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"Convergence: Literary Art Exhibitions"

Dr. Lerm Hayes was commissioned to curate Convergence: Literary Art Exhibitions by GTG (June-August 2012). The exhibition, funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, was a key event arising from the IAWIS (Word and Image Studies) conference "Displaying Word and Image", Belfast June 2010, convened by Lerm Hayes (WJT Mitchell keynote, 100 delegates from all continents). It travelled to Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland (August-September 2012).

Convergence brought together art, literature and exhibition theory and practice by first setting out – through displayed publications – a history of "literary art exhibitions" in the European tradition, virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. Commodifying events have fed the tourist industry (and displayed a research deficit), but exhibitions also thrived in extra / post-Greenbergian (European) discourses, where art / exhibitions could meaningfully engage with literature (e.g. Szeemann’s work).

The exhibition then evidenced through 25 artworks how artists foreground engaged, liberating elements of (canonical) literature (Büchler, Theis, Rollins/KOS). Irish literature, moreover, cannot uncritically be commodified, where writers purposefully emigrated (Lynch). Works reflecting on the act of reading (Goldsmith, Morris, Cascio, Bonk, Wyn Evans) were displayed alongside visual artists’ writings (Dean, Graham, O’Doherty): the conceptual impetus of writing in visual art has given way to attempts at ‘salvaging’ the now virtually obsolete book as artistic medium. Art Writing bridges the gap (Fusco, Morris). Conceptual writing positions (Pichler, Zboya), educational concerns and copies of the relevant primary literature returned the exhibition’s cycle back to the now re-considered history of literary art exhibitions. There have been “meta exhibitions” before, but not in this area.

The exhibition’s Limerick run was co-terminus with the Yeats-focused Dublin Contemporary. Brian O’Doherty spoke in Limerick, describing how 'Convergence' had prepared and contributed to discourses around it and Dublin’s UNESCO City of Literature status. The exhibition opened and closed with well-attended discussions.