ABOUT
Kunstverein Aughrim is a curatorial production office for contemporary art projects, located on the ground floor of a townhouse in the village of Aughrim, County Wicklow. It is Ireland's first art initiative based on the European model of a kunstverein (from the German word kunst meaning ‘art’ and verein meaning ‘club’ or ‘association’) and is part of the franchise established by Kunstverein in Amsterdam, with sisters in Milan, New York and Toronto.
The mission of Kunstverein Aughrim is to develop curatorial collaborations with artists to support the artistic process of creating new work, and to bring audiences as close to the creative process as possible. Kunstverein Aughrim accompanies the practices of three artists annually, across multiple projects, underwriting the development of new artistic methodologies specific to each artist. Designed to bridge the gap between artistic practice and public presentation in contemporary visual art in Ireland, Kunstverein Aughrim acts as a commissioning, development and production agency for new artistic productions, supporting, mentoring, promoting and representing the artists with whom it works, seeking to develop opportunities for patronage, collaboration and engagement from an early phase of the creative process, through to the presentation stage. At the core of Kunstverein Aughrim’s ideology is a commitment to performativity, a belief in the necessity of art, and a desire to create the potential for extraordinary encounters with artistic practice.
Kunstverein Aughrim is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Wicklow County Council.
WHAT IS A KUNSTVEREIN ︎︎︎
An essay by Berlin-based art critic and writer Rebecca O’Dwyer, positioning Kunstverein Aughrim in the context of the traditional German Kunstverein model, the more recent Amsterdam-initiated franchise, Ireland’s arts centres, GAA clubs and community organisations. Click title to read.
TEAM
Founding Director
Kate Strain is a curator of contemporary art. From 2016–2021 she was the artistic director of Grazer Kunstverein, Austria, where she curated projects by contemporary artists Aimée Zito Lema and Becket MWN, Elisabeth von Samsonow, Bianca Baldi, Alma Heikkilä, Emma Wolf-Haugh, Tai Shani, Edward Clydesdale Thomson, Riccardo Giacconi, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Triple Candie, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Carl Johan Högberg, Niamh O’Malley, Cesare Pietroiusti, Nadia Belerique, Christian Nyampeta, Anne Tallentire, Dennis McNulty, Mehraneh Atashi, Angelika Loderer, Ola Vasiljeva, Isabel Nolan, Ruth E. Lyons, and Emily Mast, among others. In close collaboration with artist Fiona Hallinan, Strain is co-founder of the Department of Ultimology, a research body dedicated to the study of that which is dead or dying. Working alongside Rachael Gilbourne, Strain makes up one half of the paired curatorial practice RGKSKSRG, commissioning, presenting and contextualising contemporary art. Strain previously worked as Acting Curator at Project Arts Centre, a multidisciplinary art centre in Dublin. She is a graduate of History and the History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College Dublin, holds an MA in Visual Arts Practice, IADT Dun Laoghaire, and participated in de Appel Curatorial Programme at de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam and Young Curators Residency Programme at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Strain is a member of IKT, the international association of curators of contemporary art, and regularly lectures in curatorial practice, art history and contemporary art.
Designer
Alex Synge is an Irish graphic designer working under the studio name The First 47. The studio specialises in design for print, web and visual identity for a wide range of clients in the cultural, commercial and academic fields. The First 47 has worked with Ireland at Venice, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Kerlin Gallery, EVA International, FRUIT SHOP, Annex, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and more. Established in Dublin, the studio is currently based in Belfast.
Technical Support and Sustainability Consultant
Shane Malone-Murphy is a Wicklow-based artist, who recently graduated with a first-class honours degree in Sculpture and Combined Media From The Limerick School of Art and Design. His work concerns itself with the entanglement of the human experience with landscape on both the personal and cultural realms. His work specifically takes note of the impact of grief upon one's experience of the environment. His practice is committed to harnessing the power of grief as a catalyst for ecological and social change. By understanding grief in a broader context, he aims to expose its potential to drive meaningful shifts in our relationship with the environment.
Research Placement
Heeyun Hwa studied ceramics (B.F.A.) and recently completed an M.F.A. in Public Arts and New Artistic Strategies at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. She crafts works with tangible materials derived from conceptual ideas. Her sculpture, research, and installation intertwine with her narratives in a larger context of propaganda, ideology, and social structure. She is especially interested in monuments and symbolic objects (gestures), which portend a spatial discourse for understanding real events. After moving to Germany from South Korea, her work increasingly focused on public interventions and installation, considering monuments and their effects on the public. Her practice explores peace and sociopolitical landscapes, including how political ‘materials’ can be delivered outside of a political context.
Curatorial Assistant
Jackson Byrne is an Irish artist based in Wicklow. He works with a variety of media, combining video, photography, digital game-design and drawing. He explores techniques of combining drawing and video work, as well as using digital environments to create narrative films. He is particularly interested in ideas of reality and looking at the possibilities of the advancements of artificial life and the impact it could have on humanity. He has taken part in Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology group exhibitions such as New Translations (2019) at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and Propositions (2022) at IADT Campus.
Associate Production Curator
Christina Simmerer (she/her) is a cultural producer currently based in Graz, Austria. She was production curator at Grazer Kunstverein for over five years, and is currently a central part of the team at Club Hybrid, an experimental, practice-based initiative, dedicated to generating discourse around architecture, urban participation, city development and hybridity. Situated on the outskirts of Graz, Club Hybrid is an active intervention: during the season it questions the existing conditions of current planning politics and explores and discusses ways in which the current limitations of space can be stretched and reinterpreted - an urban and applied practice of (beautiful) living and producing.
ADVISORY PANEL
The advisory panel meets irregularly to discuss the development, vision, direction, and artistic programme of Kunstverein Aughrim. The current advisory panel includes the expertise of Yana Foqué, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Lara Khaldi, Yazan Khalili, Rosie Lynch, Rowena Neville, and Sukhdev Sandu.
NETWORK
Kunstverein is a close-knit network of domestic, not-for-profit spaces, aiming to show practices, attempts and failures of avant-garde artists (of all ages) who have been undersung in contemporary art history. The franchise was founded in 2009 in Amsterdam by Maxine Kopsa and Krist Gruijthuijsen and is led, since March 2019, by Yana Foqué.
The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the age-old German system, whose membership structure we also mirror. This membership structure constitutes the basis of each Kunstverein's existence: the support of individuals from our surrounding communities guarantees us an independent position in the traditional discourse, while at the same time embedding us meaningfully within that community.
From the onset, the goal of the Kunstverein franchise has been to fill gaps in contemporary art history and the cultural field. Each of us do this in a way that simultaneously challenges the (now) traditional formats of the institutional white cube by exploring alternative ways of mediating artististic practices. With this we bring about non-conventional hierarchies between art, artist, audience and institution, participants and authors, offering a fresh alternative to the way art can be encountered, experienced and enjoyed.
This vision is reflected in our event and exhibition programs and permeates our publications. Through our programs we take a closer look at the relationship between visual arts, design, film, dance, and literature, in an attempt to sublimate the boundaries between them. This attitude also has an effect on the scale of our teams (small) and the structure and way in which our organisations function (agile, performative, responsive, reflective).
So far the network includes branches in Amsterdam, Aughrim, Milan, New York and Toronto.
AFFILIATIONS
Kunstverein Aughrim is closely affiliated with the following institutions and initiatives:
Department of Ultimology – a research body established by Fiona Hallinan and Kate Strain at Trinity College Dublin in 2016. The Department considers that which is dead or dying across all fields of academic study as an entry point for transformative encounter.
Grazer Kunstverein – a non-profit, members-based arts organisation located on the ground floor of the historic Palais Trauttmansdorff in the centre of Graz, Austria. Established as a space for artistic production, exhibition-making and mediation, it has always resisted populist influences, instead advocating for the promotion and presentation of qualitative artistic experiments. In 2021 Tom Engels succeeded Kate Strain as the artistic director.
KCAT Arts Centre – a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Callan, Co Kilkenny, Ireland. KCAT is dedicated to fostering and nurturing creative ambition and professional development in the arts. Founded in 1999 with an emphasis on access and inclusion, KCAT is an artist-led organisation that is evolving and changing perceptions and misconceptions around arts, disability and participation.
MAINTENANT – a collaboration between Netwerk Aalst, ar/ge Kunst, B-A-U and Kunstverein Aughrim that resulted from a series of online meetings organised with a group of peers in the spring of 2020 to observe how the pandemic situation was affecting the art sector and its institutions. MAINTENANT is about institutional maintenance. Its goal is to prototype new institutional behaviours and infrastructures.
OMG – The Orthogonal Methods Group is a transdisciplinary research platform within CONNECT - the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Future Networks and Communications at Trinity College Dublin. OMG’s broad purpose is to generate new research orientations through CONNECT that can produce insights on technology, creativity and society. As a research platform, OMG aims to generate conditions for different researchers and publics to share ideas, raise questions and open up critical dialogue about ICT research with key stakeholders.
RGKSKSRG – the paired curatorial practice of Rachael Gilbourne and Kate Strain. Based between Aughrim and Dublin, RGKSKSRG commission, present and contextualise contemporary art. Through linking with sites, communities and institutions, RGKSKSRG works to create new contexts for engaged encounters between artists and audiences. These contexts involve new commissions, solo and group exhibitions, live events, curatorial residencies, talks, interviews, performances, texts, and artworks hosted online or in real life.
PRESS
Links to our e-flux announcements - 2022 | 2023 | 2024
The Visual Artists’ News Sheet - Sept/Oct 2022
The Independent - 5 Oct 2022 | 19 Oct 2022
County Wicklow Heritage - Oct 2022
UCD Earth Institute - Feb 2023
The Independent - Apr 2023
East Coast FM - Apr 2023
The Independent - May 2023 | June 2023
Wicklow Times - May 2023
Culture File - June 2023 (from 5’50”)
The Independent - July 2023 | Aug 2023
The Visual Artists’ News Sheet - Sept/Oct 2023
The Irish Times - Sept 2023
Newstalk - Sept 2023 (from 26’10”)
Irish Arts Review - Nov 2023
Boyle Today - Jan 2024
Wicklow News - Feb 2024
The Independent - Feb 2024
Agriland - Mar 2024
E-flux - Mar 2024 | Apr 2024
Privacy Policy ︎︎︎
Commissioning Policy ︎︎︎
Hospitality Policy ︎︎︎