Dublin Contemporary 2011 @ Trinity Launched
Posted on: 05 October 2011
During the month of October, the main façade at Trinity College Dublin will form a unique backdrop to an artwork created specifically for the university as part of Dublin Contemporary 2011, displaying the latest work by Paris based, Yugoslavian born artist Braco Dimitrijevi? entitled ‘Casual Passer-by I met at 3.46 pm, Dublin 2011’. Trinity Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast launched Dublin Contemporary @ Trinity, including Braco Dimitrijevi?’s artwork in the Public Theatre of Trinity College on October 4th last.
‘Casual Passer-by I met at 3.46 pm, Dublin 2011’ by Braco Dimitrijevi?.
In addition to this artwork and in association with Dublin Contemporary 2011, the campus will play host to a captivating programme of talks, tours, discussions, and performances organised by the College Art Collections, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, aided by the Student Visual Arts Society, and supplementing ongoing shows and events planned for the citywide exhibition by The Douglas Hyde Gallery and The Science Gallery. Highlights include an opportunity to join the Curator’s tour of Trinity College’s art collections on Thursday 6th October at 6pm; a panel discussion led by the Dublin Contemporary Irish and international curatorial team on Wednesday 12th October at 7pm; the unique chance to meet the artist, critic and Booker prize nominated novelist Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland on Friday 14th October where he will perform one of his ‘Vowel Poems’; an invitation to celebrate the launch of The Science Gallery’s new exhibition ‘Surface Tension: The Future of Water’ on Thursday 20th October from 6pm; and on Wednesday 2nd November, a fascinating talk by Jeremy Lewison, curator of The Douglas Hyde Gallery exhibition, ‘Alice Neel: Family’.
Trinity’s involvement with Dublin Contemporary 2011 follows on last year’s highly successful anniversary exhibitions and events celebrating 50 years of collecting, displaying and promoting modern and contemporary Irish and international visual arts practice at College. The collaboration is also the first major event in the new academic calendar of the Provost’s Creative Arts Technologies and Culture initiative.
About the Artist:
Braco Dimitrijevi? is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of conceptual art, and a leading innovator in the field of art in the public realm. His work is motivated by an exploration of the manners in which history is constructed, and in particular, the role of the individual in this process. Dimitrijevi? created the first instalment of his “Casual Passer-By” series in 1971, and has repeated this process in locations worldwide over the past four decades, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. His series utilises advertising media such as billboards, banners and public transit vehicles to display the faces of strangers whom he encounters and subsequently photographs in the street. The vagaries of chance, the whims of history, and the fickleness of celebrity are all suggested by these anonymous yet iconic portraits. Enmeshing the monumental with the quotidian, ‘Casual Passer-By’ deals with ideas of memory, dignity and transience in a direct and powerful manner.