Opening Reception Saturday 24 January, 5 – 6pm, Opening Talk 6 – 7pm

When you think of contemporary art, what comes to mind? Who decides what is contemporary art? How do artists engage in these ideas in their work today? The answer? They don’t. Artists make work. They say things. They see things.

“Artists create and comment in various ways—creating beautiful works, playing with ideas and processes, messing about with traditions and materials. All of these approaches are ways to respond to the world. Artists become visual voyeurs of the contemporary world making and doing to unpack ideas the rest of us are also trying to understand”, explains Model Director Megan Johnston.

The Model is thrilled to present a major solo exhibition of Dublin-based artist Mark Clare. The exhibition, I Believe in You, offers new insights into the work of Clare, who, in his role as a creative public agent, seeks to engage with and highlight unresolved incongruities within our societies, placing scrutiny on the combative issues of globalisation, individualism and public space. The exhibition takes its title from one of three key works created specifically for the exhibition. The large-scale installation I Believe in You, designed to follow the vastness of an exhibition space will float (and de-inflate) in The Model’s atrium. The work explores the idea of society’s disaffection with political engagement and our complex relationship with public institutions.

“What has always interested me about Clare and his work has been his role as a type of social voyeur, a creative agitator, and one who engages with ideas about the contemporary. What underscores Clare’s work is the idea of an individual’s role within the contemporary world—from physical interventions and relationships to socio-political subversions of concepts and issues like the environment, the economy, and the housing crisis. Acting as a type of dissident, Clare intentionally subverts these notions with visual dexterity, humour, and poignant jabs”, Johnston adds.

Want to see what a creative dissident looks like? Visit The Model between 24 January and 22 March. The show comes directly from the Crawford Gallery in Cork. The Model is keen on collaborating on touring shows with other national and international art spaces and continues to leverage collectively to do more together than we can alone.

Clare has created a newly commissioned site-specific work at The Model for his show entitled Ping Pong Diplomacy II, which will be placed in The Model’s foyer area. The audience is welcome to come and play a match or two of ping pong! A public talk will take place on the evening of the opening with Clare and Model Director Megan Johnston. An exhibition catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes essays by Declan Long, NCAD.

Mark Clare graduate from St. Martin’s College of Art & Design (1992), London with a BA (Hons) fine Art Sculpture before completing an MA in Fine Art at the University of Ulster (2004). He now lives and works in Dublin. He has had several solo exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, including most recently ‘MonoCulture’, Broadcast Gallery, Dublin (2013); ‘Dreamhouse’ LaGrangeArt Museum Georgia USA. In 2008, he was awarded an Open Award EV+A 2008 by the International Critic and Curator Hou Hanru and in 2012, was commissioned to produce a work by the Arts Council of Ireland.

For further information on The Model visit www.themodel.ie, www.crawfordartgallery.ie/exhibitions_I_Believe_in_you.html, www.markclare.com/