Place des Grands Abysses

Paintings 2015 - 2020
Paintings 2021 - present
Works on Paper 2021-present
- 2021
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Large Works on Lino 2021-3
Schmerzbau 2022
The Trotskys in Kilsheelan
No Soap Radio: Drawings and collages 2018-19
Place des Grands Abysses
Parc du Souvenir

Works on Vinyl
Paintings
Drawings, Collage and Other Work
Posters and Prints
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The Last Travelogue of Albert Sitzfleisch
The Last Travelogue of Joseph M.

La Place des Grands Abysses

La Place des Grands Abysses (2020) is both a sequel to Parc du Souvenir (2016) and the conclusion of a project that has occupied the artist for the past ten years, across a variety of media. Central to this project is an hour-long video work and the story of a fictional character, Albert Sitzfleisch; an employee of the cultural section of the Council of Europe, who has spent his life traveling and has just been made redundant. He is now traveling again with his severance money, writing a book on optimism, and also looking for work. The year is 2069. The tragi-comic non-linear narrative takes us through his final months, starting in Kinsale, on the South coast of Ireland, where he has taken a sabbatical from his job to start writing his book, to his after-life as a ghost and an unwitting tour-guide of the ruins of the Place de Vosges a century later. The narrative is also broken by the insertion of tangential episodes – including the history of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s death mask and a damning TripAdvisor review of an Athenian restaurant. In parallel with literary fiction, the work is a result of research, observation and invention. The imagery, both in the video work and the accompanying monumental drawing and digital collages, also supports the narrative but digresses, to allow for multiple readings. La Place des Grands Abysses offers both a meditation on the legacy of the Enlightenment and a speculative portrait of Europe in the near distant future. It also attempts to consider our shared histories and destinies with a balance of dark humour and poignance.

The complete video can be viewed here.

The exhibition, "La Place des Grands Abysses" will be shown at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, from 18th September until 30th October 2020, travelling to Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen in March/April 2021.

7 - 10

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