Periodical Review 2011-ongoing
“The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network.”
Michel Foucault
Chapter 1, ‘The Unities of Discourse’
The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969
Periodical Review (2011–ongoing) is a long-running curatorial project by Pallas Projects which sets out to consider, revisit and review current movements within contemporary art practices from around Ireland. Intended as a space for critical appraisal and consolidation of ideas and knowledge, the aim through each subsequent edition is to facilitate and encourage new readings, collaboration, crossover and debate. Not a group exhibition per se, Periodical Review is a discursive action, with the gallery presented as a journal, a magazine-like layout of artworks in dialogue, the field talking to itself. To date 44 co-selectors, and 240 artists have taken part.
With each iteration PP/S invites two peers – curators, artists, writers, educators – to consider the artworks, exhibitions and projects they encounter over the course of a year and then nominate what was for them, significant practices, works, activity, moments, selected via an editorial process. Within this exhibition framework – a constantly shifting series of subjective viewpoints and positions (geographical, personal, political, institutional) – curatorial unity cannot be prescribed, threads or movements can only occur.
In looking at self-organised exhibitions, off-site, artist-led and independent projects, commercial galleries, museum shows, performances and publications, Periodical Review looks to present the complex and heterogeneous span of visual art in Ireland, creating dialogue and critical reflection amongst peers and between practices, to help develop and engage Irish contemporary art as a whole. In doing this, it can also act as an accessible survey of contemporary art, expanding access to and experience of new art practices from around Ireland to a wider audience.
In addition to curator’s texts which provide context for their selections, the exhibition is accompanied by an essay commissioned in collaboration with Paper Visual Art Journal. This new PPS/PVA Visual Art Writing Commission is intended to further discourse on the contemporary moment in visual art in Ireland, while also building into a record of art practice, projects, and concepts over time.
More:
Read Laurence Counihan’s essay for Periodical Review 12 – Return to Disintegration
Online exhibition for Periodical Review X designed by Other Office
See all previous editions of Periodical Review on the Pallas Projects website
Press:
Building a Pallas: 20 years of modern art in Ireland – Review of Periodical Review 20/16, The Irish Times, December 13, 2016
Pallas Projects bursts out of its gated community – Review of Periodical Review #5, The Irish Times, January 5, 2016