Live performance at the Goethe-Institut-Irland, 2021, as part of the Beuys 100 programme in collaboration with the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. Photographs by Molly Keane.

Exhibition statement:

‘Channelling Joseph Beuys’ is a performative artwork by Rónán Ó Raghallaigh. Taking on the persona of the druid, Ó Raghallaigh has developed a practice which incorporates the idea of the artist as someone who channels ideas or images from the unconscious or the spirit world, in this case from the Celtic Otherworld. This acknowledges the ancient Gaelic tradition of artists or poets regarding art-making as something which requires divine inspiration, as well as the Western Modern tradition of artists seeking alternative methods for working in movements such as Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. In ‘Channelling Joseph Beuys,’ Ó Raghallaigh will attempt to enter a druidic trance with the aid of a stag’s skull and a staff, and to channel the spirit of Joseph Beuys. He will then draw the visions or ideas immediately afterwards as a record of the trance experience.