LCGA Exhibitions

AGITATIONISM Curated by Basam El Baroni

Participating artists:
Bisan Abu-Eisheh, Doa Aly, Kjersti Andvig, Martí Anson, Amanda Beech, Ann Böttcher, Jenny Brady, Benjamin de Búrca, +billion- (James Merrigan), Luis Camnitzer, Chimurenga, Jacqueline Doyen, Tom Flanagan & Megs Morley, Zachary Formwalt, GRRRR (Ingo Giezendanner), Nilbar Güreş, Iswanto Hartono & Raqs Media Collective, Rana Hamadeh, Siobhán Hapaska, Nicoline van Harskamp, Cécile Hartmann, Malak Helmy, David Horvitz, Luis Jacob, Jeffrey Charles Henry Peacock, Ramon Kassam, Patrick Jolley, Hassan Khan, Per–Oskar Leu, Alon Levin, Sophie Loscher, Mona Marzouk, Pauline M'barek, Asier Mendizabal, Metahaven, Nástio Mosquito, Catalina Niculescu, Seamus Nolan, Mark O'Kelly, Uriel Orlow, Neša Paripović, Michael Patterson-Carver, Garrett Phelan, Elizabeth Price, Eva Richardson McCrea, Walid Sadek, Miri Segal, Ann-Sofi Sidén, Praneet Soi, Paul Tarpey, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Humberto Vélez, Carla Zaccagnini

Venues:
Limerick City Gallery of Art, Pery Square; www.gallery.limerick.ie;  Kerry Group fromer Golden Vale Milk Plant, North Circular Road, O'Callaghan Strand; The Hunt Museum, The Custon House, Ruthland St. www.huntmuseum.com; Bourn Vincent Gallery,University of Limerick, Limerick, www.ul.ie

Exhibition Guide: http://www.eva.ie/domains/eva.ie/local/media/images/medium/EVA_International_AGITATIONISM_Exhibition_Guide.pdf

Venue Opening Hours: http://www.eva.ie/opening-times

EVA International 2014, curated by Bassam El Baroni, is titled AGITATIONISM and features works by 55 Irish and international artists, selected from over 2,000 proposals by artists in 96 countries. EVA 2014 is the 36th edition of EVA International and will be reflective of the many complex questions that the current heightened global socio-political moment raises.

In the past few years we have witnessed protests unfolding into serious unrest across many parts of the world. After initial excitement at this new global wave of voicing political demands, seasons change, and what was a novelty becomes a norm that lures many of us into the trap of trying to determine and define this previously undetermined phenomenon. Such engagements with current political upheavals can be termed agitations, an old philosophical term which denotes the extreme tension of the brain in its attempt to determine something perceived as previously undetermined—such as a sublime experience of nature. These agitations usually recast the sense of the human self accompanying all thinking into a clearly distinguishable entity, treating it as if it were something we could claim to really understand.

Agitationism, on the one hand, is the condition of living under a constant flow of agitations, including the ones that you inevitably sometimes produce yourself. However, it is also the process of 'working through' them with the aim of seeking adaptation to a logic situated somewhere else beyond the entrapment between past, present, and future—three tenses that overlap in the contemporary moment, creating a kind of palimpsest of half undone histories, half imagined futures, and a present of phantasms as a consequence. 

EVA 2014 AGITATIONISM simulates the sense of living under agitation while capturing how we are slowly adapting to a different perception of the world by working through our relationships with historical ideologies, post-colonial narratives, other beings (including animals), and speculations about the not-so-distant future. The notion of AGITATIONISM is activated throughout by Garrett Phelan's project …THAT TENSE EXPECTATION… an intervention into the identity output associated with EVA 2014, from branding and advertising, to merchandise and a series of slogans in public space around the city. …THAT TENSE EXPECTATION… reflects the confusion and disjuncture within systems of conviction and principles—unknown spaces or entities. It represents both certainty and true irrationality or perhaps ultimately the energy used when trying to rationalize the impossible. 

AGITATIONISM is part of Limerick City of Culture 2014 and presents projects and new commissions generously supported by Outset England and Outset Netherlands as part of the International Production Fund; Acción Cultural Española, AC/E; Artis Grant Progam; Coleção Teixeira de Freitas; Etxepare Basque Institute; French Embassy in Ireland; Iaspis, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Program; Kontakt, the Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation; Mondriaan Fund; Office for Contemporary Art Norway, OCA; and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Prior to the opening of AGITATIONISM in Limerick, EVA is holding a full program launch and symposium at IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin:

EVA 2014 program launch and performance by Nástio Mosquito
Friday 21 March, 19h
EVA 2014 prequel symposium: "It Makes us Think of a Dance and a Fête as Much as of War (On Violence)"
Saturday 22 March, 12–19h
Contributors: Mercedes Azpilicueta, Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Hadrien Laroche, Paulo Tavares, Milica Tomić
Screening by Jean-Luc Godard
Curated by Doreen Mende

This symposium is the third and final part of Artistic Justice: Positions on the Place of Justice in Art, a series of three symposia leading up to EVA 2014. Artistic Justice: Positions on the Place of Justice in Art is supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation, has been developed in partnership with Dar al-Ma'mûn, Marrakech and is presented in partnership with IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.

For further information or details about the program, Dublin launch, symposium and professional preview accreditation, please see www.eva.ie or contact info@eva.ie.