It has to be said that some of the expected big-hitters disappoint. Hirschhorn’s massive The Green Coffin, in which the planet-as-coffin with its excesses and problems, is held aloft by a mass of up-reached arms, is overly literal, messy and bombastic. It gets a prime site, too, in the Real Tennis Court, where Dan Perjovschi’s glib graffiti scrawled on the walls do nothing to help. Equally, Chinese-born Wang Du’s giant, interactive cradle, Le Berceau , is industrial in scale for no particular reason. Neither his nor Hirschhorn’s work is new.
It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that the Irish artists save the day, but they do distinguish themselves. Eamon O’Kane’s Twentieth of April Sixteen Eighty Nine , using the sycamore that once sheltered James II as its starting point, is beautifully installed in the Real Tennis Court, and the levity of Nevan Lahart’s installation in Earlsfort Terrace is the perfect antidote to bombast. Cleary Connolly’s STUDIO 1 Plus/Minus is an interactive video that really works.
Aidan Dunne, The Irish Times - Wednesday, September 7, 2011