LCGA Exhibitions 2023

Limerick is the starting point of the exhibition OPEN e v⁺ a 2009 / Reading the City. This exhibition is about the multiple perceptions of urban space. During the selection process we realized that many artists are dealing with these topics. The structure of the OPEN call first brought into focus the ideas of urban environment, which we then refocused as an exclusively thematic exhibition.

Reading in this context is developed from three perspectives. Initially it was meant as the reaction of the curators to the 560 files of artists' applications for the exhibition. The act of reading refers to the reception of a city as linguistic structure and the occurrence of the name Limerick as a famous poetic structure. But most of all the title responds to the approaches of the artists.

They are dealing with urban questions from different angles in a great variety of media. There are installations, photography, drawings and paintings as well as text and sound pieces and performances. They negotiate how a city can be read, identified and classified. The artists in their projects comment on how place is generated, transformed and developed through political, economic, cultural and social aspects. How is identity shaped through the place one lives in? How can a city be characterised through architecture, sound, found material and surface traces?

The exhibition negotiates the validity of a portrait of a city and its inhabitants, t he broad selection of 36 artists coming from 15 countries who all in one or the other way deal with these topics show both the urgency of the issues and the individuality of approach to them. There are a number of new projects developed especially for OPEN e v⁺ a 2009 / Reading the City.  Many of the artists' works occupy a whole gallery space with projects or are developed in comprehensive series.

The four different venues and their specific history can also be read as signifiers for different aspects of Limerick’s past and present: the historical buildings of Limerick City Gallery of Art  as the former city library and The Hunt Museum as the former custom house as well as the modern architecture of former LIT Limerick School of Art and Design building at George’s Quay and the postmodern City Hall. These buildings indicate central social tasks like cultural accumulation, education, learning and administration.