Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Ireland
31 Mar 2019 - 13 Oct 2019
Palimpsest, Lismore Castle Arts’ main gallery exhibition for 2019, is curated by Charlie Porter and features works by Nicole Eisenman, Zoe Leonard, Hilary Lloyd, Charlotte Prodger, Martine Syms, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Andrea Zittel, many of whom will create new work for the show.
The exhibition takes as its starting point the definition of “palimpsest” – originally a manuscript or document that has been erased or scraped clean to be re-used. It has since become used to mean “something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form”.
The exhibition will explore ideas of connections across time, how locations have multiple uses through time and multiple meanings, what endures and what disappears. The idea for Palimpsest came from the richly layered history of Lismore itself, and the verdant nature that surrounds it.
Nicole Eisenman is a New York based artist who established as a painter, and over the past six years has expanded her practice into the third dimension. Nicole is a MacArthur Foundation fellow and was nominated into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018.
Zoe Leonard is a New York based artist who works across photography, sculpture and installation. In 2018 she was given a mid-career survey at the Whitney Museum, New York, that travelled to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Hilary Lloyd is a London-based artist who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2011. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Focal Point Gallery in Southend, Dorich House Museum in Kingston and Temple Bar Gallery & Studios in Dublin.
Charlotte Prodger is the winner of the Turner Prize 2018. Charlotte lives in Glasgow, works in film and sculpture, and will be representing Scotland in the Venice Biennale 2019.
Martine Syms is an artist from Los Angeles who uses video and performance to examine representations of blackness. She has been exhibited at institutions such as Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum in New York, the ICA in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is British artist, born and living in London. Lynette was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2013, and in 2018 she won the Carnegie Prize at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.
Andrea Zittel is an artist who lives at A-Z West, an artwork over seventy acres in the Californian high desert. In 2018, Andrea staged the pop up A-Z West Works at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
The author Olivia Laing will write some text to accompany the show. Olivia published her first novel Crudo in 2018, and is celebrated for her non-fiction works The Lonely City, The Trip to Echo Spring and To The River.
Shown with these works will be archival material relating to Lismore from the Chatsworth Archive. To sit alongside Palimpsest, students from Blackwater Community School will work with the curator to gather oral histories from parents and grandparents in Lismore, ensuring the town’s histories are recorded for posterity. These histories will be presented alongside the exhibition, offering a living archive of the changing nature of the town and its people.
Palimpsest will also feature events and initiatives designed to engage diverse audiences throughout the run of the show. This includes the design and production of a limited edition publication to accompany the show, launch event and seminar in Lismore, the production and dissemination of a Palimpsest map of the town and a series of film screenings.
Charlie Porter is a writer from London who contributes to the Financial Times. He is known for his writing on fashion, most recently as men’s fashion critic for the FT, but has a life-long interest in art. He has worked at titles such as The Guardian, GQ and Fantastic Man, and has written for Luncheon, i-D and Love. Charlie is a jury member of the Turner Prize 2019. Palimpsest is his first exhibition.