Poetry reading of acclaimed book, ‘The City’, at Limerick City Gallery of Art

A very special event will take place on Thursday 11th of June at 6.30pm at Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA) with artist Gavin Hogg and Poet, Paul Sweeney.

‘The City’ book resulted from a collaboration between the artist Gavin Hogg and poet Paul Sweeney.
Physically the book began from conversations Sweeney and Hogg had in early 2004. Sweeney was working on a series of poems which referenced the work of C.P, Cavafy, an Egyptian poet who died in 1933. A constant presence in the poetry of Cavafy is his home city of Alexandria.

Hogg has always been interested in the idea of the city as a physical and imaginary space. A collection of histories, journeys and chance encounters. In addition there is his inherent interest in the ability of visual language to explore and interpret different imaginative spaces and forms of expression and so the poems in ‘The City’ collection provided both an opportunity and challenge to expand Hogg’s own thinking and interpretive abilities. The poems also explore the aesthetics of light and shadow, figure and abstraction, the many paths of story and influence.

There are 8 prints in each book, all of which are inspired by individual poems in the collection. Each print was editioned by Hogg in Limerick Printmakers in 2004 at the then premises, 4 Robert St. The assemblage of the book itself took another couple of years and was not actually fully completed until the summer of 2007.

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Both Sweeney and Hogg are still in awe of the ‘The City’ as an object. It succeeded and succeeds on so many levels, not least as a physical object and the amount of work which went into it. The poems were written and rewritten, the prints were lifted individually over a month and the text, which was printed on a large format inkjet printer on A1 sheets of fabriano and then torn down and assembled into the correct order. Finally, the book was bound in the beautiful linen and leather binding at Muckross House in Killarney, Co. Kerry.

‘The City’ is a unique collection of collaborations, meetings and journeys, both imaginary and physical and as an art object Sweeney and Hogg hope it provides the audience with journeys and encounters of their own.

This will probably be one of the last opportunities to both see the full context of the work, and hear the work being read by the Poet.

For more information on the Limerick City Gallery of Art, click here

Check out artist Gavin Hogg’s Twitter here

Check out poet Paul Sweeney’s Twitter here

For more information on poetry, click here