Joseph Beuys' Irish Energies (reconstruction) 2007 by Sean Lynch; peat briquettes, butter; original made in 1974
On one of his frequent visits to Ireland in 1974, the German artist, Joseph Beuys constructed this, obviously fleeting, piece. Over thirty years later, one of Ireland's leading young artists, Sean Lynch, reconstructed the piece, a gesture that is consistent with Lynch's ongoing, Benjaminian, reclamation of the discarded fragments of the Irish historical landscape. It seems apposite, then, to prefigure this special Irish issue with such a 'dialogic' art work, one that speaks across an art-historical temporal continuum, as well as drawing on the critical heritage of Walter Benjamin, which has nourished so much of the output of Irish postcolonial studies.
On one of his frequent visits to Ireland in 1974, the German artist, Joseph Beuys constructed this, obviously fleeting, piece. Over thirty years later, one of Ireland's leading young artists, Sean Lynch, reconstructed the piece, a gesture that is consistent with Lynch's ongoing, Benjaminian, reclamation of the discarded fragments of the Irish historical landscape. It seems apposite, then, to prefigure this special Irish issue with such a 'dialogic' art work, one that speaks across an art-historical temporal continuum, as well as drawing on the critical heritage of Walter Benjamin, which has nourished so much of the output of Irish postcolonial studies.
ISSN 1705-9100| Affiliated with 