MAC International
2016
MAC International Ulster Bank Prize is the largest arts prize in Ireland, offering professional artists worldwide the opportunity to exhibit in the MAC. The exhibition will run from 28 October 2015 - 19 Feb 2017.
| Date: | 28 Oct 2016 - 19 Feb 2017 |
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| Time: | 10:00 AM - 7 PM |
| Price: | Free |
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Details
Spanning all three of our galleries, MAC International 2016 provides a truly global perspective on contemporary art practice. This year’s exhibition features work by artists based in Northern Ireland, the UK and Europe, as well as work from as far afield as the USA, Iceland, and Brazil.
London-based, Slovenian artist Jasmina Cibic has been announced as the winner of the 2016 MAC International Ulster Bank Prize of £20,000.
The winning installation, titled Tear Down and Rebuild is the final chapter of a larger, three-chapter body of work called Spielraum, which comprises film, performance and installation works. Spielraum addresses the key elements in the creation of patriotic spectacle and investigates their re-purposing when ideology and the state that sponsored them collapse. This third and final section of the project is specifically concerned with the death of such structures. The script of Tear Down and Rebuild is composed of various quotes culled from political speeches, debates and proclamations, that muse upon the iconoclasm of architecture, art and monuments. The film itself focuses around the conversation of four characters: a Nation Builder, a Pragmatist, a Conservationist and an Artist/Architect.
The artworks displayed in MAC International take many forms, including photography, film, installation, sculpture and painting. Indeed, many push the boundaries of particular media or disciplines; reconfiguring, merging or deconstructing them and, in doing so, broadening our understanding of what art can be. A number of common themes are present in this year’s exhibition. Concepts of nationhood, borders, territory and belonging and investigations into civic, social, political and psychological space pervade throughout.
MAC International is the largest art prize in Ireland and one of the few major art prizes in the UK. The MAC International jury for 2016 comprised of Marta Dziewańska, a curator and writer based in Warsaw; Katerina Gregos, an art historian, curator and writer based in Brussels; and Hugh Mulholland, our Senior Curator here at the MAC. For more information on the artists and artworks featured in MAC International, an audio guide is available from our box office.
This year's finalists are:
Ana Mendes
Nationality: Portuguese
Place of residence: Berlin (Germany) and London (UK)
Angel de la Rubia
Nationality: Spanish
Place of residence: Brussels (Belgium)
Beto Shwafaty
Nationality: Brazilian
Place of residence: Brazil
Darren Harvey-Regan
Nationality: British
Place of residence: London (UK)
Emma Talbot
Nationality: British
Place of residence: London (UK)
Frederic Huska
Nationality: French
Place of residence: Belfast (Northern Ireland)
Hamza Halloubi
Nationality: Moroccan
Place of residence: Amsterdam (Netherlands), Brussels (Belgium) and Tangier (Morocco)
Henrique Neves
Nationality: Portuguese
Place of residence: Lisbon (Portugal)
Ismar Cirkinagic
Nationality: Bosnian
Place of residence: Copenhagen (Denmark) and Prijedor (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Jasmina Cibic*
Nationality: Slovenian
Place of residence: London (UK)
Joy Gerrard
Nationality: Irish
Place of residence: London (UK)
Mariah Garnett
Nationality: American
Place of residence: Los Angeles (USA)
Nikolas Ventourakis
Nationality: Greek
Place of residence: Athens (Greece) and London (UK)
Núria Güell
Nationality: Spanish
Place of residence: Beirut (Lebanon)
Rósa Sigrún Jónsdóttir
Nationality: Icelandic
Place of residence: Reykjavik (Iceland)
Teresa Cos
Nationality: Italian
Place of residence: London (UK) and Brussels (Belgium)
Tom Molloy
Nationality: Irish
Place of residence: Rouen (France)
Wojtek Doroszuk
Nationality: Polish
Place of residence: Rouen (France)
*Winner of the MAC International Ulster Bank Prize 2016
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Meet the Artists
Ana Mendes
Ana Mendes is an artist living and working in Berlin/Germany and London/Great Britain, where she studied Performance at Goldsmiths College, London (2011). Her work has been exhibited at, among others, Defibrillator Art Gallery, Chicago, IL/USA; Sophiensaele, Berlin; Peter Robertson Gallery, Alberta/Canada; Maison des Arts Georges Pompidou Cajarc/France and Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna/Austria. Mendes has been the recipient of several prizes and fellowships, including the Prize of the Jury Sophiensaele, Festival 100 Grad Berlin; Act-Arriaga Prize, 2013; Act Festival, Bilbao/Spain, 2012; Fellowship Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, 2016/17; Writer in Residency City of Vienna, 2014; KulturKontakt Austria; Fellowship Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal, 2010.
Angel de la Rubia
Angel de le Rubia was born in Vigo, Spain in 1981. He studied photography in the Oviedo School of Arts & Crafts, graduating in 2005 with the project “La Fosa de Valdediós” (The Mass grave in Valdedios). This was later published by the Museu del Pueblu d’Asturies. He has since gone on to work on projects in the Balkans, Lebanon and Germany, among other places, with a focus on history, memory and identity after a troubled past. His current focus is this condition in contemporary Spain, where crises has only unfolded already latent social divisions, still determined by a violent heritage.
Beto Shwafaty
Beto Shwafaty (1977) lives and works Brazil. He has a M.A. from NABA - Milano and was a guest student at Simon Starling's class at the Staedelschule, Frankfurt. He has completed residencies such as Lugar a Dudas, Residency Unlimited, and RES-ò. Recent exhibitions include ‘Contract of Risk’ at Luisa Strina Gallery (São Paulo, 2015) and ‘Hablemos de Reparaciones’ at Prometeo Gallery (Milan, 2016). He has received diverse awards, including a Graham Foundation grant. In 2017, he will participate in the Pacific Standard Time LA/LA (Los Angeles) and he is developing a solo show for The Power Plant, Toronto.
Darren Harvey-Regan
Darren Harvey-Regan's work has appeared in exhibitions and publications internationally and is part of the permanent photography collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Solo exhibitions include The Erratics, Copperfield, London (2015 - 2016) The Erratics, Passaggi - Arte Contemporanea, Pisa, IT (2015) Phrasings, The Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam (2013) A Shifting Sense of Things, Sumarria Lunn, London (2013) and A Collection of Gaps, Phoenix, Exeter (2011). Darren Harvey-Regan is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and is based in London.
Emma Talbot
Emma Talbot is based in London. Recent one person exhibitions include: ‘Step Inside Love’, domobaal London; ’Unravel These Knots’, The Freud Museum, London; ’Time After Time’ Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf. Recent group exhibitions include: The John Moores Painting Prize, 2016, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, ‘Comic Tragics’, Art Gallery Of Western Australia, Perth, Galerie Onrust, Amsterdam, ‘Graphics Interchange Format’, Focal Point Gallery, Southend, ‘The Birmingham Show’, Eastside Projects, Birmingham. Talbot’s work is featured in two Thames and Hudson publications: ‘100 Painters Of Tomorrow’, Kurt Beers and ‘Drawing People’, Roger Malbert. Her work is in The Saatchi Collection, David Roberts Collection, Art Gallery Of Western Australia Collection.
Frederic Huska
Frederic Huska is an artist using photography and research. Originally from France, he recently completed a PhD with practice at Ulster University in Belfast. His photographic practice has taken him to various cities across the world, including Marseille, Prague, London, New York, and more recently Los Angeles. He has exhibited internationally at the Lennox Contemporary Gallery in Toronto, 2008; Kathleen Cullen Fine Art Gallery in New York, 2009; the Royal College of Art in London, 2010; the Fine Art College of Shanghai University in Shanghai, 2013; Ku Art Gallery in Beijing, 2013; Belfast Exposed Gallery in Belfast, 2014. He is a visiting lecturer at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster of University.
Hamza Halloubi
Hamza Halloubi was born in 1982 in Tangier, Morocco. He studied visual art at La Cambre, Brussels and at HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts) in Ghent, Belgium. Halloubi’s work shows an interest both in the grammar and semiotics of film and language. These rather theoretical fields are then linked to more subjective issues such as memory and translation. Taking personal experience as a point of departure and filtering it through more abstract concepts, Hamza Halloubi creates inviting visual metaphors. His films develop an aesthetic that tries to merge the internal poetics of human encounters with a rather conceptual approach. His light boxes and installations investigate language’s ability to evoke narratives from fragmented writings. Hamza Halloubi lives and works in Amsterdam, Brussels and Tangier.
Henrique Neves
Since 2008 Henrique Neves has presented work mainly in Portugal, including at Contextile Biennial 2014, Guimarães, the 18th Cerveira Biennial, and Casa-Museu Medeiros e Almeida, Lisbon. He has also shown at Plastique, Danse, Flor, Versailles, France. He attended the Programme for Independent Studies (Maumaus, Lisbon) and Goldsmiths College (M.A. in 20th Century Art Theory). Neves has a background in performance and has assisted the choreographer, Jerome Bel, restaging his works around the world. He lives in Lisbon, where he facilitates practice-based art workshops with various community groups, including senior citizens, children and those without easy access to art education.
Ismar Cirkinagic
Ismar Cirkinagic was born 1973 in Prijedor, Bosnia and Hercegovina, at the time SFR Yugoslavia. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2006, and since then has been living and working as an artist in Copenhagen and Prijedor. His interests cover conceptual art and photography, usually in the sphere of social and political context. In recent years he has exhibited in several museums and kunsthalle in Denmark and abroad. Some of these include Nikolaj Kunsthal, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Brandts Kunsthallen, Kunsthal Aarhus, Sorø Art Museum, HEART Museum of Contemporary Art, and Esbjerg Art Museum.
Jasmina Cibic
Jasmina Cibic (b.1979 Ljubljana) represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial with her project “For Our Economy and Culture”. Her recent exhibitions include solo shows at MSU Zagreb, MSU Belgrade, MGLC Ljubljana and Ludwig Museum Budapest and group presentations at Esker Foundation Calgary, Hessel Museum New York, La Panacee Montpellier, City Gallery Wellington, MSUM Ljubljana, MNHA Luxembourg, Joanneum Museum Graz and California College of the Arts. Cibic’s films have recently been screened at Pula Film Festival, HKW Berlin, CCA Laznia, Les Rencontres Internationales Paris; Dokfest Kassel and Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. Cibic’s upcoming exhibitions include Pera Museum Istanbul, Crawford Art Gallery Cork and DHC Art Montreal.
Joy Gerrard
Joy Gerrard is an Irish-born artist based in London. She received an MA and an MPhil from the Royal College of Art, London. Awards include an Arts Council Bursary, 2016 and 2011, the Ortho Mid Career artist award from the RHA, 2015, and the Man Group Drawing prize in 2007. She has exhibited widely, recently at Peer, London, 2015. The second element of her work engages public space and built environments. She has produced twelve major public installations since 2004. These include the London School of Economics (Elenchus/ Aporia, 2009) and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (Assemble/Move/Map, 2012).
Mariah Garnett
Mariah Garnett’s work has been screened internationally, including: Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Vienna, (2015); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2013); Ann Arbor Film Festival (2013); White Columns, New York (2012); Venice Biennale, Swiss Offsite Pavilion (2011); Rencontres Internationales: Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Beirut, (2011); Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2010). In 2014, she was in residence at The Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin and featured in Made in L.A., the Hammer Museum's biennial exhibition. In 2016 she had her first institutional solo show at the MAC in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and her first solo show at Ltd Los Angeles. Garnett holds an MFA from CalArts in Film/Video and a BA from Brown University in American Civilization.
Nikolas Ventourakis
Nikolas Ventourakis completed an MA in Photography with Merit at Central Saint Martins (2013). He was selected for Future Map (2013), Catlin Guide (2014) and Fresh Faced Wild Eyed (2014) as one of the top graduating artists in the UK and was the recipient of the Deutsche Bank Award in Photography (2013). In 2015 he was a visiting artist at CalArts with a Fulbright Fellowship and was shortlisted for the BMW Niépce and the Bar-Tur Awards. He has exhibited in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, Germany and the UK. Currently, he is one of the New Museum fellows in IDEAS CITY Detroit.
Núria Güell
Núria Güell graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and continued her studies in Havana and Mexico. Her work has been exhibited in biennials, museums and institutions across Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Middle East and USA. Her work has also been presented in various solo and group shows in 2016, including The Soul of Money, at DOX, Prague; Bread and Roses at MOMA in Warsaw; A Certain Urge at Elisabeth Foundation Project Space in NY. She has displayed her works individually at Dublin’s PAC, Ireland; at MIMA in Middlesbrough, UK and has also been a winner of the Generación 2015 prize, Madrid.
Rósa Sigrún Jónsdóttir
At a young age, Rósa had dreams of becoming an actress but never applied. She became a teacher and hiking guide and has spent a lot of time enjoying nature. She liked drawing and did so in private. At 35 years old she finally applied for The Icelandic Academy of the Arts. Since graduating in 2001 Rósa has participated in numerous group and private exhibitions as far flung as Reykjavík Art museum to Taiwan and Australia. She has served as chair of The Reykjavík Association of Sculptors and been the Association of Iceland Visual Artists representative on the Public Buildings Art Fund.
Teresa Cos
Teresa Cos grew up in the Friuli region of Italy and now lives and works throughout Europe. Her range of approaches is informed by her diverse background, which includes musical practice, an Architecture degree from the University IUAV of Venice and a Masters in Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. Her work has been recently exhibited at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and she was a recipient of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation scholarship. She has been attending international residency programs with artists such as Tacita Dean and more recently at the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht.
Tom Molloy
Tom Molloy was born in Waterford in 1964 and now lives and works in Rouen, France. He studied Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. He was awarded a BA (1987) and MA (1992). Recent solo exhibitions include WAIT, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2016); NATIVE, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas (2014) and ISSUE, Flag Art Foundation, New York (2013). Recent group exhibitions include, IL Y A LE L’AUTRE, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France (2016); BYEN (CITY), Kube Kunst Museet, Alesund, Norway (2016); DEMONSTRATING MINDS, Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland (2015) and 5th THESSALONIKI BIENNALE, Greece (2015).
Wojtek Doroszuk
Wojtek Doroszuk (b. 1980 in Poland) is a video artist based in France. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Faculty of Painting, in 2006. His works have been shown in numerous solo and group shows in, among others, Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw), Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), Location One (New York), Anthology Film Archives (New York), Marina Abramovic Institute (San Francisco), Kunstmuseum Bonn, HKW (Berlin), ICA (London), Casino Luxembourg, Fondation Ricard (Paris) etc. Collaborates with Joseph Tang Gallery in Paris.
Meet the Judges
Katerina Gregos
Katerina Gregos is an art historian, curator and writer based in Brussels. She is currently curator of Personne et les autres: Vincent Meessen & Guests, the Belgian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, and curator of the main exhibition for the 5th Thessaloniki Biennial, entitled Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will.
Marta Dziewańska
Marta Dziewańska is a curator and writer based in Warsaw. She is currently Curator of Research at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw and a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Hugh Mulholland
Hugh Mulholland is a Curator based in Belfast. He was founding Director of Context Gallery Derry, (now CCA) in 1992 and was Director of Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast from 1997-2006 during this period he established OBG as the most significant venue for contemporary visual arts in Northern Ireland. Mulholland has also worked as an independent curator and was Commissioner of Northern Ireland’s first presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2005 with a group exhibition entitled ‘The Nature of Things’ , he also curated Northern Ireland’s following exhibition at the Biennale in 2007 with a solo show of work by Willie Doherty.
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