Dnote - Dnote is a guide to art and culture in Ireland

2013 marks the first year of the UK City of Culture in Derry. Void has established itself as a pioneering gallery and cultural organisation that has never compromised or failed in its mission to deliver a challenging, relevant and inspiring programme of Contemporary Art to both Northern Irish and global audiences. Organisations such as Void have made an invaluable contribution to a dynamic Northern Irish Arts scene, and have played a crucial role in securing the legacy of Derry as a culturally vibrant city. As this is such a special year for the city and the organisation, Void have curated a seminal programme, of offsite projects and exhibitions. This programme demonstrates why the city has won this award and how a gallery exhibiting Contemporary Art can make an incredible difference to a communityʼ s culture.

Candice Breitz Him + Her
26 January – 8 March.
Opening Event: Saturday 26 of January  7.30-10pm, Artist’s talk 8.15pm
Since the mid-1990s, Berlin-based South African artist Candice Breitz has produced a body of work treating various aspects of the structure of identity and psychological identification. Since 1999, she has predominantly created multi-channel video installations, in which the relationship between an individual channel of footage and the larger grid of moving imagery provides a space in which to think about the relationship between individual and community. Candice Breitz has been a Professor of Fine Art at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig since 2007. In recent years, solo exhibitions of her work have been hosted by prestigious galleries throughout the world; the Temporäre Kunsthalle(Berlin), the Palais de Tokyo(Paris), De Appel (Amsterdam), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the White Cube(London). Curated by Orla Ryan & Maolíosa Boyle

23 March – 3 April:  Laura Morrison & Maite Zabala.
Opening Event: Saturday 23 of March 7.30 – 10pm, Artists Talk 8.15 pm
Laura Morrison and Maite Zabala are two emerging artists who conscientiously address materiality and object making in their distinct approaches. In contrast to the dominant emphasis in contemporary art on new media saturation, both artists present a deliberately slow pace of form and encounter that draws its intensity and provocation from precise attention to surface, scale and space. The show will bring into relation new work by both artists made specifically for Void, generating questions that will evolve and be activated further through dialogue and discussion. A commissioned essay and publication will accompany the show. Curated by Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh

18 May – 28 June: Andrei Molodkin.
Opening Event: Saturday 18 of May , 7.30 – 10pm, Artists Talk 8.15 pm
Andrei Molodkin was born in Russia in 1966. Serving in the Russian Army, where he worked in Siberia delivering oil and transporting missiles, whilst eating bread smeared in oil for illicit highs, he began sketching in military-issue ballpoint pen. In a labour intensive process and with great precision, the artist draws precisely with a simple ballpoint pen on his gigantic canvas drawings. Molodkin also uses as oil from an organic resource into an aesthetic form, raising important questions regarding the role of oil within our contemporary Western culture. Molodkin’s most recent project has been his attempt to make oil from human corpses with a giant pressure cooker. For his exhibition at Void Molodkin will show work from his series ‘Direct From The Pipe’ alongside new work specifically made and in response to the context of Derry and Northern Ireland. Curated by Conor Mc Feely

3 July – 23 August: 8 Derry Artists / Tomorrow’s Almost Over. Opening Event: Saturday 3^rd of July
Continuing the theme of landscape, ‘Tomorrow’s Almost Over’ will see local artists explore shifting, uncertain, perpetually changing landscapes of all types, from the micro to macro, the individual and universal, in a group exhibition which will feature work in a variety of formats. This exhibition will promote artists who are currently living and working in the city. Artists included in the exhibition will be Locky Morris, Damien Duffy, Conor McFeely, Blaine O’Donnell, Susanne Stich, Pascale Steven and Paola Bernardelli. The exhibition will involve the creation of new work for Void. Curated by Greg Mc Cartney

7 Sept – 25 October: Mark Wallinger. Opening Event: Saturday 7 of September
Twice nominated for the Turner Prize, once in 1995 and again in 2007 when he won, Mark Wallinger is one of the best known figures in the British art world. In 1999 his ‘Ecce Homo’ occupied Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth to great acclaim and in 2001 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. Wallinger turns everyday moments of life into transcendent possibilities. Wallinger is not concerned with individual artistic expression but in constructing art with ideas and elements drawn from his own environment. The elements are chosen for their associative potential and in order to provoke a personal response from the viewer. Wallinger has exhibited in most major museums internationally and participated major Biennials emerging as a cultural leader and key artist for the twenty first century. Curated by Elaine Forde

9 November – 21 December: Santiago Sierra. Opening Event: Saturday 9 of November
Santiago Sierra (born in Madrid in 1966) explores the relationship between labour, value and capital through poetic and frequently controversial actions. His representations of the exploitative transactions of everyday life often involve contracting people to perform useless, degrading or repetitive tasks. Sierra’s work issues a coruscating critique of the brutality of capitalism, using capitalism’s own logic and methods. His work touches on a range of related themes including immigration, exclusion, separation, invisibility, exploitation, dignity, resistance and the art market. Offering little by way of apology or solution to the predicament of those involved, his work often presents ethical dilemmas for spectator and art institution and implicates the audience in the events they witness.  Curated by Sara Greavu & Jonathan Cummins

Void Sites
During 2013 Void will bring leading international artists to Derry, extending activities beyond Patrick Street, creating a number of installations within the public realm (Void Sites). This series of installations will animate vacant city centre buildings and locations, breathing new life into them and allowing for new readings. The placement of these works will create new avenues for the public to access arts and culture in an alternative way.

Spring: Artists Gardens
Void will create three gardens which will facilitate the re-imagining of Derry/Londonderry’s city centre environment for the UK City of Culture 2013 celebrations: The intention of the project is to focus on the natural in Derry/Londonderry’s city centre and surrounds by creating artist’s gardens in disused/abandoned/unusual spaces and create landscapes which will be catalysts for reflection, imagination and innovation.

Katie Holten, Locky Morris & Ackroyd & Harvey

Katie Holten grew up in rural Ireland and studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. In 2003 she represented Ireland at the 50th Venice Biennale.

Locky Morris was born in Derry where he continues to live and work. He has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally.

Ackroyd and Harvey are acclaimed for large-scale architectural interventions and for their work making complex photographs utilizing the pigment chlorophyll. They have received the NESTA Pioneer award, the Wellcome Sci-Art award and the L’Oreal Grand prize for Colour for their photosynthesis based photography and have exhibited this work worldwide.

Summer: Resonance FM
London based Resonance FM, ‘the world’s first radio art station’ will build a mobile performance space, train individuals within communities and broadcast live throughout three months of the year. At various locations throughout the Derry area, Resonance FM will have live performances consisting of a newly written account of local history accompanied by a live orchestral performance by the Resonance Radio Orchestra composed of new members from Derry. There will also be a series of broadcasts which will imagine the world without the people of Derry. The series will chart the lives of the great women and men of Derry to include the artists, the peacemakers, musicians, thinkers, writers and its citizens.
Co- Curated by Ed Baxter & Declan Sheehan

Winter: Partition
This simple starting point: Room 1, a discussion which will not just be theoretical but will have a direct bearing on what (if anything) happens in Room 2. A discussion as to the relevance of the art object and/or gallery in contemporary art production and presentation. Whilst this may seem to be a curatorial cliché, especially in a climate dominated by forms of easily assumable socially engaged practice, a gap is emerging between aesthetic and ethical imperatives in the production, distribution and consumption of art. The intellectual propositions will either render Room 2 obsolete/empty (yet potentially even more charged due to its continued emptiness) or it will be the script. As with Terminal Convention (Produced by Static Gallery in 2011) a filmmaker (Mike Hannon) will be embedded within the project in order to be part of the recording of the project and to allow it to be distributed and disseminated long after the actual event to a larger audience. Curated by Damien Duffy.