art in the life world

Exhibition: 29 February to 12 April 2008
Wednesday to Sunday 1 to 6pm
Old Swimming Pool, Ballymun, Dublin

a Breaking Ground exhibition and conference curated by Aisling Prior

Conference: 'ART AND AUTONOMY?'
28 and 29 February 2008 Civic Centre, Ballymun, Dublin 9
Prof Tony Bennett, JJ Charlesworth, Daniel Jewesbury, Lu Jie, Maria Lind, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Ailbhe Murphy, Tone Olaf Nielsen, Tim Stott and Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Dr Mick Wilson

The question of 'Art in the Life World' is a matter of interrogating the perceived tension between, on the one hand, the "autonomy" of practice within established artworld systems - independent spaces, galleries, art journals, fairs, public museums, private collections - and, on the other hand, the "instrumentalisation" of practice through policy imperatives operative within the public funding and commissioning of the arts - e.g., agendas rooted in regeneration, creative cities marketing, cultural tourism, and urban area identity construction and re-branding. 'Art in the Life World' seeks to problematise this crude opposition by inviting speakers to examine these issues from a number of different perspectives. The conference questions the agency of artists, curators, audiences, commissioners and other players within the changing contexts and dynamics of contemporary market, policy, funding, and discursive frameworks. It seeks to map the diversity of competing strategies and the kinds of critical contest at work in contemporary practice. Using the unique setting of the old and now unused swimming pool in Ballymun, the Art in the life World exhibition reflects on and extends the themes of the conference.

Aisling Prior

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