'Performance Art + Northern Ireland'

PERFORMANCE ART + NORTHERN IRELAND Co-curated by Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes and Brian Connolly:The performance artist Brian Connolly and art historian Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes are co-curators of this exhibition and its related events, featuring a range of the key and influential artists who moved to Northern Ireland in the 1970s (MacLennan), or artists from Northern Ireland (Andre Stitt, Sandra Johnston, Sinead Breathnach-Cashel, Brian Connolly, and Bbeyond). Other more temporary but impactful presences were Joseph Beuys in 1974, Adrian Hall, Black Market International, Dan Shipsides, Sinead O’Donnell, and selected key members of the Polish, British, and continental European performance art movements. The exhibition is an initial historical survey of Performance Art in Northern Ireland. This exhibition and its constituent parts are highly challenging, as performance art’s basic tenet is that it should be seen and experienced live. This has to be honoured within the proposed exhibition format. An exhibition of performance art may well work with some performance “relics,” sculptures, and installations; but an exhibition that claims to be a survey also needs to work with scheduled events, recorded performances, archival documentation, and possibly “re-performances” (some of them fraught concepts that could prompt severe criticism).The Golden Thread Gallery will present a series of documentary artefacts, still photography, video, film, and other archival materials, and will also host a series of performances from key artists such as MacLennan, Johnston, Connolly, and Bbeyond.