“We are not part of a line and we are not of the world and we are unused to the practice of conveying.”
In July, two Galway-based artists (Vicky Smith and Ruby Wallis) developed a self-funded temporary off-site project titled Under-the-Counter Poster Manifestation to highlight the amount of vacant spaces in Galway City during the Volvo Ocean Race and Galway Arts Festival. Several window shops that had been vacant for 6 to 12 months were selected. They became a temporary gallery space for 16 artists. The timing was considered to be appropriate in that the streets selected offered a large-scale and new audience to the artists.
The project arose out of a frustration with the lack of access to vacant spaces for artists. The aim of this manifestation of artwork was to offer a cryptic introduction to the work of some Galway and Dublin-based artists, while also highlighting these empty commercial spaces within the city. It was also driven by a desire to break from the bureaucracy of the gallery setting.
Contemporary art themes of site/place and the historical Situationist movement inspired the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP) who experimented with the construction of situations, namely the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment of the desire to show new works.
(Guy Debord – a leading Situationist – referred to this as “the influx practice of hijacking and space.” Conceptual art meets street art by sharing an equal platform. Similarly In 1980, Jenny Holzer and Jean-Michel Basquait shared a platform with graffiti artists Furura 2000.)
Under-The-Counter group took it upon themselves to install images and texts in unexpected urban sites; often illegally, covering up windowpanes resulting in a large-scale shopfront display of randomness. The style was minimal, non-invasive yet present through scale and location.
The open call received entries from sixteen artists. There were no thematic restrictions or criteria, and no expectations other than that the images submitted had to be black-and-white and suitable for AO printing onto thin architectural paper.
The images included the T-Crean Portrait an appropriated / hijacked image of Tom Crean the great Irish giant seaman and explorer; The Connemara Bear Man which depicts a young naked man running towards the sea; an image of old fashioned sailors with triangles for faces; the quintessential Irish family snapshot; an African witch-doctor chemist service table; images of mountaineers, sharks, tight rope climbing; a public notice; a zero Euro coin; the back of a woman’s head; and a series of other short texts.
Once the posters were pasted (in a style that was urgent / slap-stick), an unknown exchange of messages with other ‘non-art’ public groups could take place. Would the project go unnoticed or would it entice a reaction from the community?
This project has raised some thought provoking questions:
www.under-the-counter.org
Contemporary art themes of site/place and the historical Situationist movement inspired the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP) who experimented with the construction of situations, namely the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment of the desire to show new works.
(Guy Debord – a leading Situationist – referred to this as “the influx practice of hijacking and space.” Conceptual art meets street art by sharing an equal platform. Similarly In 1980, Jenny Holzer and Jean-Michel Basquait shared a platform with graffiti artists Furura 2000.)
Under-The-Counter group took it upon themselves to install images and texts in unexpected urban sites; often illegally, covering up windowpanes resulting in a large-scale shopfront display of randomness. The style was minimal, non-invasive yet present through scale and location.
The open call received entries from sixteen artists. There were no thematic restrictions or criteria, and no expectations other than that the images submitted had to be black-and-white and suitable for AO printing onto thin architectural paper.
The images included the T-Crean Portrait an appropriated / hijacked image of Tom Crean the great Irish giant seaman and explorer; The Connemara Bear Man which depicts a young naked man running towards the sea; an image of old fashioned sailors with triangles for faces; the quintessential Irish family snapshot; an African witch-doctor chemist service table; images of mountaineers, sharks, tight rope climbing; a public notice; a zero Euro coin; the back of a woman’s head; and a series of other short texts.
Once the posters were pasted (in a style that was urgent / slap-stick), an unknown exchange of messages with other ‘non-art’ public groups could take place. Would the project go unnoticed or would it entice a reaction from the community?
This project has raised some thought provoking questions:
- Who gives permission to do things in a city and why should it take so long for permission to be granted?
- Why can’t the vacant buildings whose frontage we used become temporary spaces for cultural activities in Galway? This idea has been openly embraced by Limerick city and Cork city landlords.
- And lastly, why has this project gone virtually unnoticed by the landlords and the wider community?
www.under-the-counter.org
