Press statement – August 2015

Aoife Flynn appointed as Head of Audiences and Development of IMMA

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) is delighted to announce the appointment of Aoife Flynn to the new position of Head of Audiences and Development.

Born in Sligo, Aoife has over fifteen years experience in arts management encompassing programming, project management, marketing, strategy, tourism, sponsorship and policy. Passionate about arts marketing and audience development, she specialises in strategic digital marketing and has spearheaded several new media campaigns to encourage new audiences for contemporary arts.

Previously the Development Manager at The Model, home of the Niland Collection in Sligo, she established her own consultancy asquared in 2010. Over the past five years, asquared has worked closely with digital technology to develop audiences for arts and cultural clients. Aoife has recently completed a Masters in Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship with Trinity College, Dublin and Goldsmiths, London where she was awarded a distinction (First class honours).

Speaking about the appointment, Director Sarah Glennie said: “I am delighted that Aoife Flynn will be joining IMMA’s team. Aoife brings a wealth of experience and an exciting perspective that will make an enormous contribution to the work IMMA has been doing in recent years to build new audiences for contemporary art in Ireland.”

Aoife added: "As our National Museum for Modern Art, IMMA makes a huge contribution to the communication of contemporary Irish life and our collective identity, both in Ireland and Internationally. I’m honoured to have this opportunity to work with an innovative Artistic Director like Sarah Glennie and the wonderful team at IMMA. I look forward to developing and growing audiences for the museum through maximising the potential of the digital space and building on the strong and dedicated physical audience at Kilmainham."

Aoife will take up her position on Monday 28 September.

About IMMA:

As the national institution for contemporary art, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) aims, in all its activities, to create for the public an enjoyable and engaging experience of contemporary art. It achieves this through a dynamic and changing programme of exhibitions and education programmes based in its home at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and working with partners nationally and internationally. 

IMMA is the home of the national collection of modern and contemporary art and takes responsibility for the care and maintenance of this national resource. We ensure that it is accessible to visitors to IMMA and beyond through exhibitions, collaborations, loans, touring partnerships and digital programmes.

IMMA is committed to supporting artists’ work, and works with artists and partners to support the development, understanding and enjoyment of contemporary art in Ireland.

For further information, and images, please contact:
Patrice Molloy  [email protected] / [email protected] +353 (0)1 612 9920
Annette Nugent [email protected]    +353 (0)86 6820971

Press Release – 5 August 2015

WHAT WE CALL LOVE: FROM SURREALISM TO NOW
Major exhibition and accompanying programme of events exploring the modern evolution of love

12 September 2015 – 7 February 2016

Featuring modern and contemporary masterworks from the world’s leading collections by ABRAMOVIĆ, BRANCUSI, DALÍ, DUCHAMP, ERNST, GIACOMETTI, OPPENHEIM, PICASSO, WARHOL, YOKO ONO, and many more.

In September, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) presents one of its most ambitious and compelling shows ever, tackling a subject that is part of everyone’s lives: LOVE.

What We Call Love: From Surrealism to Now explores how the notion of love has evolved within the 20th and 21st centuries. How have seismic sociological changes concerning sexuality, marriage and intimacy, alongside developments in gender issues, affected the way we conceive of love? How does visual art, from Surrealism to the present day, deal with love and what can these artistic representations tell us about what love means in our current culture?

Love is a subject of great relevance in Ireland today, as our understanding and definitions of love expand with the changing face of contemporary society. Featuring a fantastic collection of masterworks by some of the most important figures in modern art – such as Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Meret Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso; iconic works by the most significant artists of recent times – Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Marina Abramović, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Damien Hirst, Rebecca Horn, Carolee Schneemann, Wolfgang Tillmans – and new commissions by artists Lucy Andrews, Séamus Nolan, Garrett Phelan and Jeremy Shaw – What We Call Love invites the audience to consider what love means to them with a series of talks, events, film screenings and debates alongside the exhibition.

Curated by Christine Macel, Chief Curator at Centre Pompidou, with Rachael Thomas, Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, What We Call Love features almost 200 works, including over 30 works on loan from major collections such as Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate, London; Museé Picasso, Paris; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, New York; Fondation Giacometti, Paris; British Council Collection; Musee d’art modern de la Ville de Paris; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Collection institute d’art Contemporain, Rhone-Alpes; Marina Abramović Archives; and from numerous private collections and leading gallerists worldwide.

The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse programme of events as we look at the themes inherent to love.

Speaking about What We Call Love, IMMA Director Sarah Glennie said “IMMA is delighted to be staging this important and fascinating exhibition, which is a great opportunity for audiences to experience, at first hand, 20th century masterworks from some of the world’s most important collections, shown in the context of contemporary art from Ireland and around the world. We look forward to welcoming people to IMMA over the coming months to join us in a consideration of what love means to us all today.”

New commissions in this exhibition are part of the series New Art at IMMA,
proudly supported by Matheson.

Presented with the support of the French Embassy in Ireland.

             
 

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What We Call Love: From Surrealism to Now at IMMA: 12 September 2015 to 7 February 2016.
Opening hours: Tue to Fri 11.30am – 5.30pm, Sat 10am -5pm, Sun and bank holidays 12 – 5.30pm.
Admission: €8 / €5 concession (senior citizens and the unwaged).
Free admission for full-time students and all under 18.
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For further information, and images, please contact:
Patrice Molloy  [email protected] / [email protected] +353 (0)1 612 9920
Annette Nugent  [email protected]    +353 (0)86 6820971

EDITORS’ NOTES

Featured Artists:

Marina Abramović and ULAY, Sadie Benning, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brancusi, Brassaï, Victor Brauner, André Breton, Luis Buñuel, Cecily Brown, Miriam Cahn, Sophie Calle, Michele Ciacciofera, Dorothy Cross, Attila Csörgö, Salvador Dalí, Annabel Daou, Vlasta Delimar and Jerman, Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dupuy, Elmgreen and Dragset, Max Ernst, VALIE EXPORT, Jean Genet, Jochen Gerz, Alberto Giacometti, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Jim Hodges, Rebecca Horn, Jesper Just, Kapwani Kiwanga, Ange Leccia, Ghérasim Luca, Vlado Martek, André Masson, Annette Messager, Tracey Moffatt, Séamus Nolan, Nadja, Henrik Olesen, Yoko Ono, Meret Oppenheim, Ferhat Ozgür, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Nesa Paripovic, Garrett Phelan, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Carolee Schneemann, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Paul Sharits, Jeremy Shaw, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andy Warhol, Cerith Wyn Evans, Jun Yang, Akram Zaatari.

Events:

IMMA is running a full programme of events for audiences of all ages during the exhibition that will provide audiences with opportunities to learn more about the work in the exhibition and enter into a debate about what love means to us now. Selected events include:

Opening weekend:

Friday 11 September
Exhibition Opening 6.30 – 9.30pm

Preview Lecture – What We Call Love by Christine Macel
Fri 11 Sept, 5.30 – 6.30pm
Christine Macel explores how love is represented in art since the beginning of the twentieth century and is indicative of an evolution of the very concept of love over a period of 100 years, taking you on a journey from Surrealism to now. This talk is followed by the exhibition preview and drinks reception.

Lecture – The Neurobiology of Love by Semir Zeki
Sun 13 Sept, 2 – 3pm
Semir Zeki, (Professor of Neuroesthetics at the University College London) discusses his pioneering research on the organisation of the visual brain and his experimental enquiries into how a visual stimulus triggers an affective, emotional state, similar to our experience of beauty, desire and love.

Family Workshop
Sun 13 Sept, 2 – 3.30pm
Love to have some creative family time together? Join in this hands-on free workshop. Drop-in to Reception at 2pm.

Tea Dance
Sun 13 Sept, 3.30 – 5.30pm
Join us for an afternoon tea dance for the whole family with a live show band, dancers and much more. No booking required.

Guided Tours
Exhibition Highlights: 30-Minute Tours
Drop in: Every Wed, 1.15pm; Sat and Sun, 2.30pm
An informal series of guided tours provides an introduction to the exhibition themes focusing on a select number of artworks that are among the highlights of this exhibition. Tours are led by IMMA
Staff and include the following themes:
— Surrealism and Love
— Love and the Revolution: Conceptual and Performance Art from 1960s
— Love and Identity: Documentary and Installation Works from 1980s to Now

IFI Film Series
Jan – Feb 2016
In collaboration with the Irish Film Institute, Dublin, IMMA will screen a series of seminal Surrealist films, amongst other key contemporary works. Selected films include Luis Buñuel’s L’Age d’or (1930), and Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour (1949-1950).

Seamus Nolan new commission
Jan – Feb 2016
As part of Séamus Nolan’s new commission, the artist will present a film screening and live performance at IMMA. Nolan’s provocative work deals with how love might in essence embrace the complexities of its contradiction in today’s society.

More events will be added during the exhibition run.
See www.imma.ie and follow us on social media for the latest updates.

 
About the exhibition:

The exhibition is presented in three chapters:

Surrealism and « l’amour fou », from André Breton to Henrik Olesen
1920s to now
Love is so often linked to popular culture, from cinema and television to media or pop songs, but it has always been inherent to modern and contemporary art. This is especially true of the Surrealists, for whom love was a deep anti-capitalist notion linked to freedom and poetry. André Breton dreamt of reducing “art to its more simple expression, that is love” (Poisson Soluble, 1924).

There will be a core of masterworks presented in this chapter of the exhibition, from Surrealist artists to those in parallel positions (Brassai, Victor Brauner, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Ghérasim Luca, Man Ray, Meret Oppenheim versus Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, etc.) as well as archival items and documents (literature, tracts etc.) all exploring the notion of love as passion, or  ‘l’amour fou’, according to André Breton. Some inheritors of the Surrealist spirit such as Rebecca Horn, and some critical positions such as that of Henrik Olesen, will be presented in relation to these works.

Conceptual Art/Performance Art; from Yoko Ono to Elmgreen & Dragset
From the 1960s to now
Conceptual art is also surprisingly focused on the representation of love, from Annette Messager to Jochen Gerz and Sophie Calle. This exhibition will furthermore highlight the work of perhaps less well-known artists Vlasta Delimar and Jerman, Vlado Martek (Zagreb), Nesa Paripovic (Belgrade), Milan Knizak (Prague), or Jean Dupuy (France). Solo rooms will be devoted to specific key installations of work including Paul Sharits, Sophie Calle, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Wolfgang Tillmans.

New Couples; from Louise Bourgeois to Jim Hodges
From the 1980s to now
Contemporary artists have redefined the notion of love and its current meaning in multiple ways, from Louise Bourgeois to Jeremy Shaw, from Dorothy Cross to Garrett Phelan. The notion of love as passion, so much at the core of Surrealism, has evolved with the sociological changes of intimacy toward a tension between romantic love versus marriage and the attempt to build a new form of relationship based on a more egalitarian exchange, that we could call “amour convergent” or “pure relationship”, thanks to the battles of feminism and new intimacy, as discussed in “The Transformation of intimacy” from sociologist Anthony Giddens. The couple indeed remains a subject for many artists from Tracey Moffatt to Jun Yang.

Neuroscience has also focused on love, bringing new kind of representation of love though brain images and inspiring artists like Olafur Eliasson and Jeremy Shaw. Love is also redefined on an ethical level through spiritual questions. There will be some specific rooms devoted to Louise Bourgeois and Miriam Cahn, as well as two new projects from Jeremy Shaw or Michele Ciacciofera.

A catalogue will be published to accompany this exhibition, featuring five major essays from Christine Macel, Georges Sebbag, Eva Illouz, Semir Zeki and Rachael Thomas, as well as specific texts written by Christine Macel, Alicia Knock, Olivier Zeitoun, Victoria Evans, Poi Marr, Ben Mulligan and Seamus McCormack, published by IMMA and DAP Diffusion, New York.

About the Contributors:

Georges Sebbag
Born in 1942, Georges Sebbag is a French writer and doctor in Philosophy. Close to the Surrealist group during the 1960s, he has published more than 20 books on Surrealism. In André Breton l’amour-folie: Suzanne, Nadja, Lise, Simone  (2004), Georges Sebbag focuses on « L’Amour fou », and the concept of love as passion. He currently heads the Jean-Michel Place editions.

Semir Zeki
Semir Zeki is a British neurobiologist whose work on neurosciences was first dedicated to vision and has recently evolved to a focus on love and pair bonding. This interest is obvious in publications such as The neural correlates of maternal and romantic love (NeuroImage. 21, 2004) (with A Bartels). Since 2008 he has been Professor of Neuroesthetics at UCL.

Eva Illouz
Eva Illouz is a Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. One of her major concerns is the way in which capitalism has transformed emotional patterns, both in terms of consumption and production. In her first book, Consuming the Romantic Utopia, she particularly addresses the commodification of romance. Recent publications include Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation. The text she wrote for the What We Call Love catalogue -“Against Desire: A Manifesto for Charles Bovary?”- enlightens the complex challenges of contemporary love and couplehood.

Christine Macel
Born in 1969 and based in Paris, Christine Macel is Chief curator, department "Création contemporaine et prospective", at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. She has curated many exhibitions in the past 20 years including Raymond Hains, Nan Goldin, Sophie Calle, Dionysiac, Promises of the Past, Philippe Parreno, Danser sa vie, Gabriel Orozco, Anri Sala and many more. She has recently curated A History, art, architecture, design from the 80’s to now at Centre Pompidou and is preparing Nel Mezzo del Mezzo an exhibition for Palermo co-curated with Bartomeu Mari and Marco Bazzini (October 2015-January 2016).

Macel is also an art critic and a writer, regularly contributing to many magazines from Flash Art to Artforum, she has also published a referential book Time Taken. The work of time in the work of art (2009) as well as many significant catalogues.

Rachael Thomas
Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Thomas is a Leonardo fellow at Trinity University and contributor to MA/ Art in the contemporary world at NCAD. Thomas has curated various exhibitions including solo surveys of Hélio Oiticica, Haroon Mirza, and Tino Sehgal, the American Fluxus and feminist artist Eleanor Antin, Thomas Ruff, Karen Kilimnik, Margherita Manzelli, Willie Doherty, Sophie Calle and Mark Manders. She initiated and organised with Philippe Parreno the seminal international group show of post relational aesthetics entitled .all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reggae and group shows such as Primal Architecture, which included Mike Kelley, Linder and Conrad Shawcross.

Thomas curated and initiated the Welsh pavilion for Venice Biennale 2001,‘When the Dragon Wakes’ with Cerith Wyn Evans, and in 2008 curated Gerard Byrne at the Lyon Biennale. Thomas was awarded a Millennium Fellowship to produce papers on global frameworks of contemporary art practice at Tate Britain, London. She has lectured on the role of the curator at various symposia and on contemporary Irish art at the Guggenheim with Nancy Spector. As a writer, she has published widely in journals and exhibition catalogues.

About IMMA:

As the national institution for contemporary art, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) aims, in all its activities, to create for the public an enjoyable and engaging experience of contemporary art. It achieves this through a dynamic and changing programme of exhibitions and education programmes based in its home at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and working with partners nationally and internationally. 

IMMA is the home of the national collection of modern and contemporary art and takes responsibility for the care and maintenance of this national resource. We ensure that it is accessible to visitors to IMMA and beyond through exhibitions, collaborations, loans, touring partnerships and digital programmes.

IMMA is committed to supporting artists’ work, and works with artists and partners to support the development, understanding and enjoyment of contemporary art in Ireland.

For further information, and images, please contact:
Patrice Molloy  [email protected] / [email protected] +353 (0)1 612 9920
Annette Nugent [email protected]    +353 (0)86 682 0971

Press Release

EL LISSITZKY: THE ARTIST AND THE STATE
With Rossella Biscotti, Maud Gonne, Núria Güell, Alice Milligan, Sarah Pierce & Hito Steyerl

30 July – 18 October

IMMA presents El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State, as we approach the centenary of Ireland’s Easter Rising and reflect on the vibrant artistic and cultural community who gave voice to a new image for the emerging state and a visual language for its’ politics. This exhibition places this local reflection within a broader global consideration of the role of artists in the imagination of emergent states of the early 20th century and a contemporary reflection on the task of the artist in relation to civil society.

The exhibition brings together a significant body of works from the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven by the Russian avant garde artist El Lizzitsky (1890 – 1941), one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, who is shown here for the first time in Ireland. El Lizzitsky was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution, for him the construction of the Soviet Union meant the opportunity to break away from traditional constraints. He used it to develop visions of a collective aesthetic of the new world, which he then embodied in his artworks.

These important El Lissitzky works, including a significant body of his noted ‘Proun’ series, are shown in the context of archive material referencing the work Irish nationalist poet and writer Alice Milligan (1865-1953), and her collaborator Maud Gonne (1866 – 1953). The exhibition explores their parallel visions of the activated artist central to the imagining of a new state. El Lissitzky and Milligan both envisaged their creative practices as tools for social and political change, although realising this through very different aesthetic languages and strategies. What becomes clear is the conviction and active participation in the task at hand: the artist as an active in the formation of the new world order.  

A contemporary counterpoint to the historical narrative is provided by the work of four artists – Rossella Biscotti, Núria Güell, Sarah Pierce and Hito Steyerl – whose work, in different ways, reflects on the position of the artist within our society now, challenging our position as individuals within the mechanics of the state and questioning the role of art in reflecting a cohesive experience of civil society.

El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State brings to Ireland for the first time an extraordinary body of El Lissitzky works generously lent to IMMA by the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, shown alongside archival material related to Alice Milligan and Maud Gonne’s theatrical tableaux, and newly commissioned and recent works by Rossella Biscotti (Italy 1978), Núria Güell (Spain 1981), Sarah Pierce (USA 1968) and Hito Steyerl (Germany 1966).

The exhibition is curated by Annie Fletcher, Chief Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and Sarah Glennie, Director, IMMA with Dr Catherine Morris as curatorial advisor.

The participation of the Dutch-based artist Rossella Biscotti is made possible with financial support from the Mondriaan Fund.

Supported by Yeats 2015

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy
E: [email protected] T: +353 (0)1 612 9920 or E: [email protected].

Notes for Editors

About El Lissitzky
El Lissitzky was an artist, designer, teacher, and theorist of the Russian avant-garde. Trained as an architect in Germany in the 1910s, in the years just after the 1917 Revolution, he turned to Abstraction, which he believed was the most effective tool for pursuing a new art for a new, post-revolutionary world. He made drawings, prints, and paintings of abstract geometric planes of colour floating against a neutral background, and incorporated a broad range of materials into them. He referred to these works by the word Proun, from the acronym for "project for the affirmation of the new" in Russian, and called them "interchange stations between painting and architecture." In his design work, typographical elements are the building blocks for abstract compositions, and language disassociated from its conventional literary context acquires new meaning. His books, pamphlets, and posters were made to be disseminated widely and used by the masses.

Gallery Discussion | El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State
Thursday 30 July, 11am – 12noon, Garden Galleries, IMMA
Exhibition Curators, Sarah Glennie, Annie Fletcher, and Catherine Morris (art historian and curator) lead a gallery discussion within the exhibition spaces.

Lecture + Roundtable Discussion
Saturday 17 October, 3 – 5:30pm, Lecture Room, IMMA
On the closing weekend of El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State, Catherine Morris presents a lecture on her research into the art historical and cultural contexts of Russia and Ireland, which links together the work and ideas of key revolutionary figures Alice Milligan, Maud Gonne, Jack B. Yeats and El Lissitzky in the early years of the 20th century. This will be followed by a discussion addressing Lissitzky’s enthusiasm for the revolution and the relevance of his ideas for contemporary artists and society, as Ireland approaches the centenary of 1916. Participants include: Rossella Biscotti, Núria Güell, Sarah Pierce, Annie Fletcher, Sarah Glennie and discussion moderator, Mick Wilson (Researcher, Valand Academy, the University of Gothenburg). A closing reception follows this event.

Booking is essential for talks. Free tickets available on www.imma.ie.

21 July 2015

New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson, will showcase best emerging talent

Law firm Matheson and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) have confirmed a major three-year partnership supporting New Art. The relationship will see Matheson supporting approximately ten exhibitions per year at IMMA and the commitment will enable the commissioning of new work in 2015.

The first exhibition to be supported under this new partnership is a solo exhibition by Scottish sculptor and Turner Prize (2011) nominee Karla Black, whose exhibition featuring seven new site-specific sculptures runs at IMMA until 26 July 2015.

Upcoming Matheson-sponsored New Art at IMMA projects in 2015 include exhibitions by Lebanese artist Etel Adnan; British photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews; Irish artist Grace Weir; and What We Call Love, an exhibition of Surrealist works, alongside key conceptual and contemporary pieces, exploring the 20th century notion of love at the heart of which will be a series of new commissions supported by Matheson by artists including Seamus Nolan, Lucy Andrews and Jim Shaw.

IMMA is committed to supporting remarkable emerging artists to make exciting new work through a dynamic series of commissions, projects and group exhibitions. New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson, will allow IMMA to continue to support this vital work in a strand of programming that recognises and nurtures new talents, new thinking and new forms of exhibition-making.

Speaking at the announcement today, IMMA Director Sarah Glennie stated: “IMMA is one of Ireland’s leading cultural institutions and a key source of creativity and inspiration for visitors of all walks of life. One out of every eight IMMA visitors experiences visual art for the first time through their IMMA visit and it is hugely important to us to create an enjoyable and engaging experience of contemporary art for everyone.

Above all else we are committed to supporting artists’ work. Artists tell us about ourselves, they challenge us; they create space for difference, debate and the imagination. New Art at IMMA, supported by Matheson, allows the Museum to continue to support the work of new and emerging artists. Together with innovative partners like Matheson we can work to support the development and enjoyment of contemporary art in Ireland.”

Liam Quirke, Managing Partner at Matheson welcomed the partnership with IMMA today stating: “Investing in talented lawyers and creating an environment which allows them to realise their potential are core values of our firm.  We are delighted therefore to partner with IMMA who share our values and hope that our support of New Art at IMMA will allow the Museum to expand its investment in and nurturing of new and emerging talent in modern art.”

 

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: +353 (0)1 612 9920 or E: [email protected]

Additional Information for Editors

About Matheson
Matheson is the law firm of choice for international companies and financial institutions doing business in and through Ireland. The firm’s clients include the majority of the Fortune 100 companies. It also advises 7 of the top 10 global technology brands and more than half of the world’s 50 largest banks. Matheson is headquartered in Dublin and also has offices in London, New York and Palo Alto. More than 600 people work across the firm’s four offices, including 75 partners and tax principals and over 400 legal and tax professionals.

About IMMA
IMMA (The Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland’s national institution of contemporary and modern art. Based in its home at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, IMMA is celebrated for its vibrant and dynamic exhibition and education programmes. IMMA is the home of the national collection of modern and contemporary art. Now numbering over 3,500 works, we ensure that this collection is accessible to visitors to IMMA and beyond, through exhibitions, collaborations, loans, touring partnerships and digital programmes.

New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson Programme

Karla Black
1 May – 26 July 2015
Karla Black is regarded as one of the pioneering contemporary artists of her generation. A Turner Prize nominee in 2011, she practices a kind of lyrical autonomous sculpture, influenced by psychoanalysis, feminism and its impact on visual art. Black’s work draws from a multiplicity of artistic traditions from expressionist painting, land art, performance, to formalism.  Black questions the rigors of sculptural form and her large-scale sculptures incorporate modest everyday substances, along with very traditional art-making materials to create abstract formations.

The site-specific exhibition at IMMA will present Karla Black’s extraordinary creative output, revealing the artist’s constant challenges to prevailing concepts of sculpture. Her interest in process has led her to expand the possibilities of whichever material she employs; from plaster, polythene, chalk dust and powder to eye-shadow, nail varnish, fake tan or toothpaste. Black chooses her media for their tactile aesthetic appeal: the familiarity of the texture of cellophane or the scent of cosmetics bridges the experience of tangible matter with the intimacy of memory of the subconscious. Black’s working process is intensely physical and this energy is conveyed through works that emphasise her free, experimental working method, combined with the editing, muting and reigning in of careful aesthetic judgment. Each element in her assemblages interconnects physical, psychological, and theoretical stimuli which are both self-referential and relate to art as a wider-world experience.

Etel Adnan
5 June – 13 September 2015
Now in her 90s, Adnan is an extraordinary creative voice and force of artistic renown. She moves freely between writing and art, poetry and tapestry and all aspects of her creative output will be reflected in the exhibition. A selection of Adnan’s enigmatic and colourful oil paintings will showcase her use of rapid, thick strokes representing the landscapes of California and the Mediterranean Sea. These works will appear alongside a series of delicate leperellos that fuse Adnan’s parallel practice as artist and writer. The exhibition will also include a black and white film, poetry and recordings of the artist reading from some of her most recently published poems and writings. Adnan was born in 1925 in Beirut and has been one of the leading voices in contemporary Arab American literature since the 1960s.

What We Call Love
12 September 2015 – 7 February 2016
Love in the 20th century, according to the poet Arthur Rimbaud, had to be reinvented. Nowadays, in a world full of crisis and conflicts, tensed between opposite ideals, and submitted to increased individualism and intense consumption, love is seriously threatened and regularly challenged. Paradoxically, love in the 21st century has never been so linked to individual identity and happiness.

What We Call Love explores how the notion of love has evolved within the 20th century. How have seismic sociological changes concerning sexuality, marriage and intimacy, alongside developments in gender issues, affected the way we conceive love today? How does visual art, from Surrealism to the present day, deal with love and what can these artistic representations tell us about what love means in our contemporary culture?
 
Drawing on contemporary sociology, neuroscience and of course art, What We Call Love sheds some light on these questions. While we cannot give a final definition of “what is love” we can examine how artists have represented it. Presented in three chapters, the exhibition draws on Surrealism’s idea of love as “amour fou” (crazy love), new visions of love that emerged after the ‘60s and the often problematic concerns of contemporary love.

Focusing mainly on the now, this important exhibition will present a succinct selection of carefully chosen Surrealist works, alongside key conceptual and contemporary pieces, integrating new commissions and other works in the forms of cinema and performance. Texts and interviews from three leaders in their respective fields; Georges Sebbag on Surrealism, Eva Illouz on sociology and Semir Zeki on neuroscience will contribute to this reflection.

Curated  by Christine Macel, Chief Curator at Centre Pompidou, with Rachael Thomas, Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, What We Call Love will include works from Cecily Brown, Miriam Cahn, Elmgreen and Dragset, Jim Hodges, Jeremy Shaw, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois , Meret Oppenheim, Annette Messager, Andy Warhol, Rebecca Horn, Marina Abramoviæ, Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans and others.  IMMA will also be commissioning new works for this exhibition, artists to be announced.

Presented with the support of the French Embassy in Ireland.

Chloe Dewe Mathews: Shot at Dawn
10 October 2015 – 7 February 2016
Shot at Dawn is a new body of work by the British photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews that focuses on the sites at which British, French and Belgian troops were executed for cowardice and desertion between 1914 and 1918. The project comprises images of twenty-three locations at which the soldiers were shot or held in the period leading up to their execution. All are seasonally accurate and were taken as close as possible to the precise time of day at which the executions occurred.

Shot at Dawn premiered at Tate Modern in London and Stills: Scotland’s Centre for Photography in Edinburgh in November 2014. Following the showing at IMMA the exhibition will travel to Ivorypress in Madrid in 2016.

Chloe Dewe Mathews is one of Britain’s brightest young photographers. She has been awarded the BJP International Photography Award, Julia Margaret Cameron New Talent Award and the Flash Forward Emerging Photographer’s Award by the Magenta Foundation. Her work on the Caspian region was nominated for the Prix Pictet and shortlisted for the London Photography Award. Represented by Panos Pictures, Chloe was included in the Telegraph’s five most promising new artists of 2011 and the Observer’s new talent of 2012. Last year she was awarded the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.

Shot at Dawn is commissioned by the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford as part of 14–18 NOW, WW1 Centenary Art Commissions. Sponsored by Genesis Imaging and supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund and by the British Council, Government of Flanders, John Fell OUP Research Fund and Van Houten Fund.

Grace Weir
7 November 2015 – 6 March 2016
IMMA presents an exhibition by one of Ireland’s most respected artists; Grace Weir. The exhibition will focus on a number of new works that will be supplemented by complementary existing works that span over 20 years of Weir’s creative output. She represented Ireland at the 49th International Venice Biennale and has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, and is currently Artist-in-Residence in the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin.

Working primarily in the moving image, Grace Weir makes a critical appraisal of film through film-making, in a practice that fuses documentation with highly authored situations. She is concerned with aligning a lived experience of the world with knowledge and theory. Weir probes the nature of a fixed identity and these questions are underpinned by the theories under her scrutiny, whether it is relativity, intentionality, film theory, the duality of light or the philosophy of time and history.

4 – 14 June 2015
 
Following the hugely successful first edition of the summer festival in 2014, IMMA announces programme details of SUMMER RISING in 2015 with a 10 day line-up of events for all ages from Thursday 4 to Sunday 14 June 2015.

Taking place throughout the galleries, gardens and grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, day and night, SUMMER RISING is a celebration of art, food, music and live performance. Opening on June 4 with summer exhibitions by Canadian artist Stan Douglas and Lebanese artist Etel Adnan, SUMMER RISING includes:
 
The IMMA SUMMER PARTY (Saturday 6 June, 8pm till late, tickets €15), an evening of food and cocktails, live outdoor performances, music and DJ sets as the sun goes down, including: In the Silence of the night, curated by Mary Cremin, live outdoor performances by Dorit Chrysler on theremin, interventions by artists Ruth Proctor and Lee Welch, spoken word performances by Ella De Burca, Sarah Jones and Dimitra Xidous; music curated by Peter Maybury (Thread Pulls) & Dennis McNulty includes Rainfear, Das DJ, Press Charges (Sunken Foal), Simon Conway and Ellll; and food & cocktails by Concrete Tiki (Michelle Darmody of The Cake Cafe and artist Fiona Hallinan) with offerings by Designgoat, Fish Shop and K Chido Mexico.

GARDEN RISING on Saturday 6 June and Sunday 14 June, (12noon to 5pm), a free daytime programme for all ages in IMMA’s stunning gardens, with food workshops, artist talks, performances and family-friendly activities, including:
A specially commissioned theatre performance by THEATREclub; artist Stan Douglas in conversation with curator Seamus Kealy; interactive art installations by Ed Devane, Joe Coveney and Slavek Kwi; family-friendly workshops where you can create your own Edible Gingerbread Canvas and Food Fanzines from family recipes with Cliodhna Prendergast of Breaking Eggs; forage in the IMMA meadow to make herbal tea mixtures with Freda Wolfe of Intelligent Tea and Wild Irish Foods; learn about fermenting and preserving foods with April Danaan; butchery workshop with Joe Rumburger; garden tours, critical talks and more.

For those who are peckish, Concrete Tiki (Michelle Darmody of Cake Café and artist Fiona Hallinan) have created pre-bookable lunch PICNIC BINDLES (€25) to enjoy at Garden Rising, featuring a selection of great Irish food, beautifully and thoughtfully presented with help from artists Tuomey, Williams & Watt and Arran Street East.

CONCRETE TIKI RAZING (Sunday 14 June, 6.30-10pm, tickets €20), A party in the gardens of IMMA, curated by Concrete Tiki (Michelle Darmody and Fiona Hallinan), to mark the end of the SUMMER RISING festival, including a welcoming cocktail by Domestic Godless and a South Indian feast by Madina followed by handmade nougat, wild tea, drinks and dancing the evening away around the tiki.

Other SUMMER RISING events include Happenings pop-up outdoor cinema in the IMMA meadow on 12 June, Mornings at the Museum family workshops on 10 and 11 June, Summer Camp for teens 9-11 June, and much much more.

Day-time events free. Tickets from €15.00 for food and night-time events.
Full programme and ticketing details at www.imma.ie.
 
For further information and images, please contact Patrice Molloy +353 (0)1 612  9920 [email protected] or [email protected]
 

5 June – 13 September 2015

IMMA presents the work of Lebanese artist, poet, and writer Etel Adnan in a solo exhibition of 30 works opening at IMMA on 5 June 2015. Now in her 90s, Etel Adnan is an extraordinary creative voice and force of artistic renown. She moves freely between writing and art, poetry and tapestry. Many of these creative strands are denoted in the works on display in this exhibition.

A selection of the artist’s enigmatic and diminutive oil paintings showcase her use of rapid, thick strokes and distinctive shapes, representing the landscapes of California and the Mediterranean Sea. These works appear alongside a series of delicate leporellos where the transcriptions of her poems are recorded on unfolding urban landscapes, fusing Adnan’s parallel practice as artist and writer.

One of the leading voices in contemporary Arab American literature since the 1960s, the Adnan exhibition includes a selection of her publications, from her iconic novel Sitt Marie-Rose (Éditions des femmes, 1978) to the Etel Adnan reader, To Look At The Sea Is To Become What One Is (Nightboat Books, 2014).

The exhibition also features two film works; Adnan’s Motion, 2012, a 90-minute silent unfurling of cityscapes, skies and sunsets, and The Otolith Group’s I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point and Another, 2012, a work shot largely in the artist’s Paris apartment which centres on a reading of her poetry. Both films are meditative explorations of nature and our presence within it.

Etel Adnan is presented alongside SUMMER RISING: The IMMA Festival, a 10 day celebration of art, food, music and performance for all ages in the galleries, gardens and grounds of IMMA.

Running 4 June to 13 September 2015. Admission is free.

 NEW ART AT IMMA
 PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY MATHESON

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: +353 (0)1 612 9920 or E: [email protected]. 

NOTES FOR EDITORS
Talks and Events

Family Workshop
Saturday 6 June 2015, 12 – 1pm + 2 – 3pm, East Ground Galleries, IMMA
Sometimes We See Better With Our Eyes Closed                                                                                          
Clodagh Emoe (artist) leads an Etel Adnan inspired family workshop. This workshop explores how we encounter and engage with contemporary art. In response to the exhibition of paintings and leporellos by Etel Adnan, this workshop explores how artistic forms invite thought on an experiential, perceptive and imaginative level. This workshop is suitable for children (over the age of 7) and adults alike. Drop in.

Lunchtime Gallery Talk
Wednesday 1 July 2015, 1.15 – 2.00pm, East Ground Galleries, IMMA
Rachael Gilbourne (Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA) introduces the new exhibitions of works by renowned artist, poet and writer, Etel Adnan. A selection of Adnan’s colourful oil paintings and delicate leporellos are amongst the works to be explored.

Booking is essential for talks. Free tickets available on www.imma.ie.

About the Artist
Etel Adnan was born in 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon. Recent solo exhibitions include Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar, 2014; Words and Places: Etel Adnan, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, USA, 2013; and Etel Adnan, Works 1965 – 2012, Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg, Germany, 2012. Adnan was a featured artist in the most recent Documenta XIII in Kassel, Germany, 2012. She has shown in many group exhibitions, such as Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014; Rose, CEAAC Centre European D’Actions Artistiqes Contemporaines, Strasbourg, France, 2014; and Tajreed. A Selection of Arab Abstract Art. Part I 1908 – 1960, Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait, 2013; The Last Grand Tour, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece, 2011; Tafsir, Martin Gropius Bau Museum, Berlin, 2009; 5 Artists – St Petersburg, L’Hermitage Museum, Russia, 2007; and British Museum, London, 2006.

Etel Adnan’s artworks feature in numerous collections, including Centre Pompidou, Paris, Mathaf, Doha, Qatar, Royal Jordanian Museum, Tunis Modern Art Museum, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, British Museum, London, World Bank Collection, Washington D.C., and National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C, as well as within many private collections. Also a tapestry designer, she has tapestries in public spaces and private collections. Slides of her tapestries are in the permanent files of the Contemporary Crafts Museums of New York and Los Angeles.

As a writer, Adnan is the author of Sitt Marie-Rose (The Post-Apollo Press, 1982), the celebrated novel on the Civil War in Lebanon that has been translated into ten languages. She has written more than 10 books of poetry, essays, and cultural writings. Among her recent works are Sea and Fog (Nightboat Books, 2011), Seasons (The Post-Apollo Press, 2008), and The Arab Apocalypse (The Post-Apollo Press, 2007). She is a recipient of a 2010 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award. Adnan studied at the Sorbonne in France, U.C. Berkeley, and Harvard. She taught Philosophy at Dominican College in San Rafael, California. She lives between Sausalito, California; Paris; and Beirut.

Additional Information for Editors
The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) have emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in British contemporary art. Their work is research-based, cross-cultural and concerned with the history and future of moving image practice. They have exhibited at Tate Britain, Nottingham Contemporary, MACBA, Barcelona, the São Paolo Biennale, the Hayward Gallery and many other galleries internationally. In 2010, they were nominated for the Turner Prize. In addition to their artistic practice, The Otolith Group have co-curated exhibitions and publications on Harun Farocki, 2009 and Black Audio Film Collective, 2007. Eshun is also well known as a writer and music scholar, and is author of the influential book, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (Quartet Books, UK, 1999).

5 June – 20 September 2015

IMMA presents the work of Stan Douglas, one of the most interesting and important artists of our time. The exhibition, Mise en Scène includes over 40 works, with a special focus on the photographs Douglas has produced since 2008, providing a rich introduction to the artist’s practice.

Stan Douglas came to international prominence in the 1990s when his film installation Der Sandmann was one of the highlights of Documenta X in 1997. Born in 1960 in Vancouver, Canada, Douglas is known for his films, photographs and installations that use new and outdated technologies, the media of cinema, TV and photography, the conventions of various Hollywood genres (including film noir and the Western) and reference classic literary works (notably, Samuel Beckett, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Marcel Proust, and Franz Kafka), to examine intersections of history and memory in evocative, mesmerising artworks.

The exhibition presents critically-acclaimed photographic works ranging from his Crowds and Riots Series, 2008, to Mid Century Studio, 2010-2011, to some of his latest photographs, such as Hotel Vancouver, 2014. The exhibition also brings together the photograph series Malabar People, 2011, and Disco Angola, 2012, as well as the large-scale series of Interiors, 2009 – 2011. Douglas’ major film work Luanda – Kinshasa, 2013 is also presented, which dynamically portrays the documentation of a fictitious Miles Davis jazz recording set in the 1970s.

Over the past decade, Douglas’ work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide, including the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, 2013; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota, 2012; The Power Plant, Toronto, 2011; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, 2007; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 2005; kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, 2004; and the Serpentine Gallery, London, 2002. He has participated in Documentas IX, X and XI, 1992, 1997, 2002 and three Venice Biennales (1990, 2001, 2005). He is the recipient of many awards, including most recently, the prestigious Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, New York, 2012, and the Scotiabank Photography Award, 2013.

The exhibition is curated by Seamus Kealy, Director, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria, and is part of an ongoing tour of Stan Douglas’ work, involving Carreì d’Art – Museìe d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, France; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen; Wiels, Brussels; Berardo Museum, Lisbon (2013 – 2015).

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue.

Talks and Lectures

IFI + IMMA Presents Screenings and Discussion with Stan Douglas
Wednesday 3 June 2015, 6.00 – 8.00pm
Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Tickets €9 (IFI Members €8)
A screening of Film (26mins) by Samuel Beckett, and Vidéo (18 mins) by Canadian artist Stan Douglas, that pays homage to Beckett’s film.  A discussion follows between Stan Douglas and Walter Asmus (German Theatre/ Film Director and collaborator with Samuel Beckett), moderated by Seamus Kealy. This event is in collaboration between the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Irish Film Institute on the occasion of the exhibition Stan Douglas: Mise en Scène.
To book tickets visit www.ifi.ie

Artist Conversation with Stan Douglas
Saturday 6 June 2015, 2.00 – 3.00pm, Johnston Suite, IMMA
Stan Douglas and Seamus Kealy discuss the exhibition Mise en Scène at IMMA.                               
Booking essential. Free tickets available at www.imma.ie
Stan Douglas: Mise en Scène is presented alongside SUMMER RISING: The IMMA Festival, a 10 day celebration of art, food, music and performance for all ages in the galleries, gardens and grounds of IMMA.

Running 4 June to 20 September 2015. Admission is free.

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: +353 (0)1 612 9920 or E: [email protected]. 

New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson, will showcase best emerging talent

Matheson and The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) have today announced a major three-year partnership supporting New Art. The relationship will see Matheson supporting approximately ten exhibitions per year at IMMA.

The first exhibition to be supported under this innovative new partnership is a solo exhibition by UK artist Karla Black, regarded as one of the pioneering contemporary artists of her generation. A Turner Prize nominee in 2011, Black’s work draws from a multiplicity of artistic traditions from expressionist painting, land art, performance, to formalism. Black questions the rigours of sculptural form and her large-scale sculptures incorporate modest everyday substances, along with very traditional art-making materials to create abstract formations.  For her upcoming exhibition, supported by Matheson, Black has created seven new site-specific sculptures, unique to the IMMA exhibition.

Other Matheson-sponsored New Art projects in 2015 include Etel Adnan, What We Call Love, Chloe Dewe Mathews and Grace Weir. The commitment will enable the commissioning of new work in 2015; a full list of artists will be announced in late May.

IMMA is committed to supporting remarkable emerging artists to make exciting new work through a dynamic series of commissions, projects and group exhibitions. IMMA curators work closely with some of the most exciting and internationally significant young artists working today, artists like Tino Sehgal, Duncan Campbell, Haroon Mirza and Isabel Nolan, to support new developments in their work. New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson will allow IMMA to continue to support this vital work in a strand of programming that recognises and nurtures new talents, new thinking and new forms of exhibition-making.

Speaking at the announcement today, IMMA Director Sarah Glennie stated: “IMMA is one of Ireland’s leading cultural institutions and a key source of creativity and inspiration for visitors of all walks of life. One out of every eight IMMA visitors experiences visual art for the first time through their IMMA visit and it is hugely important to us to create an enjoyable and engaging experience of contemporary art for everyone.

Above all else we are committed to supporting artists’ work. Artists tell us about ourselves, they challenge us; they create space for difference, debate and the imagination. New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson, allows the Museum to continue to support the work of new and emerging artists. Together with innovative partners like Matheson we can work to support the development and enjoyment of contemporary art in Ireland.”

Liam Quirke, Managing Partner at Matheson welcomed the partnership with IMMA today stating: “Investing in talented lawyers and creating an environment which allows them to realise their potential are core values of our firm.  We are delighted therefore to partner with IMMA who share our values and hope that our support of New Art at IMMA will allow the Museum to expand its investment in and nurturing of new and emerging talent in modern art.”

Karla Black is at IMMA until 26th July 2015. Admission is free of charge. Please visit www.imma.ie for more details.

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy [email protected] +353 (0)1 612 9920 or [email protected]

Additional Information for Editors

About Matheson
Matheson is the law firm of choice for international companies and financial institutions doing business in and through Ireland. The firm’s clients include the majority of the Fortune 100 companies. It also advises 7 of the top 10 global technology brands and more than half of the world’s 50 largest banks. Matheson is headquartered in Dublin and also has offices in London, New York and Palo Alto. More than 600 people work across the firm’s four offices, including 75 partners and tax principals and over 400 legal and tax professionals.

About IMMA
IMMA (The Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland’s national institution of contemporary and modern art. Based in its home at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, IMMA is celebrated for its vibrant and dynamic exhibition and education programmes. IMMA is the home of the national collection of modern and contemporary art. Now numbering over 3,500 works, we ensure that this collection is accessible to visitors to IMMA and beyond, through exhibitions, collaborations, loans, touring partnerships and digital programmes.

1 May – 26 July 2015

A pioneer of Conceptual Art and author of the renowned Inside the White Cube, Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland has made a major new Rope Drawing, which is been exhibited for the first time at IMMA this summer. A recent gift to IMMA by the artist, it is entitled The doors to good and evil and the windows to heaven – Christina’s World, Rope Drawing #124, (2015). An immersive installation, the work features vibrant blocks of colour and white cords which, when viewed from a particular point, snap into extraordinary sight appearing to leave the gallery wall. The point of convergence of the two main ropes (lines) on the floor is an oblique reference to the location of the sitter in Christina’s World, (1948), one of the most adored and maligned American paintings of the 20th century by Andrew Wyeth, about whom O’Doherty wrote in American Masters.

O’Doherty’s enduring obsession with themes of language, perception and identity are further represented in the exhibition by a selection of his works from the IMMA Collection dating from 1954, before he moved to New York, to the present day. These include In the Wake (Of) (1963-1964), a small sculptural work that engages with Joyce’s labyrinthine novel, Finnegans Wake, in many ways fronting up to the author. An approach O’Doherty takes again using a quotation from Jonathan Swift in A Modest Proposal, (1980), a political work that playfully remaps Ireland.

A number of other Collection works by Irish artists are also receiving their first IMMA showing as part of Fragments, including a wall-based sculpture by Aleana Egan The sky looks down on almost as many things as the ceiling, (2013) and commissioned works by Praneet Soi, Ronan McCrea and Alan Phelan. McCrea’s Medium (Corporate Entities) is a photographic enquiry into spaces where corporate art collections are hung. Originally developed as part of a 2008 exhibition at IMMA titled 10,000 to 50, it is fascinating to reflect on the changing corporate and economic landscape in the intervening seven years. The artist has re-edited the work to create a new version for this exhibition. For this new version McCrea has added the sound of footsteps, with a voice reading a script that he has devised by using a cut-up technique on the original catalogue essays for the 2008 show. The projected images in this version dissolve slowly into each other, creating a complex, dreamlike experience.

Alan Phelan’s work Include Me Out of the partisan manifesto, (2012) (Note to editors: Please note the unusual typesetting of the title with partisan and manifesto in lower case) was the starting point for a wider curatorial collaboration with the artist. As part of IMMA’s new strategies for showing the collection, Phelan worked with IMMA’s curator to place works within the exhibition, interrogating relationships and confronting selection choices.

Alan Phelan worked most specifically on an element of the exhibition that interrogates the concept of the White Cube. Phelan was invited to engage with a pre-selected set of works, primarily drawn from the Gordon Lambert Trust. Working with IMMA Collection curators this section considers the role of the collector, their personal eye, and the nature of the domestic setting in which the work is initially displayed. A Bird of Paradise flower is placed next to a wall work by Deborah Brown, highlighting the flash of orange within the work in the same way that Gordon Lambert displayed it in his home. Domestic scaled sculptures by Brian King, Frank Morris and Michael Warren further connect with Gerda Frömel’s practice, Warren having cited Frömel as the only Irish artist of any real significance working in Ireland at the time, and the selection reflects the domestic scale of her early work.

There are many other references within this rich exhibition that relates to the overall IMMA programme. A focus on sculpture in its various forms is connected to Gerda Frömel’s retrospective in the Garden Galleries and a new exhibition by contemporary UK sculptor Karla Black, also opening today. Several styles of drawing are threaded through the exhibition, echoing both Frömel and visiting Portuguese artist Diogo Pimentão. Following a short residency at IMMA Pimentão has developed new work, currently being exhibited in the Garden Galleries. Diogo’s practice informed the programming of Resonance; a remarkable suite of five paintings by Shirazeh Houshiary, which are inspired by quotes from the Sufi poet Rumi. This further connects to a recent donation by Outset Nederlands of the work Srinagar by Amsterdam-based Indian artist Praneet Soi. The work on show comprises a slide projection and 44 remarkable handmade papier-mâché tiles, made in collaboration with craftsmen in Srinagar, Kashmir. The intricate drawings and selection of colours on the tiles were made by Soi and derive from his photographs and research into the disappearing Sufi culture of Srinagar.

Numbering over eighty works, this large exhibition filling the East Wing, Fragments continues to include GILBERT & GEORGE’s large-scale photowork Smoke Rising, (1989), Nigel Rolfe’s Dance Slap for Africa, (1983) and other works with an emphasis on performance including a film by Phil Collins and historic works by Marina Abramović.

Fragments also includes a number of Subjectivist works by WW II imigrès, the White Stag artists, bequeathed by the late artist Patrick Scott to IMMA in 2014. Scott exhibited with the White Stag from 1941 and the group swopped each other’s paintings. The donation is particularly rich in key works by Kenneth Hall who was a close friend of Scott.

Saluted by Scott in his painting Hats off to Camille, (1976), (IMMA Collection, not on show), the career of Camille Souter, now in her 85th year, is celebrated with a room of her works from the IMMA Collection.  The selection presents some of her finest paintings from the 1950s and 60s and point to her interest in Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock and European Tachiste Art.

Fragments, borrows its title from philosopher Walter Benjamin who notably compared the work of translation to that of re-assembling fragments of a broken vase – the individual fragments must come together, but need not be like each other. An allegory that is somewhat ideal for exhibition making and collecting.

Admission is Free. Exhibition continues until 26 July 2015.

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy +353 (0)1 612  9920 [email protected] or [email protected]. 

Additional Information for Editors
List of Artists
Marina Abramović; Jean (Hans) Arp; Deborah Brown; John Burke; Lynn Chadwick; Eduardo Chillida; Phil Collins; Edward Delaney; Aleana Egan; Tom Fitzgerald; GILBERT & GEORGE; Kenneth Hall; Hilary Heron; Shirazeh Houshiary; Caoimhe Kilfeather; Brian King; Ronan McCrea; James McKenna; F.E. McWilliam; Frank Morris; Leopoldo Novoa; Eilis O’Connell; Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland; Betty Parsons; Alan Phelan; Pablo Picasso; Kathy Prendergast; Nigel Rolfe; Praneet Soi; Camille Souter; Telegeneak (aka Thomas Sivuraq); Michael Warren; Alexandra Wejchert.

10 April – 5 July 2015

The first contemporary retrospective of the work of Gerda Frömel opens at IMMA, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, on Thursday 9 April 2015. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1931 to a family of German descent, Frömel moved to Ireland in 1956 and lived here for the remainder of her life. An incredibly well-regarded artist in her lifetime, she exhibited to universal critical acclaim; however following her untimely death in 1975 her work was neglected and rarely seen. This exhibition of some one hundred sculptures, drawings, photographs and archive material brings her work back into critical consideration and reinstates Frömel as a master of Modern Irish Art.

Following her art education in Germany in the 1950s Frömel moved permanently to Ireland in 1955 with her new husband the sculptor Werner Schürmann whom she had met at Art School in Munich.  On their arrival in Ireland Schürmann established one of the only foundries in the country, and began to cast their works in bronze.

Frömel participated in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art annually from 1956, aligning herself with the most innovative and vital artists in Ireland at the time. Brian Fallon, in The Irish Times of 1969 commented; “The small sculpture section on the whole is high in quality. Gerda Frömel is outstanding.”Initially working in small scale these early works were cast in bronze and figurative in style. Even in this early stage of her career Frömel received significant commissions from Bord Fáilte (1960) and the Arts Council (1962), and an award from Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (1962).

Throughout the 1960s Frömel created works with real-life observations of life and nature. Her preference was for an uneven surface and works that appear highly finished from a distance, on closer inspection reveal deliberate machining marks and chips. In the late 1960s Frömel made a transition from cast bronze sculptures to works carved in marble, granite, and her favourite material – alabaster. She made use of simple forms: circles, lines and spirals to communicate her observations from nature, natural phenomena and the celestial, in particular, the moon and its reflection were denoted with the simplest of visual codes.

By the late 1960s Frömel was working in a much larger scale and in 1967 she commenced Sails, her most important commission to date, and the most ambitious public sculpture of its time in Ireland. Made for Carroll’s Factory in Dundalk, Co Louth (now Dundalk Institute of Technology), a building designed by Scott Tallon Walker along lines set down by the architect Mies van der Rohe. The original idea was to commission a major sculpture from Henry Moore or Alexander Calder but the client insisted that an Irish artist be commissioned.  Frömel met with Ronald Tallon and proposed a mobile depicting sails for the site. The final stainless steel sculpture comprises three elements which resemble aircraft wings and proved Frömel’s capacity to work on a monumental scale. It became emblematic of the building and can still be seen today.

In August 1975 the life of this extraordinary woman and talented artist was cut short when she died in a drowning accident.  Among the artistic community the news of her untimely death at the age of 44 was greeted with shock. At the Irish Exhibition of Living Art that year a special display was made of her work and the catalogue included a tribute to her. A year later a substantial retrospective of Frömel’s work was held at the Municipal Gallery, but her work has rarely been seen since, despite being championed by writers like Dorothy Walker.

Fortunately Frömel’s work remains in key Irish National and Corporate Collections, while IMMA has the most substantial holding of Frömel’s work in a public collection, thanks in large part to works donated by the Carroll’s and Bank of Ireland Collections. IMMA has included the artist in landmark exhibitions such as The Moderns (2010-2011) ensuring that her work continues to be considered within the canon of Irish and international Modernism.

The works in this retrospective exhibition at IMMA date from 1955 to 1975 and are grouped around partial reconstructions of her solo exhibitions, as well as thematic presentations of concerns in her work such as the body, portraits, architecture and abstraction.

Gerda Frömel, A retrospective continues until 5 July 2015, Admission is free.

Additional Information for Editors
About the Artist
While Frömel enjoyed an uneventful childhood in the former Czechoslovakia, her early experiences were marked by the trauma of the Second World War and the German Expulsions in its immediate aftermath. (2015 is the 70th anniversary of these expulsions). These experiences place her within a group of German artists – Joseph Beuys, Frank Auerbach, Eva Hesse and Georg Baselitz – whose work emerged from this post-war environment. In a country trying to come to terms with its recent past, physically, economically and spiritually, in some areas art saw a ‘return to order’. Various artists who had worked in an abstract style before the war, notably Henry Moore for instance, returned to a period of figuration as a means to process their need to reassert the primacy of the human body after years of witnessing its destruction. This political and cultural background marked Frömel’s development as she entered art school in the years immediately after the war. Frömel enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart in 1948 and later went on to study in Darmstadt and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where she studied metalwork and sculpture.

While at art school in Munich, Frömel met the young sculptor Werner Schürmann. They married in 1955 and the couple moved permanently to Ireland the following year where they lived in Woodtown Park, outside Rathfarnham where Schürmann established one of the only foundries in Ireland and began to cast their works in bronze there.

Early works exhibited in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art were cast in bronze and figurative in style and included a portrait of her child entitled Portrait of Johann Jacob Weneslaus (1957) as well as images of animals such as Deer Crossing Bay (1963).

In 1964 she embarked on her biggest project to date: a solo exhibition at the Dawson Gallery in Dublin. The works shown have clear connections to the Post-war aesthetics of phenomenological works in the style of Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) with real-life observations of life and nature. Unusually within these early works, Frömel’s preference is for an uneven surface, and investment (plaster remnants left over from the casting process) can be seen, lending a somewhat unfinished appearance to the sculptures. This variation in surface is characteristic of Frömel’s work in other materials such as metal and stone; works that appear highly finished from a distance, on closer inspection reveal deliberate machining marks and chips.

In the late 1960s Frömel made a transition from cast bronze sculptures to works carved in marble, granite, and her favourite material – alabaster. She made use of simple forms: circles, lines and spirals to communicate her observations from nature, natural phenomena and the celestial, in particular, the moon and its reflection were denoted with the simplest of visual codes.

Between 1967-70 Frömel commenced her most important commission Sails, made for the Carroll’s Factory in Dundalk, Co Louth, designed by Scott Tallon Walker. The successful completion of the sculpture attracted significant positive attention in the press and it became emblematic of the building. At that point it was the largest private sculptural commission in Ireland, and one that would stand up to international comparison.

After her death in 1975 her work continued to be championed by writers like Dorothy Walker, and was included in Rosc 1980 but was exhibited only rarely.  Her work remains in the collections of The Arts Council, The Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Bank, ACC Bank, The Crawford Art Gallery, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology [GMIT], Limerick City Gallery, Trinity College Dublin and others. IMMA has has the most substantial holding of Frömel’s work in a public collection largely due to acquisitions from the Carroll’s Collection as well as the Bank of Ireland. They have been included in landmark exhibitions such as The Moderns (2010-2011).

The exhibition at IMMA is curated by Seán Kissane. In August 2015 the exhibition will travel to the F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studios, Co. Down in August 2015 where it is curated by Riann Coulter.

Associated Talks and Events
There are a series of free talks to accompany this exhibition, with more to be announced.

Gerda Frömel – Her life and works 1955–1975  / Preview Lecture – Seán Kissane /
Thurs 9 Apr 2015 / 5.30–6.15pm  / Exhibition Curator Seán Kissane (IMMA) presents a lecture on his research for the first contemporary retrospective exhibition of works of Gerda Frömel and addresses how this exhibition reinstates Frömel as a master of Modern Irish art.

IMMA Modern Master Series – Symposium Gerda Frömel – Reconstructing an Artist’s
Career / Fri 17 Apr 2015 / 11am–3pm / Join scholars, writers and enthusiasts on Frömel’s work as they critically assess key developments of the artist’s short yet prolific career. Speakers will consider what Frömel’s story can teach us about the broader history, records and practice of sculpture in Ireland. Chaired by Paula Murphy (Senior Lecturer, School of Art History, UCD), other participants to be announced.

Closing Conversation – Frances Morris Post-War Art and Existentialism /
Sun 5 Jul / 3–4pm /  To mark the final day of the Frömel exhibition at IMMA, renowned art historian and curator Frances Morris (Head of Collections, Tate Modern, UK) reflects on her extensive research on post war art and examines how this time of vast turmoil and vigorous creativity continues to influence artistic practice of the last decades. In conversation with Seán Kissane (IMMA).

Catalogue
A fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, with essays by Seán Kissane, Curator: Exhibitions, IMMA; Riann Coulter, Curator, F.E McWilliam Gallery and Studio; Sarah Kelleher, CACSSS Postgraduate Scholar, University College Cork; and Jason Ellis, Sculptor and conservator.

For further information, and images, please contact Patrice Molloy [email protected] +353 (0)1 612  9920 or [email protected].