Liliane Puthod—How Long After Best Before

Pallas Projects/Studios are pleased to present Liliane Puthod—How Long After Best Before the sixth exhibition of our 2019 Artist-Initiated Projects programme.

How Long After Best Before by Dublin-based French artist Liliane Puthod brings together new and existing works in a large-scale installation. Considering the exhibition as a temporal dispositif, the gallery space will be transformed into an atmospheric and fully immersive installation for the audience to experience as if one was stepping into a concept store or an archaeological site; in other words a place yet to be discovered and apprehended.

Researching into and manipulating modes of display as well as language used by merchandising strategies, Liliane uses industrial as well as handmade materials to question the temporality of everyday life’s consumption, systems of production as well as the incessant proliferation of goods and their perceived value. Through exhibited sculptures, images and texts specifically made or chosen for the exhibition time frame, Puthod’s work creates new paradigms for the perception of artefacts working around merchandise as an archaeological resource.

This exhibition investigates different layers of time including its ellipses to try and capture our relationship to atemporality, immediacy and the standardisation of commodities. Particularly interested in vessels as self-contained objects (cf. Heidegger’s text about “The Jug”) Liliane examines shapes that can contain, carry or being carried, transport and conserve. In this instance, the jar becomes a metaphor for time and the information it conveys in between. The archaeological remains of vessels can be a source of information from a particular time and space as well as informing us on a social/societal context during which it was used and made. This is when she starts to work with merchandise as an archaeological resource that she can find in her direct surroundings and which carries more than just a physical content, and, this is where the context of the exhibition allows her to assemble these unrelated elements in a specific space i.e. the gallery.

In How Long After Best Before the artist intends to construct unexpected relationships between multiple and singular economies to examine the way forms can problematise the materials from which they are made. References to factory production systems, concept stores and archaeological sites are combined to create a heterogeneous environment in which modes of display are shifting between traditional and semi-chaotic. By altering the specifics features of the gallery space, such as light and circulation, the white cube is displaced from its sacred state and stirs up feelings of desire, restlessness and control. This is reinforced by the use of multiple materials such as PVC, spray paint, clay, steel, bronze and neon light. Drawing from the permanent presence of background sound when stepping into a store, a soundtrack has also been especially made, which will play during the length of the exhibition.

This methodology of appropriation often reveals paradoxical situations intending to question the fabrication and dissemination of information in sociological contexts. She further explores notions around the artist in post-industrial times, the societal ‘common grounds’ or geographical common places and commodification as a connection between fact and fiction in a globalised world.

This exhibition is generously supported by The Arts Council.

Event

Biographies:

Liliane Puthod (b.1986, France) works and lives in Dublin. In 2013, she graduated from a Master of Fine Arts from Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD). Recent exhibitions include: BINGO!, group show with Berlin Opticians Gallery, Dublin (2019), Everything Must Go, solo show at Ps Squared, Belfast (2019), Wish Me a Wonder, group show at Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford (2019), Display Only, solo show at Berlin Opticians Gallery, Dublin (2019) and The ______ Showroom of Lilian Cashman, solo show at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray (2018). Liliane is currently undertaking a summer studio residency at Technological University Dublin and is a recipient of the Visual Arts Bursary Awards (2019).

Dr. Jessica Smyth is a lecturer in the UCD School of Archaeology, has a long-standing interest in daily life in prehistory. Dr Smyth is currently  Principal Investigator on 'Passage Tomb People' (IRC Laureate Consolidator Grant 2018-2022), investigating the social drivers of passage tomb construction in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Initially looking at settlement and domestic architecture in the Neolithic, she now uses both laboratory and library to explore early farming communities.

PolyGlove are a Dublin based electronic duo comprising of Stephen Maguire and Niall Conroy. Pairing the best of their analog and digital equipment they cultivate their own distinct form of techno - with performances marrying their array of hardware synths with custom made psychedelic visuals.

Santa Wrek is a solo electronic music project that focuses on combining classic acid lines, industrial driven sampling and house inflected rhythms to create work that seeks to land somewhere between lighthearted matinee and late night horror. An atonal cacophony.

Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of 10 x 3-week exhibitions taking place between March and November 2019, in the context of a gallery space with a dedicated tradition towards the professional development of artists in a peer-led, supportive environment. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists' talks, texts, workshops or performances, and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.

Artist-Initiated Projects aims to act as an incubator for early careers, and support artists' practices at crucial stages, providing a platform for artists to produce and exhibit challenging work across all art forms. The model of short-run exhibitions with a relatively short turnaround time of 3–6 months is an alternative to the normal institutional model, where the process of studio visit to exhibition can take several years. Shorter lead-in times allow the programme to be quick and responsive, reflect what artists are currently making, and encourage experimentation and risk-taking.