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Venice comes to Farmleigh

Every second year, the Italian city of Venice hosts a huge artistic exhibition in which countries of Europe showcase a particular aspect of culture. Each nation takes over a particular location in the city and crowds wander the labyrinthine alleyways from one exhibition to the next. It is in fact the oldest event of its kind in the world. An image from Willie Doherty’s Ghost Story)

Although last year marked the 52nd Venice Biennale Exhibition, it was in fact the first time that Ireland and Northern Ireland had shared a venue. The Istituto Provinciale per l’Infanzia, a quite palatial former kindergarten, hosted the Irish national pavilion, presenting film installations by renowned Dublin artist Gerard Byrne who represented Ireland and Turner nominated Derry artist Willie Doherty who represented Northern Ireland.

The OPW has decided that the good people of Ireland should appreciate how Ireland was represented at the Biennale and the joint exhibition is now running at Farmleigh Gallery until May 4th.

Gerard Byrne's work - which uses photography, film and video to create works that reflect on the relationships between the news media, historical memory and the formation of mainstream culture – is called *ZAN-*T185….. Commissioned specially for Venice by Culture Ireland, and titled after microfilm numbers in the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the piece reconstructs six interviews with budding actors, (c. 1973).

The work was shot on location at the New York Theatre Workshop with acclaimed cinematographer Chris Doyle, and was produced by Ali Curran. Based on microfilm records of early issues of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, the work is a meditation on fame, artifice, acting and complicity between interviewee and interviewer.

Willie Doherty’s video work is entitled ‘Ghost Story,’ a new piece commissioned with Northern Ireland Venice Biennale Commissioner Hugh Mulholland for Venice. A narrator pieces together images from disparate memories, dreams and premonitions, trying unsuccessfully to order them and understand them. This work was shot and produced in Northern Ireland and brings together a crew of skilled professionals including the cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and featuring a voice-over by Northern Irish film actor, Stephen Rea.

“We believe it is important to offer Irish audiences the opportunity to see how Ireland was represented in the highly competitive global context of the Venice Biennale 2007,” said Dr. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Chair of Culture Ireland. “We are proud to be part of a pioneering partnership of cultural agencies on both parts of the island presenting Ireland's visual arts to a global public. Gerard Byrne and Willie Doherty are artists working at the highest level, and the work now being presented at Farmleigh won international critical acclaim.”

“Venice at Farmleigh” runs in the Farmleigh Gallery until Sunday May 4th.

Admission during normal opening hours is free.

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