Conversations on Practicalities Through Practice

Alan Phelan’s practice involves the production of objects, participatory
projects, curating and writing. These all inform and contribute to an
interest in the narrative potential surrounding an artwork. This can be
exploited or explored from actual and historical events, ideas, things and
places as well as their fictional counterparts.
Alan Phelan studied at DCU, Dublin, 1989 and RIT, New York, 1994. Previous
solo exhibitions include: Irish Museum of Modern Art and Chapter, Cardiff,
2009; mother’s tankstation, Dublin, 2007; The Lab, Dublin, MCAC, Portadown,
2006. Recent group exhibitions include EV+A, Limerick, 2009; Concourse
Offsite, Blackrock, Dublin, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, 2008; Feinkost,
Berlin, 2007; SKUC, Ljubljana; SKC, Belgrade, LCGA, Limerick, 2006; and the
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2004. He was editor/curator for Printed Project, issue five, launched at the 51st Venice Biennale, and has
curated exhibitions at the RHA, Dublin, Project, Dublin and Rochester, New
York. He has received numerous awards from The Arts Council, Ireland as
well as a Fulbright Scholarship and a John F Kennedy Fund Graduate
Scholarship. Phelan has written essays on several artists, including Tom
Molloy, Abigail O’Brien and Vanessa O’Reilly. He has also had texts
published in Circa, Contexts, Kunst.ee, Source and had a column in VAI VAN
from 2003-06. Phelan was short-listed for the AIB Art Prize in 2007.