The first exhibition in this country by leading yBa artist Gary Hume, a major show dealing with modern design and living and a comprehensive display of recent acquisitions to IMMA’s Collection are all part of an exciting and wide-ranging programme for 2003 announced today (Tuesday 21 January) by the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Plans for the coming year also include exhibitions by the distinguished Spanish sculptor Cristina Iglesias, the African-American film and photographic artist Lorna Simpson and the little-known Irish artist John the Painter, two shows based on the recent history of Afghanistan and a new schools project aimed at exploring the imaginative life of children. The exhibition of recent works by the celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois, deferred from 2002, will also be shown.
Speaking at the launch of the programme at IMMA, the Museum’s Acting Director, Philomena Byrne, said, “We are all very pleased to present such a strong and richly diverse programme for 2003, which I am confident will enable us to build on the growing level of public engagement with all the Museum’s activities. We are particularly pleased to present the first exhibitions in Ireland by no less than ten leading international artists, in solo and group shows. The exhibition by John the Painter will bring this virtually unknown artist’s work to the wider audience it deserves, while the showing of works from the Collection in conjunction with the Re-Imagining Ireland conference in America will serve something of the same purpose for Irish art in general. A further new and very welcome development, made possible by the generous support of National Irish Bank, is the enhanced education/community input in our National Programme which should greatly increase our ability to bring the resources and skills of the Museum to a much wider public outside the Dublin area.”
Exhibitions
The 2003 temporary exhibitions programme begins with photo and film works by Lorna Simpson (27 February – 8 June), widely regarded as one of the principal contemporary representatives of the black-American visual culture, while from 3 April to 29 June Irish gallery goers will have their first opportunity to enjoy the bright, distinctive paintings of well-known yBa member Gary Hume. In July the Museum will present a site-specific installation based on flowers and landscapes by the younger-generation British artist Paul Morrison (9 July – 5 October), followed by an amazing display of sweeping architectural sculptures by the internationally-renowned Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias (17 July – 5 October).
Later in the year, Belfast-born photographer Paul Seawright (18 September – 30 November) and British artists Langlands and Bell (10 December – March 2004) present individual responses to their assignments as Official War Artists in Afghanistan. The eagerly-awaited exhibition of soft sculptures and drawings by Louise Bourgeois opens in November and continues until January 2004.
Group shows include the first exhibition in these islands on the work of the CoBrA artists (3 July – 21 September), active in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam in the mid-20th century, displays from the Weltkunst Collection (24 April – 15 June) curated by the British critic and curator Adrian Searle, Living in Motion (23 October – 4 January 2004), one of the largest modern design exhibitions ever staged in this country, and Multimedia Maps (16 April – 20 July) exploring the art of community map making.
Collection
The first Collection exhibition of 2003 features a recently donated work with other paintings, drawings and photographs by John the Painter (12 February – 15 June). The life and work of this largely unknown artist, who has spent the last 30 years in care, has clear parallels with the Museum’s Outsider Collection. This is followed on the 12 March by Recent Acquisitions to the IMMA Collection (12 March – October) comprising works in a variety of media donated, purchased or given on long-term loan since 2000.
An exhibition of works from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection (3 July – January 2004) will run in tandem with the show by CoBrA artists, who had a particular interest in non-mainstream art. The final exhibition Private and Public Narratives (October – March 2004) ends the year by examining the way in which artists respond to events of public or private significance.
An exhibition of Irish art drawn mainly from the IMMA Collection will be shown at the University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, from 12
April to 8 June as part of Re-Imagining Ireland, a major conference on Irish identity. Requests for loans to venues in Marseilles, London, the Hague and St Petersburg have also been agreed.
Education and Community
The Museum’s range of programmes to promote access and engagement with the visual arts continues to reach an ever wider audience with a record 2,000 children participating in the primary school programme in 2002.
In 2003 activities in this area will include national and international research projects, community-based programmes, primary school projects with the Department of Education and Science, and adult and youth initiatives.
The Older People’s Programme will link with the Bealtaine Festival in May through Affairs of the Arts, a multi-disciplinary event linking IMMA, the National Theatre and the Irish Film Centre, and an exhibition of older people’s work at the Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda.
A new access programme for primary schools Meet the Mediator, devised in partnership with the Department of Education and Science, is currently in development in schools in Dublin and with the Galway Arts Centre. Artformations, being organised in conjunction with the National Theatre, will explore the imaginative life of children, by placing artists from both the visual and theatre arts in schools throughout the country. In preparation for the revised Leaving Certificate programme, IMMA is working with the NCAD developing visual art modules.
The hugely-popular gallery-based Explorer family programme is now being extended to Saturdays for selected groups due to popular demand.
Artists’ Work Programme
The Artists’ Work Programme, which is the Museum’s studio/residency programme, has hosted over 150 artists since opening its studios in 1994. Artists who participate in the Work Programme live and work in eight studio spaces, three self-contained apartments and five spacious bedrooms, all of which are situated in the renovated coach houses beside the main Museum building.
The programme is open to artists working in all disciplines and of all
nationalities. Artists participating in the Work Programme are asked to make themselves available to meet with visitors to the Museum, providing access to the process of making art and giving the public an additional layer of experience to that available in the Museum’s galleries.
There are slide talks, studio visits, panel discussions and open days organized around the residencies, all of which are free and open to the public.
The Work Programme is programmed on the basis of applications selected from submissions by artists to twice-yearly deadlines – the 31 March and 30 September each year. During 2003 artists from the UK, Argentina, Spain, Ecuador, South Africa, Israel, Germany, Latvia, USA, Canada, Russia, China and Ireland will participate in the programme.
The National Programme
The National Programme is designed to make the assets, skills and resources of the Museum available to centres outside Dublin, through the lending of exhibitions and the development of collaborative projects with other organisations, who are encouraged to establish a familiarity and dialogue with the Museum.
The programme of events for 2003 will facilitate the creation of exhibitions and other projects for display in a range of locations around Ireland including festivals, schools, art centres and other venues. For example, in March a selection of prints from the Madden-Arnholz Collection will travel to the County Museum in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, while in May, the National Programme, in collaboration with Údarás na Gaeltachta, will realise a curatorial project with Meánscoil na Toirbhirte, Dingle, Co Kerry. The school’s fifth-year students will curate an exhibition from the Collection, which will be exhibited in various venues in Dingle during the Féile na Bealtaine festival.
In December 2002 the Museum launched ‘Branching Out’, a new partnership with National Irish Bank. Six venues throughout Ireland have been selected to participate – Clonmel, Mullingar, Mountshannon, Cork, Tallaght and Limerick. In each location the Museum, in conjunction with the venue and the local National Irish Bank branch, is putting in place an education and community programme designed around each exhibition. This may include a lecture, a series of workshops for local groups or guided tours and practical work for local schools.
To date, the National Programme is scheduled to be present in 17 separate locations throughout the country in 2003, with a number of other events due to be finalised over the coming months.
For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999,
Email : [email protected]
21 January 2003