Exhibition reflects our plight in art

The sprawling exhibition lacks famous names but offers visitors much to think about

IF YOU are looking for metaphors for our current plight, as a country and as a globalised world, you will find them aplenty in the various venues of this year's Dublin Contemporary exhibition. The vertiginous island in Lisa Yuskavage's painting Tragic Landin the Royal Hibernian Academy, for example, is surely post-boom Ireland.

In the Real Tennis Court at Earlsfort Terrace, Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn is considerably less subtle. His sculptural installation The Green Coffinis a vast, unruly requiem for a troubled world, planet Earth as coffin, with violence, consumerism and culture making up a giant funeral pyre.

In Earlsfort Terrace itself there is Brian Duggan’s meticulous recreation of an abandoned Ferris wheel in the evacuated city of Pripyat, near Chernobyl. The rusted metal of the decaying structure reminds us that the party really is over and it’s closing time in the playgrounds of the West. This is not accidental. The evocation by curators Christian Viveros-Fauné and Jota Castro of WB Yeats in their exhibition title – “Terrible Beauty: Art, Crisis, Change and the Office of Non-Compliance” – signals their determination to address the problems we face.

It's not all bad news, however. Chinese-born Wang Du provides a gigantic, interactive cradle – Le Berceau– to return us to "the warmth of our childhood nursery". The late Alice Neel's portraits of her family at the Douglas Hyde Gallery make up an exceptionally warm, affectionate show. Nevan Lahart's startling installation should make you laugh out loud. And Willie Doherty and James Coleman unveil outstanding new works (at the Hugh Lane and RHA galleries respectively). It's worth noting that Irish artists are tightly woven into the overall mix of 100 or so exhibitors, and that they acquit themselves incredibly well.

Apart from those who regularly visit exhibitions, though, is the wider public going to pay good money – a standard one-day ticket is €15 – to immerse itself in contemporary art? With all due regard to the participants, Dublin Contemporary lacks the charismatic names – Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin et al – that would make marketing it a doddle. If people make the effort, however, there is so much on offer they will not feel short-changed. No one will like everything, but if you like 20 per cent of what you see, you’ll have plenty to think about.

One necessary investment is time. On average, apparently, exhibition visitors devote no more than three or four minutes to an individual piece, which simply will not do in the case of works such as Israeli Omer Fast's engrossing film 5,000 Feet is the Best,based on interviews with pilots who operate unmanned drone aircraft.

The same is true of Paddy Jolley's film on Antonin Artaud, which centres on the French dramatist's bizarre 1937 visit to Ireland; Coleman's intense drama A Work in Progress;and several other works, all worth sustained attention.

Apart from Earlsfort Terrace, other venues such as the RHA, the Douglas Hyde, the Hugh Lane and the National Gallery offer free entry. Almost every commercial and alternative gallery in Dublin has put on a special effort to coincide with Dublin Contemporary, so there has never been a better time to visit galleries in the city. There are many outstanding solo and group shows on view, including Martin Healy’s at Temple Bar Gallery, Siobhán Hapaska’s at the Kerlin and Tom Molloy’s at the Rubicon.