Review published in Art Monthly 343, February 2011: 29-30
Maeve Connolly
The exhibition culminates in an exploration of architectural forms, both invented and actual.
Eamon O'Kane's Froebel Studio, 2010, is an 'interactive playspace' bounded by geometric screens intended to reference the work of Mondrian, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Charles and Ray Eames (all influenced by Froebel's ideas), while Kotátková's Model of a school building created from a memory, 2008, deliberately confuses scale so that miniature classrooms are dwarfed by potted plants. Finally, Universities With Exhibition Galleries (from the Campus as a Work of Art series), 1998 by Christian Philipp Müller, consists of framed silkscreen prints featuring plans of ten international universities, overlaid (in red) with the plan of the University of Luneburg, Germany. A text presented with the prints alludes to the evolution of the museum as 'a place to learn about history', briefly noting differences between the galleries in terms of their function and formation.
The positioning of this work close to a display of antiquated classroom furniture from the
collection of University College Cork, acts as an effective reminder of the institutional situation of School Days, so that the university gallery emerges as an important site of curatorial learning and research.