‘Extempora’ by Jason Dunne

‘Extempora’ will open to the public on Friday 12th of March from 6 – 9pm and will run until Sunday 14th of March.

A text written by Sam Keogh will accompany the exhibition.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the artist will discuss his work at 5:30 on Saturday 13th March followed by screenings of Dan Graham’s ‘Rock My Religion’ at 6:30 and Maya Deren’s ‘Divine Horsemen, Living Gods of Haiti’ from 6:30.

Jason Dunne will work on-site in EXCHANGE GALLERY from the 1st to 11th of March producing an installation which will be exhibited from the 12th-14th of March. His practice is predominantly lens-based and explores on a formal level the relationship between time, narrative and the image. Working with people, he invents his own subject matter in the form of costumes, props and domestic, exotic and absurd sculptural environments. Experiential research into religious ritual, occult mysticism and tribal culture are drawn upon to position the process of image-making as an active counterfoil to a regimented, secular consumerism.

In ‘Extempora’, Dunne will make use of the highly visible Exchange Gallery space by experimentally revealing his often performative process of photographic production to the public. Intending to question individual authorship and control, he has invited numerous artists and performers to join him in the gallery space as ‘models’ who will be encouraged to collaborate within the creative process. By bringing to the space nothing more than camera equipment, costumes, text & image research and sculptural materials, he aims to open up his practice to that which could not have been foreseen or planned for.

Dunne is also specifically interested in altering the way in which artists and audiences interact with the production and exhibition of contemporary art. By blurring the lines between production, exhibition and evaluation, he aims to disrupt the often routinised and formulaic activities in art practice, which allow us to act passively as consumers in the repetitive ritual of exhibition.