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Lismore Castle Arts presents Reverse!Pugin, an exhibition curated by artist Sean Lynch.
Playfully titled after nineteenth century architect and critic Augustus Welby Pugin, Lynch’s exhibition explores the attitudes that underpin human relationships to the environment. Pugin’s catholic sensibilities, as expressed through large-scale architectural and ornamental design (seen throughout Lismore Castle and London’s Houses of Parliament) promoted the idea of glorified unity and strict coherence to a singular vision. With this belief, all the forces of nature, human perseverance and morality would fuse together into an energised whole. Reverse!Pugin imagines a different kind of legacy, deconstructing Pugin’s ideals to dwell in the conflicts and frictions found in how environments are shaped and mediated. There’s no hierarchical masterplan or spiritual identity to be found here - rather the artworks and objects selected by Lynch bargain, hustle and improvise with a variety of locations and social formations. In this accumulation, featuring postindustrial landscapes and garden design, Hollywood movies and Internet infrastructure, casinos and antiquarian watercolours, there is little holistic certainty. Rather, the devil resides in the details...
An overview of filmic representations of Skellig Michael rock is presented, contextualising the Irish governments’ capitulance of the World Heritage site to Disney’s latest installment of the Star Wars franchise. Celtic Tiger recollections include a large model of 1996’s proposed Sonas (translated as “Happiness”) Centre in Dublin, featuring a bespoke replica of a megalithic stone circle. Fiona Marron and Sam Keogh question today’s communication systems and devices. Stephen Brandes, John Latham and Diarmuid Gavin exhibit various approaches to the construction and ideology of monuments. Stonemason Philip Quinn presents materials he uses each day in restoration work at Lismore Castle and Michele Horrigan updates antiquarian representations, while Daniel Knorr fervently collects rubbish from around the streets of Ireland and turns it into books. In these and other instances, Reverse!Pugin proposes a version of geography far away from tranquil uniformity and the comforts of identifying with history and heritage. Instead, everything constantly mutates and nothing ever stays the same.
Reverse!Pugin features contributions by Gabriel Beranger, Stephen Brandes, Burke Kennedy Doyle architects, Central Bank of Ireland, Kenneth Clark, Diarmuid Gavin, Werner Herzog, Sam Keogh, Daniel Knorr, Michele Horrigan, John Latham, Fiona Marron, David A. Paton, Philip Quinn, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and Bold Puppy Multimedia Productions. A fully illustrated publication with an extensive essay by Sean Lynch and designed by Paul McAree accompanies the exhibition.
