WE LOSE SIGHT OF THE NIGHT, Aisling O’Beirn at The MAC, Belfast on the 18th of April 2025

 

WE LOSE SIGHT OF THE NIGHT, Aisling O’Beirn at The MAC, Belfast on the 18th of April 2025

 

What is concept art and what are its origins?

Aisling O’Beirn’s new exhibition at The Mac, Belfast, is an attempt to talk about global environmental changes connected to urbanisation, electrification and climate change.

The electrification of cities began in the 19th century with Paris being the first electrified city in the world.  This is why Paris is often called ‘the city of light’.  But encroaching urbanisation led to increasing electrification of cities.  Its often hard to see the night sky in a city because of the glare from artificial lighting.  We all like to look up and make out the contours and shape of the Milky Way but it’s becoming increasingly hard to do this.  This is the subject of O’Beirn’s amusing and insightful exhibition.

Kim Howells, one time Labour Minister of Culture, once described concept art as “cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit.”  Concept art has its origins in the wave of experiment that occurred in Europe after WW1, in movements like Surrealism and Dada.  It moved to America where it re-emerged after WW2 and is mainly identified with Andy Warhol, a New York based concept artist who made Avante Garde artworks and films that stunned and shocked the world.  O’Beirn is a concept artist who identifies with this tradition but also works on the interface between art and science.

The exhibition consisted of pillows in the shape of giant stars, depictions of the phases of the moon, and of the cosmos that is visible from earth at any given time of the year.  It moves from concrete art deploying sewing and stitching to creative map making and intriguing depictions of what is above and beyond.  There are amusing contraptions that might be flying machines or new age space stations or just discarded items left to puzzle onlookers.  A montage of words like ‘lux’, ‘lumens’ and ‘glare’ are fixed among swirling lines and exist as associations or pose as language disconnected from sentences but meant to resonate with the themes.  There are also films filled with intriguing depictions of the solar system contrasted with world historical events like the Russian revolution.  These films are puzzling and strange but also mesmeric and entertaining.  They raise more questions than they answer.

Aisling O’Beirn’s exhibition is deserving of our attention because we need to think about “the moral law within us, the starry skies above” as Kant said.  Go to The Mac and learn to look again at what’s above us.

Paul Murphy, The Mac, Belfast

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