18 August 2008

Atsushi Kaga

I want to give love to socially neglected parts of you, that’s my mission at the Butler Gallery til 5 October.

15 August 2008

do you want a piece of me











at the opening of the joy gallery in dublin did a piece called do you want a piece of me.

the curator for the show had wanted ephemeral, relational pieces. so the idea of the piece was that people would take pieces of the work with them and it would be gone. however, because i want to talk about cultural exchange, i had them give something back. and people really enjoy doing this.


alot.

wexford

after london, the next activity was an outdoor painting fest in wexford. there was a lovely abbey there that reminded me of the Cloisters in New York except it hadn't been made from various cloisters shipped across the atlantic and a bit of 1930's imagination thrown in. It had an interesting history.

"Selskar Abbey is remarkable as the spot where the first Treaty was signed with the English in 1169 when the town of Wexford was surrendered to Fitz-Stephen. This originally Danish foundation was later endowed, enlarged and given to the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in 1190 by Sir Alexander Roche of Artramont. The circumstances of this gift are worthy of note.

When Sir Alexander was a young man he became enamoured of a beautiful girl, the daughter of a poor burgess of the town. To prevent his marriage his parents prevailed on him to join the Crusade, then on foot, for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. On his return from Palestine, he found himself free, his parents having died, but on visiting the dwelling of his fair lady he discovered, that having heard he had died in battle, she had entered a convent. He himself took avow of Celibacy, endowed the Monastery, dedicated it to the Holy Sepulchre, relics of which he had placed in its Church, and became its first Prior. Selskar Abbey was suppressed in the thirty-first year of the reign of Henry VIII, but not destroyed. Cromwell finally destroyed it in 1649. The present Abbey Church (Protestant) was built in 1818 on the east side of the ancient tower-the ruins of the original Abbey Church being to the west. Out-Churches of Selskar Abbey were St.Patrick's and St.Doologue's." http://www.wexfordparish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=51