The Butler Gallery is pleased to present a suite of performances by Irish artist Declan Rooney. Rooney grew up in Tullow, Co. Carlow but now lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Declan Rooney works in various mediums including installation, video and live performance. He is interested in social gatherings, communities and groups that are brought together and defined by commonalities and interests. In both his video and performance works, his stylized and expanded variations of ‘living pictures’ overlap and echo each other in complimentary and contrasting ways.

The exhibition at the Butler Gallery will evolve from work undertaken by Declan Rooney with Kilkenny-based groups in the gallery over the period of the exhibition run.  Rooney will spend time with these groups who will include skaters, musicians, artists, actors and volunteers, getting to know them and interacting creatively with them in a workshop-like environment, inside and outside of the gallery. This work will culminate in a performance with each of the groups in one of the four galleries of the Butler.

Documentation of these time-based performances is an important element of Rooney’s practice. Francis Casey, an artist from KCAT, Kilkenny Collective for Arts Talent, will work on site with Rooney making drawings of the work in progress. These drawings will join objects and documentary material that contribute to the exhibition as a whole. Urban Sports Kilkenny are the first group that Rooney has begun to work with, the results of which will be presented in both film footage and live routines in the gallery space. The output of that collaboration will be experienced in the gallery in a performance on Saturday, June 12, from 1-5pm.

Declan Rooney studied Sculpture at the National College of Art in Dublin, and Performance Art/Raum Konzept at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig, Germany. He has exhibited at the Crawford Gallery in Cork, the Fridericianum Kassel, PAC Milan, PS1 New York and at the Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam. Rooney has participated in residencies at the Bluecoat Arts Centre as part of the Liverpool Biennale in 2004 and at CCA Kitakyushu in Japan. He also works as a project manager and curator, previously on such projects as ‘Intermedia’ at Triskel in Cork, ‘who is your friends? / the soap operas’ exhibition at Soap Gallery in Kokura Japan and ‘How Could You Be Angry While Grooming A Dog?’ at Galerie Perpetuel in Frankfurt. Rooney currently runs Berlin based ‘Kunstprojects’ and is a former Director of the ‘IPG’ (Independent Performance Group). Rooney is also a member of the performance groups The New Spastiks (with Herma Auguste Wittstock), The H*E*R*D Group (with Eunhye Hwang) and the band PPPKKKSSS.

www.declanrooney.com

Updates and notifications about later performances in June and July can be accessed via the Butler Gallery’s website and Facebook page or by phoning or dropping into the Gallery.

Opening Hours: 10am - 5.30pm
Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland
t: + 353 56 7761106  f: +353 56 7770031 
e: info@butlergallery.com