IMMA announces 2023 Programme Highlights
Strong female led work at the heart of IMMA 2023 Programme

IMMA, today (9 February, 2023) announced highlights of its 2023 programme, opening with a major retrospective by one of Ireland’s most accomplished and respected artists, Patricia Hurl. Developed over the course of 40 years, the primary subject of Hurl’s work is the lived experiences of women and sets the scene for a strong female led exhibition programme taking place at IMMA this year. 

Alongside Hurl, other solo exhibitions by artists include Sarah Pierce, Howardena Pindell, Jo Baer and Anne Madden. Other significant highlights during the year will include a major photography exhibition exploring portraiture from the Bank of America Collection; a museum-wide exhibition Self-Determination, the culmination of a three-year project as part of Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries Programme; the design and creation of a new community space in partnership with Matheson, and the return of the Museum’s popular summer programme IMMA Outdoors and IMMA’s Eco Art Festival, Earth Rising.  

IMMA is proud to open the year with Irish Gothic, a major retrospective exhibition by one of Ireland’s most accomplished and respected artists, Patricia Hurl. Greatly admired by fellow artists, but overlooked for decades by the prevailing art system, this is Hurl’s first comprehensive exhibition, presenting work spanning over 40 years of the artist’s career.  

In March IMMA presents another important large-scale solo exhibition by Sarah Pierce, Scene of the Myth, guest curated by Rike Frank and the European Kunsthalle. The exhibition features 12 major works, spanning 20 years, to highlight patterns of making and thinking that define Pierce’s art practice. Borne out of sticky relationships between the narratives we reproduce and those we wish to leave behind, Scene of the Myth asks what it means to protest, reflect, and act in community.   

A key moment in the Spring is the launch of a new community space in the heart of the Museum, in partnership with Matheson Law Firm – The Matheson Creativity Hub in Memory of Tim Scanlon. Tim Scanlon, former Chairman of Matheson and Board Member of IMMA, was an important influence on IMMA’s thinking, who encouraged progressive programming and conversations that placed community engagement at the heart of the Museum’s activities. Following an invited design competition, the Creativity Hub winning design will be announced on 23 February. 

This summer IMMA will proudly present, Influence and Identity: Twentieth Century Portrait Photography from the Bank of America Collection, in partnership with the Bank of America. This is a major exhibition featuring the works of international photographers from the early through the mid-twentieth century, a period often called the ‘golden age of portrait photography’. The exhibition includes works by master portraitists such as Antony Armstrong-Jones, Richard Avedon, Yousuf Karsh, Gisèle Freund and Chuck Stewart, as well as renowned photographers Berenice Abbott, Imogen Cunningham, Garry Winogrand and Brassaï. This exhibition has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program. 

IMMA Outdoors returns once again in 2023 with a vibrant programme of artist commissions, performances, music, talks, workshops, and tours taking place across the site. And after a successful first year, 2023 sees the return of Earth Rising, IMMA’s Eco Art Festival celebrating people, place and planet, taking place over three days in September. In addition, IMMA’s much loved Summer Party will take place once again this July.   

In the Autumn, IMMA presents a major museum wide exhibition, Self-Determination, as part of the Decade of Centenaries Programme that marks a century since the partition of Ireland and the subsequent formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The exhibition focuses on the role of art and artists in shaping the island’s jurisdictions in the international context and aftermath of the First World War. This exhibition is part of a three-year initiative supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. 

Commenting on the 2023 programme, IMMA Director, Annie Fletcher said “It is wonderful to kick start the year with a museum scale retrospective of the work of Patricia Hurl. This is exactly the kind of exhibition IMMA should be programming – not only bringing world class international practice to Ireland, but also mobilising all the museum’s resources to research and exhibit what is an outstanding Irish painting practice.” 

Other key exhibitions in 2023 include Championing Irish Art: The Mary and Alan Hobart Collection, opening in April, that explores the role the Hobart’s and the Pyms Gallery played in establishing a new canon of Irish art. Unseeing Traces also opens in April – an exhibition presented with New Communities Partnership (NCP), Ireland’s largest independent migrant-led national network. A solo exhibition by American artist Howardena Pindell opens in June comprising works from the 1970s to the present, and in August a series of works by two prominent painters will be exhibited – Irish artist Anne Madden and American artist Jo Baer. To conclude the year, IMMA is delighted to host the most important platform for visual art graduates in Ireland, The RDS Visual Art Awards in December. 

Please click on the links below to read more about the individual exhibitions, which will be accompanied by a dynamic programme of talks, events, screenings, performances, artist residencies and artist commissions to be announced throughout the year. For exhibitions without links please contact a member of the press team for further details.  

IMMA Programme 2023 

Opening in 2023 

Patricia Hurl, Irish Gothic  
10 February –  21 May 2023

The Matheson Creativity Hub in Memory of Tim Scanlon
February – 26 March 2023

Sarah Pierce, Scene of the Myth 
24 February – 26 March 2023

Championing Irish Art: The Mary and Alan Hobart Collection
8 April – 23 September 2023

Unseeing Traces
15 April – 11 June 2023

Influence and Identity: Twentieth Century Portrait Photography from the Bank of America Collection
26 May – 8 October 2023

Howardena Pindell, A Renewed Language
29 June – 30 October 2023

Coming Home Late: Jo Baer’s in the Land of the Giants
24 August 2023 – 21 January 2024

Anne Madden, Seven Paintings
21 August 2023 – 21 January 2024

Self-Determination 
28 October 2023 – 21 April 2024

RDS Visual Arts Awards
8 December 2023 – 21 January 2024

Continuing from 2022 

Navine G. Dossos, Kind Words Can Never Die
IMMA Courtyard

The Otolith Group, Xenogenesis 
Until 12 February 2023

Kevin Rooney, Revenants
Until 19 March 2023

– ENDS – 

For further information and images please contact: 

Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] 

Patrice Molloy E: [email protected]