Bloomsday at the Gallery

16th June is recognised the world over as ‘Bloomsday’, celebrating the day on which James Joyce, one of the 20th century’s key modernist authors, set the action of his novel ‘Ulysses’. In this special event art curators from across the region will be reading out loud and live from the book.

Turner-prize winner and one of Britain’s most original artists, and the artist behind the Gallery’s current exhibition ‘The Russian Linesman’, Mark Wallinger investigates here many of the issues that have concerned him as an artist over the past 25 years, including the work of Joyce as an abiding influence on his own practice. In 1982, Wallinger journeyed to Dublin to take part in the centenary ‘Bloomsday’ celebrations; an archive recording of James Joyce himself reading the final section of ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ ‘bookends’ the exhibition.

Curators from the city and further afield will be lending their voices for free to this special event which runs throughout Gallery opening hours. In some ways it’s a question of them ‘singing for their supper’ as Gallery visitors will be asked to consider making a donation to the LACF (The Leeds Art Collections Fund), the charitable body which helps the Gallery acquire works of art for the collection.

The exhibition ‘Mark Wallinger curates The Russian Linesman’ continues until 28 June.

Written by: Dominique