Curated by Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes • Opening night 6pm-8pm, Thursday 16 June 2011

This exhibition will show how reading and interpreting literature is – in diverse ways – at the core of some of the most renowned contemporary artists’ practices: Allotrope, antepress, Julie Bacon, Ecke Bonk, Pavel Büchler, Davide Cascio, Tacita Dean, Cerith Wyn Evans, Maria Fusco, Kenneth Goldsmith, Rodney Graham, Joanna Karolini, Sean Lynch, Simon Morris, Brian O’Doherty, Michalis Pichler,Tim Rollins, Andrea Theis, Nick Thurston and Eric Zboya.

It highlights that writers such as Joyce, Goethe, Beckett, Kafka, Sebald and Vonnegut have something to say to artists today – and that artists make a major contribution to how we can all think about literature and aspects of the canon today: as something relevant and liberating. Exhibiting literature has been the domain of literary museums and monuments. On an island from which most renowned writers have emigrated, alternative modes of marking their role have to be – and have been – found: by artists and through exhibitions. These are held in public spaces and in a variety of venues. This exhibition, in exploring the relationships between art, literature and exhibitions, provides an alternative “monument” to writers, their works, to well-read artists – and to innovative ways of bridging these realms through exhibition.

Public Talks

On thresholds… A lecture by Dr Julie Louise Bacon

Date: 13 June 2011 • Time: 1.15pm • Location: University of Ulster, Belfast Campus • Room 82C07

Literary Art Exhibitions
Date: 16 June 2011 • Time: 5pm–6pm • Location: Golden Thread Gallery

Speakers: Dr Elizabeth Crooke, Dr Kathleen McCracken, Dr Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Dr Julie Bacon, Joanna Karolini and Andrea Theis

Subject of the Talk: Literary Art Exhibitions: convergences between the disciplines and exhibition formats, artists’ interest in literature. A follow-on from the “Displaying Word and Image” conference and “Collective Reading” exhibition last Summer.

R.S.V.P. if you would like to attend the gallery talk. All welcome.