In The Picture: 'Why be an artist?' (after Leigh Hobba and Noel Sheridan) at NCAD Gallery

In 1993 or 1994 artist and educator Noel Sheridan, on leave from his job as Director of the National College of Art in Dublin to direct Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in Australia, made a performance entitled "Why Be an Artist?'.

Sheridan was a seasoned performer, the son of variety Cecil Sheridan, and an actor himself. The performance, filmed by Leigh Hobba has both a sternness and a humour and, while Sheridan died in 2006, the work, and the question still resonate.

Now a new film at NCAD Gallery, filmed by Oisin Byrne and produced by Vaari Claffey, reasks the question while reflecting on the difficulties of legacy and influence.

Five artists have responded with new performance works, riffing in and out of Sheridan’s original script. Artist Kevin Atherton, whose work often refers to his own historical practice, asks 'Why Be Kevin Atherton?’ while also describing his relationship to Sheridan, a charismatic boss and senior practitioner whose presence cast both light and shadow on Atherton’s work and reputation.

Gary Farrelly mimics the original work to parody both outdated and contemporary perceptions of artmaking and lifestyle: ‘Don’t be an artist if you’ve never had a polyamorous relationship’. ‘Don’t be an artist if you want to express yourself. Expressing yourself is a... dare I say it, a dowdy approach to making art.’

Grace Weir, referring to moments in her own practice which reflects on philosophy and science, addresses Noel Sheridan directly across time: ‘Noel, Why Be an Artist?... If you can avoid detection, even when floodlit’. Seamus Nolan, in describing how art can inflect how we experience the everyday, refers to controversial artworks and how they implicate those who engage with them.

Isadora Epstein splits the ‘artist’ into two characters, a magician and a dog; the former seductive and persuasive (‘I work so hard to be attractive"), the latter cynical and jaded. Epstein performs both parts, along with some magic tricks, to camera and a live audience.

The film, part one of a larger project, uses a series of collaborative portraits to form a knobbly, unfixed portrait of a profession or a ‘discipline’ as Sheridan refers to it. Byrne and Claffey have tailored the filming of each segment to the artist/performer, (occasionally including examples of previous work) and these are spliced together to build a conversation about work and persona and reputation and ‘rules’.

Commissioned by NCAD, the show includes the original filmed performance by Noel Sheridan and is accompanied by a series of talks and workshops.

'Why be an artist?' (after Leigh Hobba and Noel Sheridan), NCAD Gallery, Dublin until February 15th, 2023 - find out more here.