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Royal Hospital Kilmainham
Dublin 8, D08 FW31, Ireland
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‘Greetings’ was Caroline McCarthy’s first video piece for public viewing. It consists of two short films which are shown simultaneously on domestic TV monitors. Each film shows a typically Irish landscape (similar to those on tourist post-cards) which is disturbed at regular intervals by the intrusion of the artist’s head as she literally pops into and falls out of the landscape. McCarthy commented: ‘Because the camera is too high for me, no more than the top of my head manages to get into the bottom of the frame. When I fall out of the screen the landscape returns to its former tranquillity until the next intrusion’. ‘Greetings’ deals with exclusion and the need to secure a place in the world, in this case both in the professional world of Irish art and in the cultural life of the country. The piece makes the point that the artist never quite succeeds in becoming part of the local picture. The reference to picture postcard messages in the title suggests that the artist is only visiting the location. She finds it hard to belong in the changing culture – from rural to urban – of contemporary Ireland.

MediumTwo-channel video
Dimensions Unframed
Credit LineIMMA Collection: Purchase, 1996
Item NumberIMMA.735
Copyright For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].
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Image Caption
Caroline McCarthy, Greetings, 1996, Two-channel video, Unframed, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, 1996

For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].

About the Artist

Caroline McCarthy b.1971

Irish artist Caroline McCarthy studied at the National College of Art and Design and Goldsmith’s College, London. Her works in video, sculpture, photography and installation, make witty observations about the nature of consumerism and representation while also engaging with historical notions of art and the artist. McCarthy has exhibited nationally and internationally since the 1990s. She has undertaken artist residencies in China, Iceland, France, the Netherlands and at IMMA in 1997.
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