Event Details

Dates

29/04/2010 – 29/04/2010

George Bolster
Sociodesic: A Space for the Three Great Loves

Galway Arts Centre
April 29 – May 29, 2010.

Galway Arts Centre is delighted to present a solo exhibition by New York based Irish artist George Bolster. He has come to international attention over the last few years with numerous exhibitions including his commission for Mass MoCA the largest contemporary art museum in America and High on Christ his solo exhibition at Chung King Project in Los Angeles.

Through the quotation of pop music and street culture, his work engages a wide range of ideas, such as: the equation of Christianity with contemporary culture; the re-contextualisation of religious figures; and the curiosity, bewilderment and even envy that accompany an aporetic experience of religion. He is interested in the exploration and invention of contemporary allegory and views look at religious buildings as the first sites of fusion of the arts. He creates works drawn from Biblical characters and narratives and fuses them together with contemporary cultural references. He questions and deconstructs the accepted narrative and conventions presented in art history with the introduction of contemporary elements such as hi-fi headphones, corporate logos and gothic tattoos.

Space of the three Great Loves, one of the two new installations made for Galway Arts Centre, is in the form of a Geodesic dome that dominates the architecture in which it is housed. A modular chapel for the marriage of Heterosexuals, Homosexuals and Lesbian couples and based on the teachings of The Church of Spiritual Equality. Begun in California in the mid sixties by founder/prophet Groeg E Bretslo, this was a cult with a human rights bent. Bretslo’s obsession with the architecture by Buckminster Fuller and plans to build a never realized dome like church is speculatively realized here. The Space is beautifully covered in printed images harking back to sixties like visions of a utopian future.

This exhibition runs until May 29, 2010. All are welcome and admission is, as always free.

Galway Arts Centre receives funding from the Galway City Council & Galway County Council.