ireland. In 1972, O’Doherty changed his name to Patrick Ireland in a ritual performance, again at the Project Arts Centre, in protest against the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry. He vowed to sign all of his subsequent artworks as Patrick Ireland. In 2008 O’Doherty buried Patrick Ireland in a Live Performance in the grounds of IMMA in recognition of the progress of the peace process. Samuel Beckett’s late plays, Not I, That Time and Breath, ‘exist somewhere between installation and poetry, their strict aesthetic bringing the meditative rhythms of visual art into performance.’ His works are essential pivots for performance practitioners globally, but clearly have special significance for Irish artists.”
Artist and Performance Art Groups
- Artists
- Groups
- Bbeyond
- UNRESEARCHED
- Michelle Browne
- Chrissie Cadman
- Jane Cherry
- Alex Conway
- Amanda Coogan
- Leo Devlin
- Olga Dziubak (Poland, Ireland)
- Christof Gillen
- Beth Greenhaigh
- Jennifer Hanley
- Lee Hassall
- Ann Maria Healy
- Sandra Johnson
- James King
- Alastair MacLennan (Scotland / Ireland)
- Justin McKoewn
- Noel Molloy
- Siobhan Mullen
- Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland
- Hugh O’Donnell
- Sinead O’Donnell
- Aine O’Dwyer
- Kira O’Reilly (Ireland / Finland)
- Brian Patterson
- Aine Phillips
- El Putnam (US, working Ireland)
- Anne Quail
- Pavana Reid (born Thailand, working Ireland)
- David Sherry
- Andre Stitt
- Dominic Thorpe
Information and resources
- Live Art Ireland –
- Mission: With a focus on live art practices, we seek to create a community connecting the local with broader networks of artists and audience. With a focus on artists who produce work outside mainstream or normative arts institutions, our plans are to foster outstanding and astounding multi-disciplinary research, experimentation and art production. Our goal is to create opportunities for both local, national and international artists working in the areas of live art and performance art, contemporary dance, participatory practice and artist film and video.
- We wish to create opportunities for local (Tipperary) as well as national and international artists to contribute to a committed and connected art scene in the West Midlands of Ireland.]To develop the contribution of contemporary live art, performance to the social and economic development of rural Ireland. To create new opportunities for audiences to participate in cutting edge contemporary art.
- To build a highly regarded both locally and internationally centre of excellence in the Arts arts in North Tipperary and the wider area, while working from sustainable principles to ensure that all our activities are sustainable and tread lightly on the Earth
- Fostering an ArK for wildlife and actively rewilding and encouraging artists to engage with the land and landscape
- We have an inclusive policy around being aware of attending to intersections of class, able-bodied normativity, Travellers, BIPOC and gender and sexuality, particularly Queer, Transgender and Intersex People of Colour, and including individuals, groups and parents of younger children.