Artists:

Kevin Atherton, Cecilia Bullo, Myrid Carten, Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty, Tom dePaor, The Ecliptic Newsletter, Eireann and I, Patrick Graham, Aoibheann Grennan, Kerry Guinan & Anthony O’Connor, Camilla Hanney, Léann Herlihy, Gillian Lawler, Michelle Malone, Thais Muniz, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Venus Patel, Claire Prouvost, Christopher Steenson, TU Platform

Selected for this year’s Periodical Review:
Gillian Lawler
Mary Lawler, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm, 2022
~
The death of one’s mother is a traumatic time and for an artist, it can leave a lasting influential imprint in their working oeuvre. Gillian Lawler lost her mother Mary Lawler in 2017 and her work has been captivated by this loss ever since. Her solo exhibitions Edgelands 1 & 2 in Molesworth Gallery and Weber & Weber Turin, explored loss, transience and passing through the veils with indistinct forms and structures dissolving into miasmas of gaseous backgrounds, the human form conspicuous by its absence.

Preview
6–9pm, Friday 9th December 2022

Gallery hours
12–6pm, Thursday–Saturday
10th December 2021 – 28th January 2023
(Closed from 23rd December – reopens 6th January)

“The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network.”

– Michel Foucault
Chapter 1, ‘The Unities of Discourse’
The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969

Periodical Review (2011–ongoing) is a long-running curatorial project which sets out to consider, revisit and review current movements within contemporary art practices from around Ireland. Intended as a space for critical appraisal and consolidation of ideas and knowledge, the aim through each subsequent edition is to facilitate and encourage new readings, collaboration, crossover and debate. Not a group exhibition per se, Periodical Review is a discursive action, with the gallery presented as a journal, a magazine-like layout of artworks in dialogue, the field talking to itself.

With each iteration PP/S invites two peers – curators, artists, writers, educators – to consider the artworks, exhibitions and projects they encounter over the course of a year and then nominate what was for them, significant practices, works, activity, moments, selected via an editorial process. Within this exhibition framework – a constantly shifting series of subjective viewpoints and positions (geographical, personal, political, institutional) – curatorial unity cannot be prescribed, threads or movements can only occur.

In looking at self-organised exhibitions, off-site, artist-led and independent projects, commercial galleries, museum shows, performances and publications, Periodical Review looks to present the complex and heterogeneous span of visual art in Ireland, creating dialogue and critical reflection amongst peers and between practices, to help develop and engage Irish contemporary art as a whole. In doing this, it can also act as an accessible survey of contemporary art, expanding access to and experience of new art practices from around Ireland to a wider audience.

In addition to curator’s texts which provide context for their selections, the exhibition is accompanied by an essay by writer Sarah Kelleher, commissioned in collaboration with Paper Visual Art Journal. This new PPS/PVA Visual Art Writing Commission is intended to further discourse on the contemporary moment in visual art in Ireland, while also building into a record of art practice, projects, and concepts over time.

Essay published in collaboration with Paper Visual Art Journal, as part of the PPS/PVA Visual Art Writing Commission
 

Events

Opening event:
Friday 9th December, 6pm
Performance: Léann Herlihy, a cartography of the middle of nowhere
Artist Léann Herlihy will perform a live reading from their publication

Closing event:
Saturday 28th January
The Ecliptic Newsletter, pop-up event
See announcements/website for further details