DANIEL EATOCK
Per/forming Circles
Monster Truck Gallery, Dublin Ireland
in collaboration with OFFSET
24 September - 23 October, 2010
Curated by Sharon Phelan
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Extended Circle
After a week long gallery residency at Monster Truck, Daniel Eatock’s Per/forming Circles has transformed from numerous social events, into an exhibition of nine works that are the residue of the many encounters and first-attempts that resulted from this collaboration. With the many co-authors; from the highly anticipated motorcyclist Robert O’Brien attempting to draw a perfect circle by performing a burnout, the sixty, one-minute-circle-drawers or the curious passers-by, Per/forming Circles comprises of materials, drawings and observations that, while mostly two dimensional in form, are the result of the social sculptures that occurred external to the presentation of the final object. The energy, noise, anticipation, time and generosity of the many encounters and co-authors while not obvious in the final works, divides the audience of Per/forming Circles in to those that were there and those that weren’t. However the strong element of labour in each of the works brings out a curiosity towards the context of each.
By approaching the gallery as a proving ground, where failure, success and chance encounters are embraced, Eatock’s actions resemble the many descriptions by Brian O’Doherty of alternate conceptual practices, where the gallery becomes “infiltrated with consciousness”.* Throughout these diverse works, from the crowd anticipation of the motorcycle burnout, the cognitive dissonance of attempting to draw the perfect circle in one stop-watched minute and the paradox of a spray can coated with its own contents, it can be seen that the pursuit of the perfect circle is the universal aim in an open and democratic project. Per/forming Circles effaces the expert and, as heralded by Joseph Beuys, declares the right of everyone to be an artist.
Sharon Phelan
*As described in O’Doherty’s essay ‘The Gallery as a Gesture’ taken from his seminal collection ‘Inside the White Cube’.
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In Memory of The Original Print Gallery
Watching Daniel Eatock’s ‘Burnout Circle Drawing’ in the Monster Truck Gallery, Temple Bar, it struck me that it was wholly appropriate that this kind of activity would take place in the former Original Print Gallery. The gallery, which has since forsaken the physical world and migrated online, was once an exhibition space and outlet for the artists of the Black Church Print Studio in the building above it and for many other printmakers across the country.
These included some friends of mine, former devotees of that alchemical art, who expressed a dismay bordering on anger when told about Daniel Eatock’s plans for his show in Monster Truck Gallery. They refused to believe that a ‘burnout’ in a gallery space could constitute valid artistic expression. Although they expressed deep suspicions of such a gesture as being brash and pretentious conceptual art, I couldn’t help thinking that they secretly despaired the passing of a space for an embattled practice, a space in which they once exhibited their work.
However on witnessing the spectacle of the burnout on Culture Night, I couldn’t help thinking that, if my friends could forgo the easy prejudice of artistic domain specificity, they would actually find that Eatock’s burnout was consistent with the practice of printmaking; it’s focus on the medium, ‘quality of line’, and somewhat dangerous technique (considering the material involved). After all intaglio printmaking is based on the act of carving through a layer of wax to expose the copper beneath, ready for the hydrochloric acid that etches the mark deeper. The quality of the imprinted line is both the product of the hand that lays it down, and the interaction of the various media of wax, copper, acid, ink and paper. The circle etched into the gallery floor by a one thousand cc motorcycle, created by the combined interaction of; stunt driver, the somewhat dangerous technology in his hands, the quality of the exposed concrete and the bitumen like rubber residue left in its wake, makes for a suitable tribute to The Original Print Gallery.
John Buckley, recalcitrant printmaker
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