The Avant Gardaí Arrested Jennifer Walshe
The Irish Art Collective Grúpat
Susanne Laurentius
In 2001 the Art collective The Avant Gardaí initiated the three hours long, illegal and multimedial show Quaring the Square on the Tallaght Square in Dublin. A riot starts. The police intervenes, several members of the group get arrested. All of them avoid to reveal their real names and all answer to every question with only one word: «Grúpat». The group just found a new name. The ten stable members are called: Bulletin M, The Parks Service, Turf Boon, Ukeoirn O’Connor, The Dowager Marchylove, Flor Hartigan, Violetta Mahon, Detleva Verens, O’Brien Industries and Freya Birren. Only few of them have a classical music education. They are technic freaks, photographers, DJs, sprayers, performers; some come from a theatre background, others from the figurative arts. They all work in very different ways, yet they are bound with their interest in sound.
