Motivation!

So, I spoke in an earlier post about keeping busy, and how I had a number of little projects that I've been working on; cards being the main things. They've certainly been keeping me busy. How to get motivated to keep busy though? At the moment, there's a major contemporary art exhibit in Dublin - as of yet I've only had the opportunity to see a few pieces, but it's definitely a good way to get motivated! There's only so much that online surfing can do for you - sometimes the only thing to do, is to go and see an acutal physical piece of artwork. It's so completely different to looking at an image in a book or online. I suppose it's all to do with Walter Benjamin's 'aura' of art.
But anyway, the exhibit features a number of artists, and is located in various places around Dublin, including Earlsfort Terrace, the National Gallery, the Hugh Lane Gallery and more. This is an exhibit that would really appeal to students in school, because it is worlds apart from traditional art - it includes graffiti art, sculptures made from books, and much more. www.dublincontemporary.com/
One of the pieces I did get the chance to see in the Dublin Contemporary was a really great piece, (Liam O'Callaghan): a semi-circular section of a room was cordoned off with large wooden dividers which were lit with hundreds of white fairylights.

The fairylights were then covered over with sheets of tracing paper. There's a little seat in the centre for the viewers, and the effect is fabulous! The light emanating from the screen is really soft because of the tracing paper, and the semi circular enclosure gives this feeling of peace and tranquility - it's a kind of womb-like atmosphere. I absolutely love art like this, that you can interact with in a physical manner. It's a very different experience to looking at a piece hanging in a frame, although that can of course involve a different type of interaction. This piece was exhibited in the National Gallery, and I would highly recommend it. I would have sat there just staring for hours, if the gallery hadn't been about to close when I got there! It was absoltely stunning.

This pink and orange piece is also in the National Gallery. I love the combination of drips running both up and down the canvas, as if defying gravity. There were also a couple of sections devoted to graffiti art, where the graffiti was sprayed directly onto the gallery walls. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the small plaque displaying information about the artist was also sprayed over.

I'm dying to get back up to Dublin and check out some more exhibits before it ends, on Halloween. In my opinion, the more interactive and shocking the pieces, the better! But then I am a huge fan of contemporary art, and it's not everyone's cup of tea. Students sometimes find it a bit confusing, and the whole 'what is art' debate often arises when I show images of very abstract or unusual contemporary pieces. But this is one of the triumphs of contemporary art - that it encourages students to question and think about art, and not just passively accept it.