Programme » Exhibition

Demise en Scène

Michael Boran, Ethna O’Regan

Monster Truck Temple Bar

1st July, 5:00 pm - 17th July, 5:00 pm

Demise en Scène brings together work by Michael Boran and Ethna O’Regan that delve into the vernacular and commercial visual sphere surrounding the holiday experience.
Many travellers are compelled by the futile quest of capturing essences of natural beauty that live up to their holiday experience. Boran and O’Regan are looking the other way, unravelling the mechanics operating in perceptions of amusement and pleasure. The work invites us to contemplate upon the artifice and commodification of historic/touristic sites and the often-hollow promise of good times that seem implicit with the process of tourism.
Boran’s images are studies in transience, where the specifics of the visitors, swarming in procession, seem irrelevant. In Visitors to the Summit the tourist are so transient that their opacity wanes. It is what links these travellers – the hope of relaxation and cultural consumption – that the artists linger on.
O’Regan’s work has a resonance with Massimo Vitali’s photographs of densely populated leisure sites, but where Vitali’s high detail and depth-of-field casts everyone as extras, more than often O’Regan’s have an emphasising hooks, standing out from the broad visual components – more comfortably recognisable to and desirable by the viewer from their amassed cultural capital. O’Regan’s art contains these Barthian ‘puncta’ as playful ambiguities – almost as if staged.
In both artists’ images, it is as if the walls to a cinematic sound-stage have fallen away, exposing the lie of the leisure-drome. In the tourist realm these imaginary walls, ceilings and floors are really just the frame of the camera lens. Here, the skill of the artist has zoomed out or panned beyond the range of brochure images, in which the tourist begins their holiday.

Curated by Davey Moor

Davey Moor, born Dublin, 1976, is a curator, gallerist and professional photographer. He has worked at Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin since 2008, becoming a director in 2009. He joined the Monster Truck team as a curator in 2008. In 2007 he organised the OPW’s annual touring exhibition of work from the state collection, and edited/co-wrote the accompanying catalogue. Between 2005-07 he directed and programmed One Gallery, Dublin, and 2004-05 ran photographic exhibitions in Dublin for Epoch – in both of these projects working with Irish and international emerging artists. He received an MA in Cultural Policy & Arts Management from University College, Dublin in 2007 and completed his undergraduate studies in photography at the Institute of Art Design & Technology, Dún Laoghaire in 2004. Curated shows include: Something tells me it’s all happening at the Zoo, Kevin Kavanagh, forthcoming: July-Aug 2010. Co-curator, Monster Truck Gallery programme 2008-present. The Life and Times of Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, Monster Truck Francis St, Mar 2009. Gallery programme of solo shows {including Louise Manifold, Louise Butler & Michelle Considine}, One Gallery, Dublin, Apr 2006 - Feb 2007. Splendid Isolation, One Gallery, Dublin, Dec 2005 – Jan 2006. The Urban Condition, Meeting House Square, Dublin, April 2005. The Snapshot Aesthetic, 14 Parnell Square, Dublin, Aug 2004.

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Event info

Monster Truck Temple Bar
4 Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Web http://www.monstertruck.ie
Opening hours Tuesday to Saturday 12-6pm

Dates 1st July, 5:00 pm - 17th July, 5:00 pm
Price FREE

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