EVA '23: Inside Ireland's international biennale of modern art

Artist and critic Frank Wasser takes us through the highlights of EVA International 2023, now running at various venues across Limerick city.

What do an old handball alley, Limerick City Gallery, University of Limerick, a primary school, a cathedral, and a vegetarian café all have in common? Until October 29th they are all venues which are hosting the 40th edition of EVA International, Ireland's international biennale of contemporary art. In total there are over 50 Irish and international artists taking part across 17 venues - this might be a visit to spread across a few weekends.

The biennale is one of the longest-running contemporary art events in Europe. EVA (which originally stood for exhibition of visual art) started in 1977 when a group of artists and academics in the Limerick region came together to make an open call exhibition which strove to show the very best of national and international contemporary art at the time. Initially, EVA was an annual event.

Skip forward to 2012 and EVA was transformed from an annual exhibition to a biennale attracting some of the biggest names in art making and visitors from across Europe. In recent years under the directorship of previous director Woodrow Kernohan and current director Matt Packer the biennale has been transformed into one of the most sophisticated, important and radical platforms in European contemporary art, one which deserves a closer look and further attention from an Irish audience.

The biennale contains many diverse programmes. Platform Commissions, is a platform for new work developed for the biennale by younger emerging artists working across a wide range of materials and subjects. These artists (listed below) are making some of the most critically engaged works across a variety of media you're likely to see this year. The guest programme is curated by Sebastian Cichocki. Chichoki’s practice stems from his background in sociology, and for this edition of EVA he has developed a thematic framework based on the idea of gleaning – a term that has its roots in agriculture, meaning the act of collecting leftover crops after a harvest. The programme is titled The Gleaners Society and it embodies a far-reaching set of gestures, exhibitions and events. Cichocki has embedded his curatorial approach in revisiting the work of previously exhibiting artists, inhabiting previously used sites, inviting the work of collectives and individuals from across the globe and engaging with non-traditional contexts for art making. The result is the activation of a community which through various interpretations of rewilding has been galvanised into action. This act of looking back and taking stock will surely serve as a catalyst of what is to come in future editions.

You will be hard-pressed not to find something that appeals to you in this year's edition, but below are a few standout highlights to guide you on your way, and where to find them.

Kateryna Aliinyk – UL Bourn Vincent Gallery

Aliinyk is an artist whose practice encompasses both painting and writing. She is just one of the artists at this year's biennial responding directly to the war that has engulfed her home country of Ukraine over the past two years. Three of her recent paintings recall the artist childhood in Luhansk. Battlefield (2023) viscerally and expressively depicts the horrors and implications of warfare both in terms of human loss and ecocide. Loose shapes of vegetables take the place of grenades left behind in a seemingly rotten no mans land in manner that feels reminiscent of the sensibilities that made up much of the work of the surrealist painters in the shadow of the First World War.

Kian Benson Bailes – St Mary’s Cathedral

On paper, it’s hard to imagine a work like this existing in the context of which it is displayed. Callieach boy i (2023) and Cailleach boy ii (2023) are Kafkaesque sculptural works that reference a multitude of Irish Mythological figures. Adorning the congregational spaces of St. Mary’s Cathedral the pieces are an amalgamation of craft and domestic materials, they are bodies that persist among the other stone carvings and pre-existing sculptures of the cathedral. The Sligo-based artist has been engaged in making bodies of work that explore queer experience and religious iconography, this work provokes and lingers long after.

Goshka Macuga – Limerick City Gallery of Art

One of the major names included in the biennale, Macuga is a polish artist who lives and works in London. Her practice is based on archival research across a range of subjects and takes many forms such as sculpture, collage and tapestries. The Fable of the Wolf, the Polar Bear, the Reindeer and the Cosmonaut (2018) is a large tapestry that satirically depicts animals or perhaps figures dressed up as a wild animal holding up protest placards. A rather tall figure wearing a polar bear costume can be seen sporting a placard that reads ‘IT’S HOT IN HERE’.

Bea McMahon - Gardens International

A common thread running through many of the works at this edition seems to be a reflection on forms of consumption, this is particularly so in a new work created by Bea McMahon. Titled Another Shot at Love (2023) is a mesmerising new video and sculptural work that awkwardly (albeit intentionally) explores comedic tropes of romance. Expect, giant inflating and deflating Popcorn sculptures, crushed Hula Hoops, out-of-sync lip-syncing, alongside close-up of actors and artists delving into the strange little rituals that sustain a shared idiosyncratic laced social fabric. This is not to be missed.

Frank Sweeney – Gardens International

Frank Sweeney is one of the six artists that have been selected for this year's Platform Commissions. The six artists chosen by artist Emily Jacir and curator Pádraic E. Moore are Philip McCrilly, Sarah Durcan, Sharon Phelan, Frank Sweeney, Cliodhna Timoney and Amna Walayat. Sweeney's work playfully examines broadcast censorship in the context of the Northern Ireland conflict. The work was developed in collaboration with Michelle Malone, you may recall her well-received show at the Lab in Dublin last year.

Navine G. Dossos – The Grove

Immersive is an overused word these days, but in this incidence highly appropriate. Navine G. Dossos has created a meticulously and seductively realised mural on the walls (and many surfaces) of the vegetarian kitchen of The Grove on Limerick's Cecil Street. The walls of the vegetarian kitchen are adorned with beautifully painted motifs and depictions of local foods and plant life situated at the height at which you might expect to find them. Symbols of the various eco-activist organisations (such as Extinction Rebellion) frame the top of the mural, reminding the perhaps passive viewer enjoying their lunch that all the wonderful earthly delights we rely on in a city on a daily basis are still under threat.

John Carson – The Commercial Bar

Alas, should you manage to see the whole biennial then it’s off to the pub you go. A hidden gem of this biennale is the work of John Carson. This is a piece you can save for the end of the day, situated in the snug of The Commercial (a bar on Catherine St). The title of the work (A Bottle of Stout in Every Pub in Buncrana, 1978–79) gives the plot away somewhat. Carson’s work spans decades and often pushes the parameters and conventions of conceptual art and traditions. Within the snug, you will find a small publication that documents his persistent and comical attempt to convince the Guinness company to sponsor the work, albeit unsuccessfully as they couldn’t endorse such irresponsibility. Make sure your pint is out of your hand while viewing this one, there’s a touch of the rib-shaking humour of Flann O’Brien about it.

EVA International runs at various venues across Limerick until October 29th - find out more here.