Nicole Wermers' Marathon Dance Relief at Lismore Castle Arts

Nicole Wermers' newly commissioned work 'Marathon Dance Relief' is on view at Lismore Castle Arts through May 25. The installation bisects St Carthage Hall diagonally, featuring lustrous metallic café tabletops folded vertically into tondo-like panels mounted with a ten-part air-dried clay relief. Each segment depicts couples mid-motion, referencing Depression-era dance marathons from the 1920s and 30s in the US, where impoverished couples competed for prize money, shelter, and meals. Wermers drew from online images and films, including a memorable exchange from the 1969 film 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' featuring Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin. The relief is intimate in scale, presented at eye height, subverting classical monumentality and heteronormative compositions with androgynous, sometimes same-sex partners. The work explores concealed labor, the conflation of work and leisure for capitalist gain, and women's expendable value. Wermers' use of air-dried clay gives the piece a tentative, unfinished quality. The exhibition runs at Lismore Castle Arts, County Waterford, Ireland.