In Dublin, was presented at The Barley Mow Pub, Francis Street March 1999. It was an offsite commission by the Project Arts Centre, curated by Val Connor while in residence at IMMA residency programme. Funded and supported by Irish Tar, The Irish Arts Council, IMMA, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA and Crawford City Gallery, Cork.

The project was made while I was based at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) Residency Programme in 1999. From there, I was able to scout the city for appropriate sites before selecting a disused pub that was set for development as part of an emerging property boom in the capital. The Barley Mow Pub, Francis Street March was ideal as it had an upstairs space and a bar which was untouched.

Having reinforced the ceiling of the bar and cut a hole through to the room above, a one tome bitumen sphere was maneuvered in to the upstairs space after removing the windows. The sphere, encapsulated in two half tome casts were placed onto the hole at the start of the private view. The work then slowly deconstructed through the hole, much to the delight of the gathered audience who ran a bet on the time it would hit the floor of the bar below. The event therefore forced the bar to stay open until this time – around 4 hours after it was opened (see below). the work then slowly deconstructed and was open to the public for a further 3 weeks.

OO44 – PS1 at MOMA, New York, New York
This piece was later remade as part of 0044, an exhibition of Irish Artists living in London at PS1. Here the work was displayed on its own platform in the entrance way to the newly reopened PS1 in Queens, New York. See more