Muristek
girls girls girls review – Simone Rocha curates a dazzling display of art by women
Lismore Castle ArtsThe Irish fashion designer has brought together an impressively varied international collection of heavy hitters and emerging artists in a fairytale setting
Huge, ancient magnolias are in full bloom in Ireland’s oldest garden, which surrounds Lismore Castle, in the Waterford countryside. Mauve aubretia crawls up stone walls, while stiff white daffodils and maroon fritillaries bow and curtsy to each other on the lawns. Edmund Spenser is said to have composed his epic poem The Faerie Queene in the gnarly yew walk in the late 16th century, though the magnolias were a Victorian addition, creating a glorious spring garden for successive dukes of Devonshire.
It’s almost as if the 1922 creation of the Irish Free State never happened, except of course we, the general public, are only here because it did. The compulsory purchase of land from English landowners that followed it left Lismore with seven acres with which to support the upkeep of a whole heap of crumbling masonry. The response of the latest heirs, the Earl and Countess of Burlington, has been to rent out the castle over the summer, let the formal gardens run wild, and convert one of its derelict outbuildings into an art gallery, which has been operating as a not-for-profit enterprise since 2005. Its new summer show – girls girls girls – is a class act, both cheekily of the moment and locked in a whispered conversation with its historic surroundings.
Continue reading...