A series of exhibitions by leading Irish and international artists, including Jasper Johns, Laurie Anderson, Dorothy Cross and Tony O’Malley; special shows to celebrate the work of the White Stag Group and to mark 50 years of collecting by the Contemporary Irish Art Society, and the publication of a full-colour catalogue of IMMA’s Collection are all part of an exciting and wide-ranging programme for 2005 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art announced today (Tuesday 18 January) by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr John O’Donoghue, TD. Plans for the coming year also include a number of exhibitions by highly-regarded younger artists, many being shown for the first time in Ireland; an exhibition of Latin American art from one of the largest private collections in Europe; a new schools programme in association with the Abbey Theatre, and a series of lectures on developments in contemporary music since the 1950s.
Speaking at the launch of the programme at IMMA, the Minister O’Donoghue said: “I should like to begin by congratulating everyone at IMMA on a highly successful year in 2004, which saw visitor number grow to 350,000, the highest in the Museum’s history. I am pleased to say that the programme for 2005 looks equally exciting. The first opportunity to see a large-scale show by such a ground-breaking figure as Jasper Johns is something to which, I am sure, the public will respond with enthusiasm; as they will to the first major Dorothy Cross survey exhibition and the Tony O’Malley retrospective.
“The Museum’s acquisitions policy has come in for much favourable comment recently, and the Collection catalogue – for which my Department was pleased to provide a special subvention – and the accompanying exhibition will be awaited with particular interest. I should also like to commend IMMA’s ongoing work, through its Education and Community and National Programmes, in bringing its resources and expertise to people and places, all too often marginalised from such activities. The level of creativity and hard work which this programme represents deserves our support, and I am very pleased to have been able to increase the Museum’s current funding to €4,800,000 this year, an increase of 22% on 2004. From what I have seen of their plans for the year ahead, we can rest assured that they will make good use of it”.
Commenting on the programme, IMMA’s Director, Enrique Juncosa, said: “We are very pleased again to announce a whole array of diverse international exhibitions for 2005. These include an important survey of recent works by the American painter Jasper Johns and exhibitions by highly-praised younger artists like Mark Manders (The Netherlands), Pierre Huyghe (France), Franz Ackermann (Germany), Jaki Irvine (Ireland) and Fred Tomaselli (USA). I would also like to underline the importance of women artists in the programme, with substantial mid-career retrospectives of the work of the Americans Laurie Anderson and Catherine Lee, and of the Irish artist Dorothy Cross. Other Irish shows this year include a survey of Tony O’Malley, an historical exhibition on the White Stag Group, and a celebration of the work of the Contemporary Irish Art Society. In addition, the largest exhibition of the year will present a survey of current Latin American art with works by artists such as Doris Salcedo, Santiago Sierra or Guillermo Kuitca.
“We are especially happy to announce the publication of the long-awaited, fully-illustrated catalogue of the collection this Spring. This was postponed from last year to include several important acquisitions which we managed to secure in 2004, including the works by James Coleman. The different Education and Community Programmes, and the National and Artists’ Work Programmes will, of course, continue.
“Finally, I would like to say that 2005 will be quite a musical year. Beside the Laurie Anderson exhibition, the celebrated composer Kevin Volans will give a series of lectures on contemporary music, discussing among other things Jasper Johns’ connections with John Cage. We will also be presenting a concert of the work of the Irish composer Brian Boydell during the White Stag exhibition”.
Exhibitions
The programme begins with one of the undoubtedly highlights of the year – the first large-scale exhibition in this country by the iconic American painter Jasper Johns (9 February – 24 April). The show presents some 90 paintings, prints and drawings created since 1983, a period of significant development in the artist’s work. This will be followed by an exhibition of the work of another celebrated American – performance artist, musician, writer and visual artist Laurie Anderson (17 February – 2 May). The Record of the Time will set out the different, and fascinating, stages which led Anderson from her first creation in the 1970s to her latest audio work.
A further three new shows open shortly after this, beginning with the first exhibition in Ireland by the French artist Pierre Huyghe (23 February – 15 May), whose film works explore themes of reality and fiction, history and memory. Some 20 paintings by the New York artist Fred Tomaselli, made using a dazzling array of materials, opens on 9 March (until 19 June), while an exhibition of installation-based sculpture by the younger-generation Dutch artist Mark Manders can be seen from 16 March (until 29 May).
Completing the line-up of international artists for 2005 will be a mini-retrospective by the American sculptor Catherine Lee (22 June – 4 September), a display of installations and wall paintings by the German artist Franz Ackermann (20 July – 23 October) and three film works by Isaac Julian, one of Britain’s pre-eminent contemporary filmmakers, which will be shown in sequence from 21 September to 15 January 2006.
In addition, the Daros Collection of Latin-American Art, part of one of the most important private collections of contemporary art in Europe, will be shown from 5 October to 8 January 2006.
Irish and Irish-based artists will have a particularly strong presence in 2005. The first large-scale survey of the internationally-acclaimed Irish artist Dorothy Cross will open on 25 May (until 11 September). Comprising sculpture, installation, performance, photography and film, it will review her work from the 1980s to date. This will be followed on 26 October (until January 2006) by a major retrospective of the work of the much-loved Irish painter Tony O’Malley, now recognised as one of the leading Irish artists of his time, who died in 2003.
The work of the White Stag Group, which comprised a number of British artists who brought a new vitality to the Irish art scene in the 1930s and ‘40s, will be shown from 6 July to 2 October, while from 17 November to February 2006 IMMA will join forces with the Contemporary Irish Art Society for an exhibition celebrating 50 years of the society’s important work in collecting art and endowing public institutions.
Collection
The coming year will also be an important year in terms of the development and presentation of the Museum’s Collection. To Have and to Hold, a major exhibition drawn from the Collection, will open on 27 April and will include one of the recently-acquired works by James Coleman, an installation by the celebrated American artist James Turrell, a sculpture by Michael Craig Martin and a group of paintings by Hughie O’Donoghue. These will be shown alongside other key works acquired since 1991. The exhibition is being organised to coincide with the publication of a full-colour catalogue of the Collection, made possible by a special subvention from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
From 13 December the Collection will show The Silver Bridge, an ambitious new installation by the Irish artist Jaki Irvine. A selection of works on paper will also be presented from December, while further works form the Collection will be included in the Tony O’Malley exhibition.
Following tours to Beijing and Shanghai in 2004, plans are in train for a tour of works from the Collection to Zaragoza in Spain and to Newfoundland in Canada.
Education and Community
The Museum’s Education and Community Programme had another busy and successful year in 2004. The Curating Now symposium, on contemporary curating practice, attracted more than 250 participants and brought eight leading international curators into contact not only with IMMA’s work, but also with that of a number of other public and private galleries in Dublin. Another notable event was the publication of a comprehensive evaluation of the Museum’s work with the Government’s Breaking the Cycle initiative addressing educational disadvantage.
In 2005, in association with the Scene Change exhibition celebrating 100 years of design at the Abbey Theatre, IMMA and the Abbey will run a programme of visits for 20 schools from throughout Ireland, supported by the Department of Education and Science. The Museum will also join with the other National Cultural Institutions for an Open Week across all the institutions from 12 to 20 February.
In addition to the annual schools’ programme at IMMA itself, the continuation of the grant-in-aid from the Department of Education and Science will enable the Museum’s Education and Community Department to support six venues involved in the National Programme in developing a primary school programme of their own.
In addition to the talks and lectures programme with artists and curators, IMMA will host a series of six lectures on contemporary music by the South African-born Irish-based composer and pianist Kevin Volans, to coincide with the Jasper Johns and Laurie Anderson exhibitions.
National Programme
The Museum’s National Programme is designed to promote the visual arts throughout Ireland by taking the Museum’s Collection and programmes to a variety of locations ans situations around Ireland.
In 2005 the programme will take the Museum’s resources and expertise to 18 locations around the country from Cork to Donegal. These will include an exhibition of works from the Collection at the Glor Music Centre in Ennis, Co Clare, and the Public and Private Narratives show, seen at the Museum in 2004, visiting the Sligo Art Centre.
The collaboration with the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, will be developed further, with students getting involved in projects based on works from IMMA’s Collection which relate to the major disciplines within the college.
Artists’ Work Programme
The Museum’s studio/residency programme, the Artists’ Work Programme, has hosted over 200 artists since it began in 1994. Artists who participate in the 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 opposite the main Museum building.
The artists are asked to make themselves as available as possible 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. Slide talks, studio visits, panel discussions and Open Days are organised around the residencies, all of which are free and open to the public.
In 2005, the Artists’ Work Programme will host 27 artists from as far afield as Israel, Argentina, Peru and the USA.
For further information and images please contact Patrice Molloy or Daniela Sabatini at tel: +353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected].
18 January 2005