Celebrated ‘Conversations’ Photography Exhibit to Open at IMMA in Dublin
Over 100 Photographs from Around the World Document the Evolution of Photography since the 1850s

Photographs from renowned Bank of America Collection at IMMA

An exhibition of more than 100 photographs drawn from the renowned Bank of America Collection, opens to the public in Dublin at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 22 February 2012. Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection documents the evolution of photography since the 1850s and presents some of the most notable photographers of the 19th and 20th-centuries. Hand-picked from thousands of photographs, the works are displayed so as to create “conversations” between images by individual artists and across a wide range of themes, including portraits, landscapes, street photography and abstraction. The exhibition will be opened by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, TD, at 6.00pm on Tuesday 21 February.

The free exhibition presents works by some of photography’s most celebrated names, from 19th-century innovators Gustave Le Gray, Julia Margaret Cameron and Carleton Watkins, via 20th-century luminaries: Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, and Irving Penn, to contemporary image makers: William Eggleston, Thomas Ruff and Cindy Sherman. Modern works are juxtaposed with older works, European with American, and staged subjects with documentary images. These conversations create unique visual groupings, including images of visitors responding to art in museums, such as Thomas Struth’s Audience 4 (2004), which shows people gazing upward at Michelangelo’s statue of David at the Academia Gallery in Florence, and Musée du Louvre 4, Paris (1989), where visitors contemplate Théodore Géricault’s famous Raft of the Medusa in a Louvre gallery.

Commenting on the exhibition, Peter Keegan, Ireland Country Executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said: “Bank of America Merrill Lynch is delighted to make this exhibition available to the public at IMMA, and we are extremely grateful for this unique opportunity to expand our long-term programme of arts support in Ireland with such a highly-respected museum. IMMA has a very impressive track record with photographic exhibitions, including Picturing New York in 2009-10 and Magnum Ireland in 2006. This also complements our other activities supporting the Arts in Ireland, including the restoration of Maclise’s iconic The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife at the National Gallery of Ireland; The ‘New Stream’ programme with Business to Arts and the first display in Europe of the Bank’s Art Books of Henri Matisse at the Chester Beatty Library last year.”

Some of the most striking works in this exhibition focus on people and portraiture, Julia Margaret Cameron’s distinctive profile of her niece, Untitled (Mary Emily “May” Prinsep) (1870), is seen alongside Edward Weston’s portrait, Tina Modotti, Mexico (1924), which offers a compelling view of his sitter’s psychological state. Both images show women gazing downwards in compositions that are elegant and lyrical. Nevertheless, they are clearly women of different times: the Victorian Prinsep, although surprisingly candid for such an early photograph, is soft and demure, while Modotti, the modern woman, has allowed her photographer-lover to capture her emotional state at close quarters. Another group  explores the uncanny in the everyday, as seen in William Eggleston’s iconic image of a tricycle, Untitled (Memphis) (about 1970), and Lee Friedlander’s T.V. in Hotel Room, Galax, Virginia (1962), which shows an eerily disembodied child’s face on a television screen.

Landscapes and seascapes are well represented in the exhibition, such as Alvin Langdon Coburn’s Snow in Canyon, Grand Canyon (1911) and Art Sinsabaugh’s Midwest Landscape #32 (1961). Both of these works explore the artistic possibilities of the American landscape in photography, from very different periods and perspectives.

The exhibition is also rich in street photography, including Helen Levitt’s New York (about 1940), an image of three children wearing Halloween masks on a tenement stoop, and Garry Winogrand’s World’s Fair, New York City (1964), a candid black and white photograph of a group of people, talking and gesturing on a bench, seemingly frozen in midsentence.

Historic monuments and travel to exotic locales are documented in several photographs, including Francis Frith’s documentary image, The Ramesseum of El-Kurneh, Thebes, Second View (1857–58), which captures the grandeur of ancient Egypt—a sight available only to a very few intrepid travelers in the mid-19th-century—and Richard Misrach’s Ticket Booth and Pyramid, Giza, Egypt (1989), which shows, in wry contrast, the modern tourist experience of these ancient sites.

Works of abstraction and experimentation also are on view. Light Abstraction (about 1924–25) illustrates Jaromir Funke’s use of soft focus that enabled him to create Cubist-inspired compositions out of everyday objects with light, shadow, and reflection. The blurring of subject matter is demonstrated in Thomas Ruff’s d.p.b. 08 (2000), in which he digitally manipulates the image creating a fusion of both architecture and landscape.

Bank of America’s critically acclaimed photography collection has its beginnings in the 1960s, when The Exchange National Bank of Chicago, a legacy Bank of America institution, acquired a diverse and particularly fine collection of photographs. Scholars Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, who were the foremost historians of photography at the time, were charged with the task of curating a photography collection for the bank. The images purchased by the Newhalls in 1968-69 form the nucleus of what is today a deep and wide-ranging collection spanning the full historical and technical range of the medium, from mid-19th-century salt prints to early 21st-century digital prints. Beaumont Newhall was the first curator of photography at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), where he organised a landmark 1937 retrospective of photography’s first century, helping to establish its acceptance as a vital art form. Newhall later served as curator and director of the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, and was a professor at the University of New Mexico, where he helped initiate the first doctoral program in the field. His wife, Nancy Newhall, took her husband’s place at MoMA during World War II, and was the author of numerous photography publications. The Newhalls’ connoisseurship, continued by the Bank of America’s subsequent curators, has resulted in an extraordinary collection of rare and varied works.

Bank of America’s Art Collection comprises a global assemblage of paintings, works on paper, video, photography, sculpture, textiles, and maps dating from the 18th-century to the present. Bank of America has chosen to share the Collection with the public via its dedicated loaning programme Art in our Communities ™. Peter Keegan said; “By providing these exhibitions and the support required to host them, Bank of America Merrill Lynch hopes to enrich communities both culturally and economically and help to generate vital revenue for museums. By the end of 2012, Bank of America Merrill Lynch will have loaned more than 50 exhibitions to museums worldwide.” 

In 2009 an exhibition at IMMA of the work of the distinguished American artist Lynda Benglis was made possible by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This partnership included the loan and subsequent donation to IMMA of Caelum, 1986, a Benglis sculpture from the bank’s corporate collection.

Rachael Thomas, Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, said: “We are delighted to be presenting a photography exhibition of such great diversity and distinction, here at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Conversations celebrates the best of the history of photography and reflects all aspects of life from across the world, with brilliance and imagination”.

A full programme of talks and lectures is planned to coincide with the exhibition. Admission is free. See www.imma.ie/talksandlectures for more information.

Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection is free of charge to the public and is made possible by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art in our Communities Programme™. The exhibition was originally curated by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, travelled to the Museo del Novecento in Milan, and has now been re-interpreted by the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition is curated by Mary Cremin, Project Curator: Exhibitions, IMMA, and is accompanied by a full-colour catalogue with texts by Enrique Juncosa, former Director of IMMA;  Rena De-Sisto, Global Art and Culture Executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Matthew S Witkovsky, Curator and Chair, Department of Photography, The Art Institute of Chicago; Anne Havinga, the Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Karen E Haas, the Lane Collection Curator of Photographs, MFA, Boston, and Mary Cremin. The publication provides a valuable insight into the history of the Collection and the development of photography over time. Price €25.00.

Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection continues until 20 May 2012. 

 
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sunday and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays and Good Friday 6 April: Closed

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at Tel: +353 1 612 9900; Email: [email protected]

2 February 2012

About Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the Arts
As part of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s corporate social responsibility, the company believes that greater cultural understanding fosters increased opportunity for all. Its Arts and Culture Programme – which supports 5,000 arts organisations around the world – has been developed with this ethos as its focal point.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch helps a broad spectrum of arts programmes thrive, encompassing sponsorships, community grants and loans to museums from the company’s own art collection. The Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art Conservation Project enables local cultures to preserve their heritage and serves to locally embed the company’s brand, particularly in areas where the company conducts business.

2011 sponsorships included the V&A’s The Cult of Beauty: the Aesthetic Movement 1860 – 1900, The British Museum’s Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, and Manet, The Man who invented Modern Art at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The company is also Global Sponsor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Presenting Sponsor of the Bridge Project which sees Kevin Spacey star in the title role of Sam Mendes’ acclaimed Richard III production in cities around the world. Upcoming sponsorships include Lucian Freud Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London (February – May) and Americans in Florence at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (March – July).

Through the company’s Art in Our Communities® programme, the Bank of America Collection has been converted into a unique community resource from which museums and non-profit galleries may borrow complete or customised exhibitions at no cost. Since its launch in late 2008, more than 50 exhibitions have been loaned to museums around the world. These include The Art Books of Henri Matisse; The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art; and Conversations, an exhibition of more than 100 photographs by some of the genre’s most recognised names.

About Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Arts support in Ireland:

• The Bank supports ‘New Stream’, a €400,000, three-year investment developed by the not-for profit organisation Business to Arts. Launched in 2009, the project supports the development of fundraising skills for professionals in the cultural sector. ‘New Stream’ provides artists and arts organisations with access to fundraising training, professional advice, coaching and support networks.

• As part of its 2010 Art Conservation Project, the Bank made a grant to the National Gallery of Ireland for the restoration of Daniel Maclise’s ‘The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife’ (1854). The picture depicts a pivotal event in Ireland’s past and is viewed by approximately 750,000 people annually.  It  was chosen for it significance to Ireland’s history.

• As part of  its global Art in Our Communities® programme, the Bank made its corporate art collection available to Dublin’s Chester Beatty Library, through loan of  the exhibition The Art Books of Henri Matisse’ which was displayed in 2011.

• The bank also sponsors the Irish Chamber Orchestra via direct support of the Shannon International Music Festival and the ground-breaking ‘Music Factory’ programme in Limerick.

To mark the closing weekend of the exhibition Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA is holding a weekend of literary events on Friday 27 and Sunday 29 January 2012. Distinguished figures from the literary and performing arts will present a range of responses for adults and families. The weekend begins at 6.00pm on Friday 27 January with a dramatic reading of an excerpt from Samuel Beckett’s novella First Love by Irish actor Conor Lovett, who is internationally acclaimed for his interpretation of Beckett’s works. This echoes Neuenschwander’s 2005 participatory work of the same name, in which visitors to the exhibition describe their first love to a police sketch artist, with the resulting drawing forming part of the exhibition.

A further link to the exhibition is created with a family event at 3.00pm on Sunday 29 January, when actor Louis Lovett, best known for his outstanding performance in The Girl who Forgot to Sing Badly, takes his audience on an exciting journey through the Arabian Nights, another source of inspiration for Neuenschwander’s work.

At 1.00pm on Sunday 29 January, IMMA will launch Look, No Cows, its new trail for children by Siobhán Parkinson, novelist and Laureate for Children’s Literature. 

The schedule of events over the weekend is as follows:

Friday 27 January, 6.00pm, the Chapel
First Love with Conor Lovett
To open IMMA’s literary weekend, Conor Lovett will read an excerpt from Beckett’s novella First Love in response to Neuenschwander’s artwork of the same title. Lovett’s performance is a short dramatic narration which closes with a chaired discussion exploring the interpretation, translation and adaptation of Beckett’s work in the performing and visual arts. This event is chaired by Nicholas Johnson, the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, Dublin.

Sunday 29 January, 1.00pm, the Chapel
Look, No Cows by Siobhán Parkinson
To launch IMMA’s new trail for children, Siobhán Parkinson will read from her trail Look, No Cows which visits her favourite artworks from IMMA’s Collection in the museum grounds. Families and the general public are welcome, and the new trail is available free of charge.

Sunday 29 January, 2.00pm – 4.00pm, New Galleries
Explorer
IMMA’s Sunday family programme, for children aged 4 to 10, will take place in the Rivane Neuenschwander exhibition.

Sunday 29 January, 3.00pm, the Chapel
A Dramatic Reading from the Arabian Nights with Louis Lovett
The literary classic Arabian Nights, a sprawling compilation of anonymous folk stories from the East, is an important source of reference in Rivane Neuenschwander’s work. Louis Lovett will perform a dramatic reading from this collection of fairytales.

Admission is free. Booking is essential for all events (except Explorer). Book online at www.imma.ie/talksandlectures  

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at tel: +353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected]

19 January 2012

The Chairperson and Board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art today (13 January 2012) announced the appointment of Sarah Glennie, currently Director of the Irish Film Institute, as the new Director of IMMA, where she previously held the post of Curator from 1997 to 2001.

Sarah Glennie has been working professionally in the cultural realm for sixteen years and has extensive experience of directing and working in a number of public cultural institutions in Ireland and Britain. Prior to joining the Irish Film Institute (IFI) in 2008, where she oversaw a major redevelopment programme, she was Artistic Director of the Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo. While there she initiated a nationally and internationally significant programme, including The Eternal Now: Warhol and the Factory and an exhibition and unique performance by Patti Smith. She has also curated many other notable visual art projects, both in Ireland and internationally.

Sarah Glennie was born in Britain and moved to Ireland in 1995 to work at IMMA, where she curated a number of projects, including solo exhibitions by Olafur Eliasson, and Shirin Neshat and the major public art project GHOST SHIP by Dorothy Cross. In 2001 she moved to The Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects where her curated projects included Paul McCarthy at Tate Modern, and Stopover at the Venice Biennale 2003. In addition, in 2004 she co-curated Romantic Detachment at PS1/MoMA and in 2005 a major new film commission by Tacita Dean for Cork Capital of Culture. She was also the Commissioner of Ireland’s participation at the 51st Venice Biennale 2005. In 2008 she became Director of the IFI, where she oversaw significant development of the Institute’s activities, nationally and internationally.

Commenting on the appointment IMMA’s Chairperson, Eoin McGonigal, said: “Everyone at IMMA is delighted to have secured as the Museum’s new Director someone with such an impressive record of achievement in the arts, more especially the visual arts. I am confident that Sarah is exceptionally well placed to build on the Museum’s very considerable achievements over the past 20 years. It is interesting that Sarah began her distinguished career in the Irish arts sector at IMMA.  I believe we can all look forward to the impact her well-known creativity and energy will have on the organisation over the coming years”, he said.

Eoin McGonigal also paid tribute to the outgoing Director, Enrique Juncosa. “Over the past nine years Enrique has transformed virtually every aspect of the Museum’s activities. Through his standing in the international arts community, through his sheer ambition for the Museum and through his faith in what it could achieve, he has increased IMMA’s reputation immeasurably, both at home and abroad”, he said.

Sarah Glennie said: “IMMA makes a vibrant and valuable contribution to contemporary Irish society and I am truly honoured to be given the opportunity to lead this great institution into the next important phase of its development. I look forward to working with the Museum’s excellent team and the wider arts community to build on the extraordinary legacy of the Museum’s first twenty years, and to ensure that Ireland continues to have a modern art museum of distinction and international significance”.

Sarah Glennie will take up the post of Director in April 2012.

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at tel: +353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected].

13 January 2012

The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, TD, announced that, following its success as the main venue for Dublin Contemporary 2011, the exhibition space at Earlsfort Terrace will be made available to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in 2012 during the closure of the main building at Kilmainham.

“I am delighted at the warm public response to DC11”, the Minister said. “In addition to producing a lively debate on the nature and scope of contemporary art, it highlighted the degree to which the work of Irish artists can more than hold its own in an international context, while at the same time creating many valuable links with artists and curators worldwide.”

The Minister went on to say that the project had also led to the rediscovery of the hidden treasure that is the former UCD buildings in Earlsfort Terrace. “I am determined that these buildings should remain available for use by the arts community and I am sure that they will provide an ideal alternative space for IMMA during the closure of its main building at the Royal Hospital. Judging by the outstanding exhibitions which IMMA has brought us over the past few years, I’m confident that we can look forward to an exciting programme in Earlsfort Terrace in 2012 and that this city centre location will draw many new visitors to the museum to experience its always innovative and stimulating work.” 

The closure of the main building at IMMA, from 1 November 2011 to 31 December 2012, is due to essential and extensive refurbishment works. However, during this time exhibitions will continue in the New Galleries, beginning on 16 November with a major mid-career survey of the work of the leading Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander, entitled A Day Like Any Other. In addition, the Artists’ Residency Programme will continue on site during the closure, the café and bookshop will remain open to visitors and three sculpture trails will be available in the grounds.  IMMA’s successful National Programme will continue as normal in venues around Ireland, North and South.

Media queries:
Press and Information Office
Tel: 087-2908193 / (01) 631 3807 / 3838 / 3848(direct)
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.ahg.gov.ie

A major mid-career survey of the work of leading Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander opens to the public in the New Galleries at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) on Wednesday 16 November 2011. Covering the period since 2000, Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other highlights the artist’s unique contribution to Brazilian Conceptualism and reveals a wide-ranging interdisciplinary practice, which includes painting, photography, film, sculpture, collaborative actions and participatory events.

A variety of elements inform Neuenschwander’s work – the nature of time, the fragility of life, cycles of existence and the delicacy of human exchange. Motifs such as circles and ovals are of primary importance, together with drops of water, bubbles, hole-punched confetti, constellations and cascading zeros. These act sometimes as soundtracks or symbols of fragility, trail markers or life sources, symbols of the natural world or the feminine principle. Much of her oeuvre is about measuring passing time, in calendars that both mark the past and anticipate the future. Her maps, whether tracking visitors’ paths through the exhibition or presenting the blurred boundaries exposed to the elements during the rainy season, are about creating new geographies for new explorations.
 
Throughout her career, Neuenschwander has created participatory art and the exhibition includes three installations involving participation by visitors. The first, I Wish Your Wish, 2003, is based on a tradition at a church in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where the faithful tie silk ribbons inscribed with their wishes to their wrists and to the gates of the church. According to custom, their wishes are granted when the ribbons wear away and fall off. At IMMA hundreds of ribbons printed with visitors’ wishes from the artist’s past projects will hang from the gallery walls. Visitors are invited to remove a ribbon, tie it to their wrist, and replace it with a new wish written on a slip of paper, in turn generating new ribbons and wishes.
 
The role of literary sources in Neuenschwander’s work  can be seen in another participatory work, First Love, 2005, which takes its title from Samuel Beckett’s novella of the same name. In Neuenschwander’s version a police sketch artist sits with visitors and listens as they describe the faces of their first loves; the sketch artist then produces portraits of these “first loves” to adorn the walls of the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. For the third installation, Walking in Circles, 2000, small halos of adhesive are applied to the gallery floor to pick up dirt from visitors’ shoes, creating a map of the exhibition’s traffic patterns.

The exhibition also contains several series of new paintings and the film The Tenant, 2010, following the journey of a soap bubble as it wanders through a deserted house in a permanent state of suspension. It also includes sculptures made by customers during conversations at bars and restaurants in Brazil.

Rivane Neuenschwander was born in 1967 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where she currently lives and works. She has exhibited internationally over the past 20 years, including solo exhibitions at the South London Gallery; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the Walker Center, Minneapolis; Portikus, Frankfurt, and Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte. She had also shown in a number of group exhibitions in Europe and the US, and in a number of biennials, including the Liverpool Biennial in 1999, the Havana Biennial in 2006, the Venice Biennale in 2005 and the São Paulo Biennial in 2006.

The exhibition is curated by Richard Flood, Chief Curator at the New Museum, New York, and is organised by the New Museum in collaboration with IMMA.

In Conversation
At 5.00pm on Tuesday 15 November Rivane Neuenschwander will discuss the exhibition with Richard Flood and its installation at IMMA, the final venue on its tour. This will take place in the Chapel at IMMA. Admission is free but booking is essential on www.imma.ie/talksandlectures.  

A fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

The exhibition originated at the New Museum, and has also travelled to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St Louis, Missouri; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona, and Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida.

The exhibition is supported by Inhotim and Rhatigan Commerical Development Ltd.

The exhibition continues in the New Galleries until 29 January 2012. Admission is free.
 
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays 12noon – 5.30pm
Closed Mondays and 24-27 December

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at tel: + 353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected]

8 November 2011

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) wishes to advise visitors that, owing to essential and extensive refurbishment works, the main building at IMMA will be closed from 1 November 2011 until 31 December 2012.

Exhibitions will continue in the New Galleries, and the Artists’ Residency Programme will also continue on site during the closure. The café, bookshop and grounds will remain open to visitors. The Museum is also working towards using one or more off-site locations in Dublin to present further exhibitions and projects.  IMMA’s successful National Programme will continue in venues around Ireland, North and South.

Visitors are also asked to note that the next exhibition in the New Galleries will not open until 16 November 2011 when Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other will go on show until 29 January 2012. Between 1 and 15 November the Artists’ Residency Programme will continue as usual, with artists John Beattie (Ireland), Brian Duggan (Ireland), Vittorio Santoro (Italy), Amy Stephens (UK) and Mary-Ruth Walsh (Ireland). In addition, three new outdoor artwork trails are available in the grounds: one based on bronze, one on steel and a third on natural materials. Accompanying maps, including background information and questions for children, can be downloaded from IMMA’s website www.imma.ie

The Musuem has recently placed a selection of works from its Collection in the basement, adjacent to the café and bookshop, and these will remain on show throughout the closure. In addition to the National Programme, the Barrie Cooke exhibition, organised by the Museum, will be on show at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork from 18 November to 14 January 2012, while Out of the Dark Room: The David Kronn Collection can be seen at the Glucksman Gallery, also in Cork, from 18 November to 18 March 2012. 

The works to IMMA’s main building will be carried out by the OPW and will involve a major upgrade of the Museum’s lighting, security and fire safety systems. This will include the installation of a new wiring system, greatly enhanced electronic security and a more advanced fire prevention system. A new hoist for artworks will facilitate a more efficient installation of exhibitions, while improved flooring and an additional fire escape will also be put in place.

These works will significantly enhance the experience for visitors, with greatly improved lighting and flooring, while the improvements to security systems will enable part of the North Range to be used for exhibitions on a regular basis. The project will also reduce energy costs and enable the Museum to operate in a more environmentally efficient manner. The works are due to be completed in approximately one year, and the Museum is scheduled to reopen to visitors in January 2013.

Information on the exhibitions and programmes during the closure will be available on the IMMA website, www.imma.ie

For further information please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at tel: + 353 1 612 9900 or email: [email protected]

Please Note: There will be significant disruption to IMMA’s telephone and email services for a number of days starting on Friday 14 October. This is due to the relocation of staff and office systems ahead of the closure of the main building on 1 November 2011.

Those wishing to contact the Press Office should telephone 353 1 612 9900 in the usual manner or email [email protected]. IMMA apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

12 October 2011

An unconventional new work by the distinguished Austrian choreographer Michael Kliën, created following a two-week sojourn in Dáil Éireann, will be presented at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from Tuesday 4 to Sunday 9 October 2011. In SILENT WITNESS – A DANCING MAN Kliën will present a response, in the form of a performance, to the workings of Ireland’s legislature, based on his personal observations and on his interaction with a range of individuals during his stay.

As the title implies, the work consists of two distinct elements. SILENT WITNESS refers to Kliën’s period in the Dáil during which time he took on no specific role beyond that of an observer in unfamiliar territory, studying the structures of daily life in the legislature and the means and manner in which it organises its affairs. Kliën’s access to the Houses of the Oireachtas was facilitated by Jan O’Sullivan, Minister of State for Trade and Development, and Mark Mulqueen, Head of Communications at the Houses of the Oireachtas, as well as Superintendent Paul Conway.

A DANCING MAN refers to Kliën’s choreographic response, expressed through live performance in the galleries at IMMA, to his experiences in Dáil Éireann. These performance sessions will last throughout the Museum’s opening hours, with the exception of occasional breaks and possible interactions with exhibition visitors. 

Commenting on his experiences in Dáil Éireann and his preparations for the opening at IMMA Kliën said: “I would like to avoid making a direct link between the time spent ‘embedded’ in the Irish legislature and the choreographic exhibition at IMMA.  The work in IMMA is not an illustration or interpretation of my experiences in the Dail. Both works are a meditation on government, a critique, maybe even a form of protest, but their relation to each other is open-ended, poetic, circular.”

Kliën plans to carry out similar experiments on China’s production lines and in the New York’s Stock Exchange over the coming year.  
Since his early 20s, Kliën’s work has been concerned with the theoretical and practical development of choreography. Committed to deconstructing our assumptions on choreography, dance and culture, he has set out to redevelop choreography as an autonomous artistic discipline concerned with the workings of patterns, dynamics and ecologies. Responding to the many urgent issues facing our contemporary environment, this new conception of choreography harnesses its social potential to pursue conditions where new orders of human relations and patterns can emerge.
Born in Austria in 1973, Michael Kliën studied choreography in Vienna and London. He received a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2009 and has lectured at many prestigious institutions (including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London, and the Laban Dance Centre, London). Kliën was co-founder and Artistic Director of the London based arts group Barriedale Operahouse (1994–2000) and Artistic Director of Daghdha Dance Company (2003–2011). Kliën’s choreographies have been performed in many countries across the world. Commissions include Ballett Frankfurt; ZKM Centre for Contemporary Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Tanzquartier Wien and the Vienna Volksoper. Recent projects include Choreography for Blackboards at IMMA and the Hayward Gallery, London and Standing in Ink at the Crawford Gallery, Cork.

Opening hours:
Tuesday 4 October to Sunday 9 October from 12noon to 5.00pm

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at tel: + 353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected]

3 October 2011

Two new site-specific works by leading international artists Liam Gillick and Susana Solano will go on show at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 7 September 2011. The installations have been commissioned by IMMA for its beautiful 17th-century courtyard, which is at the heart of the IMMA complex. Widely regarded as one of the most pioneering artists of his generation, British artist Liam Gillick presents A Game of War Structure, 2011, a newly-designed version of The Game of War (Le Jeu de la Guerre) created originally by the French Situationist Guy Debord in 1977, while the internationally-celebrated Spanish artist Susana Solano’s work, Carmen, 2011, is a large stainless steel sculptural work which encourages the viewer to experience the emotion that the form engenders as it transforms the surrounding environment.

Gillick’s work is based on the war game first produced by Debord who in 1977 founded the company Strategic and Historical Games, with the goal of producing the Kriegspiel, a ‘game of war’. Inspired by military theory and the European campaigns of Napoleon, Debord’s version is a variant on the game of chess played by two opposing players on a game board of 500 squares arranged in rows of 20 by 25 squares. The object of the game is to destroy the opponent, either by eliminating all its forces, or by destroying its two arsenals. Gillick’s, A Game of War Structure, comprises three game sets located in the colonnades adjacent to the courtyard. An instruction booklet and the game pieces may be borrowed from the Museum. In addition, specialist gamers will be invited to play during the course of the installation.

Solano’s sculptural work, Carmen, alters our perception of the architectural space that it is contained within, not only through the tunnelling of our vision through the work but the reflection of the museums architecture in the stainless steel material. Her works tend to invade spaces that are intended as empty silence that architecture engenders, this disruption allows for a nuance of meaning and an open-ended interpretation of what the artist is trying to achieve. Solano’s sculptures create an ambiguous relationship with the viewer by both inviting and forbidding entry into the spaces they inhabit.

Based in London and New York, Gillick’s solo exhibitions include Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2002; Palais de Tokyo, 2005, and the MCA, Chicago, 2008-2010. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002 and the Vincent Award at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 2008. In 2006 he was a central figure in the free art school project unitednationsplaza in Berlin that travelled to Mexico City and New York. Gillick has published a number of texts that function in parallel to his artwork. He was selected to represent Germany for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. A major exhibition of his work opened at the Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in 2010. He has taught at Columbia University in New York since 1997 and the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College since 2008.

Born in Barcelona in 1946, Solano is one of a handful of Spanish artists who has gained international recognition. She studied at the Bellas Artes de San Jorge in Barcelona. Her first solo exhibition was in 1980 at the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, where she showed large-scale hanging canvases. During the 1980s she experimented with a diverse range of sculptural processes and materials and began to create large-scale constructions. Her work has been included in major exhibitions such as the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1988; Documenta 8 Kassel, Germany, 1987; and she was one of two artists representing Spain in the XLIII Venice Biennale in 1988. Recent solo exhibitions include Proyectos: Susana Solano, Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid, 2007; Galerie Bernard Bouche, Paris, 2008, and Galeria Maior, Palma, Spain, 2010.

The Liam Gillick installation has been made possible by an anonymous philanthropic donation. It has received a stipend from the American Friends of the Arts in Ireland (via philanthropist Cormac O’Malley) towards an accompanying lecture.

The Susana Solano installation is supported by Acción Cultural Española and the Institut Ramon Llull.

Liam Gillick: A Game of War Structure, 2011, and Susana Solano: Carmen, 2011, continues until 31 October 2011.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays: Closed

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at tel: + 353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected]

22 August 2011

The Irish Museum of Modern Art is presenting the first Irish exhibition by the internationally acclaimed Thai artist and film-maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Opening to the public on Wednesday, 27 July 2011, For Tomorrow For Tonight features new work that explores the theme of night through video, photographs and installation.  Weerasethakul is the winner of the prestigious 2010 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or prize for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.  He is the director of Tropical Malady, winner of a jury prize at Cannes and Blissfully Yours, winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard program at Cannes in 2002; and at the 63rd Venice Film Festival, his film Syndromes and a Century is the first Thai film to be entered in competition there.

Night and darkness are recurring motifs in Weerasethakul’s films, themes that are further examined in the exhibition.  For Tomorrow For Tonight comprises the films Goodnight Jenjira – Bathroom; Goodnight Jenjira – Living Room; For Tonight; and the sound work For Tomorrow.  This new multimedia installation is made following The Primitive Project, which has been shown to critical acclaim around the world, and his feature film Uncle Boonmee.  It has been specially made for the exhibition at IMMA and will be completed within days of its presentation.

Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system, Weerasethakul has directed several features and dozens of short films. Themes reflected in his films and frequently discussed in interviews include dreams, nature, sexuality and Western perceptions of Thailand and Asia. His films display a preference for unconventional narrative structures, like placing titles/credits at the middle of a film, and for working with those who have no previous experience of acting.  Apichatpong belongs to a new generation of Thai artists and film-makers who are now very visible on the international art scene, and which includes figures such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose work was shown at IMMA in the .all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reggae exhibition in 2006. 

Born in Bangkok in 1970, Weerasethakul holds a degree in architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in Film-making from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  He began making film and video shorts in the early 1990s, and completed his first feature, Mysterious Object at Noon, in 2000. Often, non-linear, with a strong sense of dislocation, his works deal with memory, subtly addressed personal politics, and social issues. He is active in promoting experimental and independent filmmaking through his company Kick the Machine, founded in 1999, and has mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998.

The exhibition, curated by Enrique Juncosa, Director of IMMA, is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue designed by Pony Ltd., London and features texts by the artist; Chris Dercon, Director of Tate Modern, Eungie Joo, curator at New Museum, New York and Tony Rayns.

A limited edition is being made for the show on sale at www.immaeditions.com.

To further complement the IMMA exhibition, the Irish Film Institute will be holding an Apichatpong Weerasethakul Season starting Friday, 15 July to 28 July 2011.

Talks and Lectures
In Conversation – Apichatpong Weerasethakul discusses his work with Dr. Maeve Connelly.
A discussion presented in collaboration with the IFI on Saturday 23 July at 4.10pm at the IFI.
Irish Film Institute, Eustace Street, Dublin 2.
This event is free but ticketed.  Please call the IFI Box Office on +353 1 679 3477.

A lecture Touching the Voidness will be presented on Wednesday, 7 September at 4.00pm in the Lecture Room at IMMA.  Critic, filmmaker and film festival programmer Tony Rayns will present an illustrated introduction to the art of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.  Booking is essential.  Free tickets are available online at www.imma.ie/talksandlectures

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: For Tomorrow For Tonight continues at IMMA until 31 October 2011. 
           
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays: Closed

For further information and images please contact Vanessa Cowley or Patrice Molloy at tel: + 353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected]

15 July 2011

 

A major exhibition of the work of the celebrated Irish artist Gerard Byrne opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 27 July 2011. THROUGH THE EYES comprises of a series of five projects dating from 2003 to 2010, surveying almost a decade in which his work has become widely recognised internationally. Byrne’s multi-layered approach to his work creates an exhibition that is both complex in its subject matter and recognisable in its imaginary reconstructions of the ongoing debates between the present, soon to be past, and the projected future. Influenced by literature and theatre, Byrne’s work consistently references a range of sources, from popular magazines of the recent past to iconic Modernist playwrights such as Brecht, Beckett, and Sartre.

Byrne’s work encompasses film, video, photography and installation. Often taking texts as his starting point, it often takes the form of reconstructions, where actors use texts as formal scripts. The works are culturally coded and can be viewed as a critique of bourgeois culture from the period since the 1960s. Byrne places the works within contemporary settings, allowing for a distance between both recent historical moments and the present.

The works included in the exhibition are New Sexual Lifestyles, 2003, part of the IMMA Collection, and based on a conversation published in the September 1973 issue of Playboy magazine; Subject, 2009, commissioned by the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds as part of the exhibition The New Monumentality, and shot on the campus of Leeds University; A thing is a hole in a thing it is not, 2010, a direct response to art critic Michael Fried’s seminal text Art and Objecthood, 1967; 1984 and beyond, 2007 and his ongoing project since 2001 Case Study: Loch Ness.

Born in Dublin in 1969, Byrne graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale and the Lyon Biennale, in 2007 and at the Sydney Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale and the Turin Triennial, in 2008 and his work is currently on show in the Venice Biennale, 2011. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Lismore Castle, Co Waterford, Glasgow International Festival of Art, Lisson Gallery, London and Green On Red Gallery, Dublin. Group exhibitions include Little Theatre of Gestures, Malmo Konsthall, Sweden, Slow Movement at the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland and Sense and Sentiment at the Augarten Contemporary, Vienna, Austria.

Talk
On Tuesday 26 July at 5.00pm, in The Chapel at IMMA, Dr Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, critic, curator and lecturer at University College Dublin steers a conversation with the artist on selected works in the exhibition. Admission is free but booking is essential on www.imma.ie/talksandlectures 

A publication, edited by curator and writer Pablo Lafuente, with contributions by critics Maeve Connolly, Bettina Funcke, Sven Lütticken, Tom McDonough, Jeremy Millar, Maria Muhle, Volker Pantenburg and Ian White, accompanies the exhibition.

A limited edition by Gerard Byrne is available to purchase.

THROUGH THE EYES:  GERARD BYRNE is curated by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA and originates at IMMA. It travels to the CAM- Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal in autumn 2012.

THROUGH THE EYES:  GERARD BYRNE continues at IMMA until 31 October 2011.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays: Closed

For further information and images please contact Vanessa Cowley or Patrice Molloy at tel: + 353 1 612 9900; email: [email protected]

14 July 2011