This exhibition is the result of a six week experiment. The sixteen artists involved have all been using Basic Space as their studio while making the work displayed here, and have taken an active interest in the work of those around them and the results of the project as a whole. It has essentially been a collective residency. We have attempted to provide each other with all the services we each may need, being critics, technicians, assistants and curators as well as artists.
Everyone involved in the exhibition has taken a risk of some sort. It is difficult to even reference individual works because there are ambitious pieces which may prove unfeasible mere minutes before the exhibition opens and have to be removed. There are people who are usually very logical designers making pieces that operate outside the world of functionality and strict briefs to which they are accustomed. There are artists working in a community who may generally be very uncomfortable working with or talking in front of a group. There are pieces which aim to be subtle and unobtrusive that risk being lost altogether in this vast warehouse, but which are exciting and valuable precisely because they attempt to subvert expectations and offer unusual interpretations of set circumstances.
Given the time and place in which this show is positioned there are two contextual factors it is hard to ignore. First there is Dublin Contemporary, the much larger, grander and better funded event we have timed ourselves to coincide with; and second there is the global economic crisis, which leaves young artists with uncertain futures all over the world, as well as unused spaces with the potential for creative and constructive re-use. This show is a demonstration of the willingness and ability of emerging artists to create their own support networks and means of attaining visibility which circumvent the standard systems of the art establishment.
Work By
Basic Space 