Glorious failures in Kilkenny

Was curator Mike Fitzpatrick tempting fate with the title 'Failure at the Kilkenny Arts Festival?' Gladly not, writes Aidan Dunne.

Tempting fate, curator Mike Fitzpatrick bravely if riskily marshalled an array of artists under the banner of Failure at the Kilkenny Arts Festival.

Creating something entails the risk of failure, he has explained, and many of the artists and works deal with failure on several levels, from Damien Hirst's video explanation of the best way to shoot yourself to Bas Jan Ader's melancholy films of slapstick disaster, all inescapably associated now with his most famous, supposed disaster - his disappearance at sea in 1975 on a foolhardy attempt at a transatlantic voyage.

Fitzpatrick noted that a Google search for the word "failure" comes up first with the name GeorgeWBush, and it is hard to see Roman Signer's extraordinary video of a radio-controlled model helicopter battering itself to smithereens in a dusty concrete enclosure without thinking of the Bush administration's misconceived and mismanaged war in Iraq. The work considerably predates the invasion, but it is uncannily well-suited as a metaphor. If this all sounds a bit grim, it is.

And it gets worse. Joe Duggan's largescale staged photographs of family life could be read as a bleak exploration of the hollowness at the heart of idealised pictures of contented domesticity, travestying the ideal of the affluent, nuclear family.

Steve Reinke's hijacking of a National Geographic ethnographic video, so that it becomes a chronicle of disillusionment and failure, is compelling and dark.

There are much lighter notes, though, including fairly humorous pieces by Julie Henry and Alex Bag.

If much of Failure features reruns, including Gerard Byrne's tweaked version of an oblique film installation, A Crime Dramatically Reconstructed, Again, and a new version of Tina O'Connell's bituminous sculpture in slow-motion, there are also notable new projects, including Vito Acconci's contribution. His audio notes of potential commissions that never got off the starting blocks are very eloquent and involving. Martin Healy's Genesis 28:12 evidences his fascination with the dark mythology of popular culture. He puts the myth that satanic messages are encoded in Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven to the test.

Caroline McCarthy's brash installation Endeavor (1944) is certainly ingenious but ultimately gets lost in its own labyrinthine logic. An acerbic note of sociopolitical commentary is evident in the work of Tom Fitzgerald and Nevan Lahart.

The former reprises some of his work critical of big business and the Celtic Tiger. Lahart sets his sights on property development and the commodification of cultural identity. His sculpture of "an Irish balcony" - that is, an essentially pretentious non-balcony - speaks volumes about the current building boom.

At the Butler Gallery, Jeanne Silverthorne takes the notion of the portrait and extrapolates on it considerably.

In Burning DNA she not only provides intricate, toy-like models of her subjects, but also, working from DNA samples, traces their ancestry back to the particular mitochondrial Eve of each. Such pinpointing is possible because of the several population bottlenecks the early human population narrowly survived. Silverthorne also uses electrical current as a symbol of the continuity of genetic lineage, with phosphorescent cables and fittings coiling their way through the Butler's rooms with an air of playful exuberance, culminating in a laboratory bench that nods towards Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and other narratives about the generation of life, though without the darker overtones. It's a show rich in incidental detail that rewards careful attention.

The title is unwieldy, but the Ceramics Ireland International Festival Exhibition, together with Emerging Ceramics at the National Craft Gallery, is a big hit. The two shows, located in adjoining wings of the gallery, juxtapose established international ceramists with emerging talents from Ireland and Wales (the latter marking the start of a long-term collaborative project). The confidence and polish of the veterans is noticeable, but the younger artists acquit themselves well. Among the former, John ffrench, who had a substantial show recently in Kenny's Gallery in Galway, shows a dazzling array of uniformly-sized, brightly-patterned bowls. Very reasonably priced, they sold like hot cakes, as did the exceptionally graceful porcelain pieces by Sasha Wardell.

AN IMPECCABLE SENSE of form is also evident in the more robust, earthy, sculptural idiom employed by Eric Astoul and Greg Crowe. Daphne Corregan's pieces are brashly assertive, eclectic in their range of reference, made with great verve, and very convincing. Among the emerging artists, Jane Jermyn's subtlycoloured, seed pod-inspired forms and her installation are exceptional. But there is hardly a weak note throughout. Looking around the show in general there is a sense that, as sculptors per se turn to new media, ceramists have become guardians of sculptural form, with knowledge and appreciation of its long history and enduring importance.

Sculpture at Kells has grown over its brief life span to date, and perhaps there is a price to be paid for growth. One misses the initial wild-card quality of the  event, whereby you could count on finding substantial examples of the work of a well-known sculptor in the stunning setting of Kells Priory. Barry Flanagan, for example, featured one year, and his hares looked very much at home in various areas of the landscape. The show is now organised in partnership with the Strata Florida Development Group of Wales and was first seen there.

has grown over its brief life span to date, and perhaps there is a price to be paid for growth. One misses the initial wild-card quality of the  event, whereby you could count on finding substantial examples of the work of a well-known sculptor in the stunning setting of Kells Priory. Barry Flanagan, for example, featured one year, and his hares looked very much at home in various areas of the landscape. The show is now organised in partnership with the Strata Florida Development Group of Wales and was first seen there.

Pretty much everything included reflects an awareness of the historical resonances of one or other of the two ancient sites the work occupies. Perhaps too much so. A great deal of attention is devoted to teasing out layers of cultural references, perhaps to the detriment of the actual work. Iwan Bala, for example, provides a rich context for a piece that just doesn't live up to its fascinating preamble and range of references. You can tick off checklists of appropriate allusions and still not manage to engage fruitfully with the site.

Kathlyn O'Brien's Bell is much more general in its local relevance, but all the more satisfying as a piece, nonetheless - it is probably the best in the show in every respect. A ribbed form compounded of two images - a silenced bell and a cloister - it looks terrific in its setting, stately and proud and alive. Also impressive are Michael Warren's welded steel Reliquary, with its strong sense of inner contained space set against the vast expanse of the Kells enclosure, and Tom Fitzgerald's limestone memorial to his father.

THE RUDOLF HELTZEL Gallery features small-scale sculptures by Alan Counihan, including a group of allegorical vessels, inspired by the otherworldly voyages of early Irish literature and composed entirely of sections of animal bones. Appropriately, given their setting, they are marvels of craftsmanship, and they are also highly-charged, powerful sculptural objects.

As are his pieces in limestone and glass - meditations on placement and identity in 21st-century Ireland. Deborah Bowden, at Gallery One on William Street, progresses on her previous explorations of the concept of home.

Her earlier work concentrated on doors  and windows: the points of demarcation and transition between inner and outer. Now she has taken the idea of hearth and home in pieces that trace the evolution of the domestic fire and fireplace, from the ancient Fulacht Fia to the microwave.

Woodblock printing is at the core of her work, though she takes it in unorthodox directions, mostly using not printed impressions but the wood itself, which is carved, scorched and painted (and textured with hair) to produce boldly stated compositions of great energy and intensity. She has a real instinct for a simplified, almost ideogrammatic visual language, and the stark physicality of the pieces seems to reflect the basic issue of survival underlying her theme.

There is a huge volume of group shows and events this year, surely more than ever, which draw on reservoirs of talent and energy from a wide surrounding area.

In the surprisingly capacious Bank of Ireland Building, for example, which houses the festival box office, a substantial show features some very good young artists, including Rachel Burke, Ruaraí Carroll, Aisling Smyth, Peter Brennan and Niamh Moran. And it is but one of many big group shows.

• Failure at Kilkenny Arts Festival and other festival exhibitions run until Aug 20, except Burning DNA by Jeanne Silverthorne, which runs at the Butler Gallery until Sep 24. Details of times and venues available from the festival box office, Bank of Ireland Building, corner of the Parade and Patrick Street, www.kilkennyarts.ie