The celebrated Irish pianist Hugh Tinney will make a welcome return to the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Saturday 17 April 2010, when he will give the first Irish performance of Morton Feldman’s complex, meditative work Triadic Memories. The concert is being staged as part of a special programme of events surrounding IMMA’s major new exhibition, Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts, which focuses on the many connections between Feldman’s life and work and that of the many legendary visual artists with whom he was associated, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston.

Noted for its mesmerising quietude, Triadic Memories was described by the composer as “probably the largest butterfly in captivity". The 90-minute piece was first performed in 1981 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London by the Australian pianist Roger Woodward, to whom it was jointly dedicated with the Japanese pianist Aki Takahashi. Reviewing the performance in The Daily Telegraph, Robert Henderson wrote: “…the music mainly unfolding through hushed, obsessive, minutely calculated repetitions of brief chordal segments or simple decorative figures….each tiny segment taken in isolation possesses its own peculiar beauty, their cumulative effect as they dissolve slowly into one another, one of a near trance-like stillness and immobility”.

Writing in the online magazine Stylus in 2003, American composer/musician Joe Panzner describes the tragic and resolute beauty of the work: “Its endurance and vulnerability evokes a very human sympathy for the fragile and ephemeral while retaining an aura of coldness and obstinacy. It is poetry without subject and a journey without a destination, existing quietly and beautifully without reason or purpose. Like the fluctuations in our daily lives, the sounds exist in quiet variations as similar and as varied as the moments in which they exist between the obscured past and uncertain future.”

The exhibition Vertical Thoughts, is built around Feldman’s twin passions for music and the visual arts. In his text in the exhibition catalogue, composer Kevin Volans describes him as having “only one subject of conversation: music/art”, and Feldman himself stated that he learned more from painters than he learned from composers. These driving forces came together in his involvement with the New York School of artists, poets and musicians, which was active in the 1950s and ‘60s and was linked, especially, with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism and so-called Action Art. In 1967 Feldman curated an exhibition entitled Six Painters in Houston, Texas, which presented the work of Guston, Franz Kline, de Kooning, Piet Mondrian, Pollock and Rothko.

The IMMA exhibition takes Six Painters as its starting point and builds on this by showing other examples of the six artists’ paintings, which display similar qualities, and works by other artists who were equally influential in Feldman’s work, including Francesco Clemente, Barnett Newman, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and many others. It features artworks from Feldman’s former collection, as well as from several of the world’s leading galleries, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery, Washington, and Tate, London. It also presents music scores, record covers, photographs and documents. A number of Oriental rugs, formally owned by Feldman, which function in a similarly inspirational way to the Abstract Expressionist paintings, are also being shown.

Born in New York City in 1926, Morton Feldman was a child prodigy who began composing at the age of nine. In the 1940s he fell under the influence of the early avant-garde composers, going on to become a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers, which also included John Cage and Christian Wolff. From the 1950s Feldman began to write pieces which bore no relationship to traditional compositional systems and which experimented with musical notation. Feldman found inspiration for these works in the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists and wrote a number of pieces in honour of artists who had become his close friends, including For Philip Guston, 1984, one of his most ambitious works lasting four and a half hours, and Rothko Chapel, 1971, commissioned on the death of Mark Rothko and performed in a chapel which housed his paintings. Rothko Chapel will be heard in the final concert in the IMMA series, being given by the Crash Ensemble on Sunday 30 May 2010.

Since winning first prize at both the Pozzoli and Paloma O’Shea competitions in the 1980s, Hugh Tinney has performed in concert halls and festivals in more than 30 countries in Europe, the USA, South America and the Far East. A prize at the Leeds Piano Competition in 1987 marked the start of a busy career in the UK, performing with such leading orchestras as the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic and the London Mozart Players. Highlights in Ireland include the widely-acclaimed Chopin and Schubert series at IMMA and the equally-successful complete Mozart and Beethoven piano concertos at the National Concert Hall. He has also appeared regularly at the West Cork Music Festival, with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra. Chamber music partners have included violinist Catherine Leonard, cellist Steven Isserlis and the Borodin, Tokyo, RTE Vanbrugh and Vogler Quartets. He has recorded with the Decca, Meridian, Naxos, Marco Polo, Black Box and RTE Lyric FM labels. From 2000 to 2006 Hugh Tinney was Artistic Director of the Music in Great Irish Houses Festival. He teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and has served on the jury for several international competitions. In 2006 he was awarded a two-year Arts Council bursary to research, perform and record contemporary music.

The performance takes place at 7.00pm on Saturday 17 April. Admission is free, but booking is essential on [email protected]

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

7 April 2010

An exhibition featuring works by many of America’s and Europe’s most celebrated 20th-century artists opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 31 March 2010. Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts focuses on the work of the influential American composer Morton Feldman and the many leading visual artists with whom he was closely associated, including Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. The exhibition, the first of its kind in Europe, marks a decisive period in the coming together of two apparently distinct art forms, reflecting IMMA’s own multi-disciplinary approach to its programme. 

Writing in the exhibition catalogue, South African composer Kevin Volans describes Morton Feldman as having “only one subject of conversation: music/art”, and Feldman himself stated that he learned more from painters than he learned from composers. These twin passions came together with his involvement with the New York School of artists, poets and musicians, which was active in the 1950s and ‘60s and was linked, especially, with the emergence of abstract expressionism and so-called action art.  In 1967 Feldman curated an exhibition entitled Six Painters in Houston, Texas, which presented the work of Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Vertical Thoughts takes the 1967 exhibition as its starting point and includes a number of works, such as Mark Rothko’s The Green Stripe, 1955, shown in the Houston exhibition. It also illustrates how these works, which are defined by their abstract qualities, inspired Feldman’s equally abstract compositions, which had little connection to traditional compositional systems and which experimented with established musical notation. The exhibition goes further than Six Painters, however, by showing other examples by the six artists’ paintings, which display similar qualities, and works by other artists who were equally influential in Feldman’s work, including Francesco Clemente, Barnett Newman, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, R. B. Kitaj, Sonja Sekula, Alex Katz and Cy Twombly.  The composer’s direct relationship with the artists and their work can be seen in compositions such as For Philip Guston, 1984, one of his most ambitious works lasting four and a half hours, and Rothko Chapel, 1971, commissioned on the death of Mark Rothko and performed in a chapel which housed his paintings.

Vertical Thoughts features artworks from Feldman’s former collection, as well as from several of the world’s leading galleries, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery, Washington; The Tate Gallery, London; The Ménil Collection, Houston, and IVAM, Valencia. It also presents music scores, record covers, photographs and documents. A number of Oriental rugs, formally owned by Feldman, which function in a similarly inspirational way to the Abstract Expressionist paintings, are also being shown. The scope of the exhibition is extended further by the showing of films on de Kooning and Pollock, which had scores composed by Feldman. There will also be an accompanying music programme at IMMA, including performances of Rothko’s Chapel, Triadic Memories and The King of Denmark.

Born in New York City in 1926, Morton Feldman was a child prodigy who began composing at the age of nine. In the 1940s he fell under the influence of the early avant-garde composers, going on to become a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers, which also included John Cage and Christian Wolff. From the 1950s Feldman began to write pieces which bore no relationship to traditional compositional systems and which experimented with musical notation. Feldman found inspiration for these works in the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists and wrote a number of pieces in honour of artists who had become his close friends.

Vertical Thoughts is curated by Juan Manuel Bonet, independent curator and former Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.

The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication, published by IMMA. This includes a wide-ranging text by Juan Manual Bonet; an interview between Feldman and his friend the writer and anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi; texts by Bunita Marcus on the influence of the Oriental rugs on his work; by artist and writer Brian O’Doherty on the New York art milieu of the time; by art historian Dore Ashton, offering an insight into Feldman’s personality, and a musical perspective by composer Kevin Volans, who was influenced by Feldman. The publication also includes a reproduction of an article written by Feldman’s wife the composer, Barbara Monk Feldman, originally published in 1997, drawing parallels between Feldman’s For Philip Guston, and Nicolas Poussin’s work Pyramus and Thisbe. Uniquely, reproductions are also included of many of Feldman’s own writings, alongside a scaled reproduction of the Six Painters catalogue, itself indicative of the centrality that this project has played in the creation of IMMA’s own exhibition.

The exhibition is supported by The Irish Times, RTÉ Supporting the Arts and the Cultural Tourism Scheme of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.

Events and Talks

Curators Talk: Juan Manuel Bonet
Tuesday 30 March 2010, 5.00pm, Lecture Room, IMMA
Juan Manuel Bonet introduces the exhibition Vertical Thoughts. The talk will be delivered in Spanish, English simultaneous translation will be available to all participants.
The curator’s talk is supported by the Cervantes Instituto Dublin.

Lecture: Composer Dr. Bunita Marcus
Saturday 17 April 2010, 5.00pm, Lecture Room, IMMA
Composer Dr. Bunita Marcus presents a keynote lecture on Morton Feldman’s longstanding relationship between his music and the visual arts.

Artist’s Response: The grass is always greener on the other side
Saturday 12 June 2010, 1.00pm, New Galleries, IMMA
Mark Joyce, the Irish painter and IADT lecturer, will speak in the context of his own practice, exploring classic tropes found in manifestos of artists and composers in the Modernist period and how this may have informed Morton Feldman’s relationship with the visual arts.

Booking is essential for all talks and can be made online at www.imma.ie

Concert Series: Performance Schedule

Richard O’Donnell
Tuesday 30 March 2010, 7.00pm, The Chapel, IMMA
The King of Denmark, percussion arrangement (10 min). No booking required.

Hugh Tinney
Saturday 17 April 2010, 7.00pm, The Chapel, IMMA
The Irish premier of Triadic Memories, piano (90 min). Tickets are free but booking is essential at email [email protected]

Crash Ensemble
Sunday 30 May 2010, 8.00pm, The Great Hall, IMMA
Rothko Chapel and ‘Words and Music’ by Samuel Beckett. Tickets for this concert are €20.00 and can be purchased on www.tickets.ie

Vertical Thoughts continues until 27 June 2010. Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays and Good Friday 2 April:  Closed

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

4 March 2010

The new season of Studio 8 kicks off on Saturday 6 March with Irish artist Claire Halpin and Studio 8 Coordinator, Lynn McGrane, with a workshop that explores the IMMA Collection exhibition What happens next is a secret. This experimental exhibition examines notions of collection and curation, in  response Studio 8 participants will develop ideas in the studio, working on creative concepts and making working drawings. They will discuss various aspects of curation, such as how the placing and context of an art work can alter the pacing, narrative and perception of exhibitions, and also look at a range of materials and artforms during this exploratory workshop.

Studio 8 is a free drop-in space for young people, aged 15-18 years old, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. It is an easy-going, informal space for young people of varied interests and all levels of creative experience. A place for young people to meet and explore the Museum and join in on activities linked to IMMA’s exhibitions. Young people can drop in anytime from 11.00am to 4.00pm on Saturdays from 6 March to 24 April 2010 (excluding Saturday 3 April, Easter weekend). Studio 8 is an opportunity for young people to connect with all that’s happening at IMMA and to really get to know the Museum.

Activities running from Studio 8 include tours of exhibitions, talks and discussions, art making in different forms and media, sessions on curating, visits to IMMA’s Artists’ Residency Programme and more. All activities are free, with basic materials provided, and are facilitated by artists and Mediators (IMMA’s gallery staff). No booking is required and it is not necessary to attend every week.

Information about further Studio 8 activities, including two drawing focused workshops with artist Clodagh Emoe on 13 and 20 March, will be updated on IMMA’s website. It is also possible to be included on an email list for Studio 8 updates please contact Caroline Orr, Curator: Education & Community Department at [email protected] or Jen Phelan, Administrator: Education & Community Department at email [email protected]

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane at Tel: +353 1 612 9900, Email: [email protected]
    
23 February 2010 

An exhibition comprising a series of 111 small-scale paintings by the Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs, one of the most original artists working today, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Friday 26 February 2010. Francis Alÿs: Le temps du sommeil has been described as a storyboard or archive of Alÿs’s highly imaginative oeuvre, much of which takes as its starting point simple actions performed by the artist and documented in photographs, film or by other means such as postcards. These actions, involving strange objects and fruitless exercises, frequently suggest the dreamlike state of the exhibition’s title, which could translate as “sleep time”. They are also incorporated into the exhibition in the form of accompanying texts, many derived from the artist’s postcards.

Le temps du sommeil was begun in 1995 and continues today as an ongoing body of work. The technique is consistent throughout. The figures or other images in the paintings begin as drawings on tracing paper, which are then transferred onto a miniature oval landscape with golden green grass and a darkened, olive green sky. In each case this scene is surrounded by a rich Venetian red ground, built up in layers with the whole measuring no more than 11.5 by 15 cms. Alÿs compares the oval with the veduta of early Italian Renaissance paintings, a special distant scene inserted into a larger landscape. Each painting is dated with a rubber stamp, underlining the narrative aspect of the series and providing a kind of diary of the artist’s fantasies and obsessions.

Several of the paintings have an obvious connection with Alÿs’s recorded actions. The man walking along carrying a leaking can of paint, echoes the artist’s 1995 action  The Leak, in which he roamed the streets of Ghent with a punctured paint can leaving a trail back to the gallery, where he mounted the empty can on the wall. Another painting calls to mind Alÿs’s epic 2002 project, When Faith Moves Mountains, which took place near the Peruvian capital Lima. This involved 500 volunteers who, armed only with shovels, moved a 1,600-foot sand dune just four inches from its original location. The change in the landscape was minute, but Alÿs ‘s concern was with its relationship to the prevailing social and political situation at once “futile and heroic, absurd and urgent”.

In 2004 the artist described the place of painting in his work: “What justifies my recourse to painting is that it’s the shortest way – or the only way – to translate certain scenarios or situations that cannot be said, that cannot be filmed or performed. It’s about entering a situation that could not exist elsewhere, only on the paper or canvas. They are images, and I want for them to live as such. Like in a children’s book.” In June of this year the series will travel to Tate Modern, London, as part of a retrospective of Alÿs’s key works, which will also be shown at Wiels, Brussels, and at MoMA, New York.

Born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1959, Francis Alÿs studied architecture at the Institut d’Architecture de Tournai in Belgium and at the Instituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice. Since 1986 he has made his home in Mexico and has been particularly associated with Mexico City’s historic centre where his studio is located. His work has been extensively shown worldwide, recent exhibitions include in 2009 – Shanghai Art Museum; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela; in 2008 – KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, and Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. As Alÿs’s international reputation has grown many of his projects have taken place at the invitation of museums, for example, The Modern Procession, created in 2002, to mark the temprorary move of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from Manhattan to Queens.

The exhibition is curated Catherine Lampert, independent curator and former Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue, with an afterword by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA. This artist’s book, co-published with Charta, Milan, provides an essential key to understanding Alÿs’s singular imagination.

The exhibition has received assistance from the Embassy of Mexico in Dublin. The opening reception is supported by Corona Extra

Francis Alÿs: Le temps du sommeil continues until 23 May 2010. Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays and Good Friday 2 April:  Closed

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

16 February 2010

A survey exhibition of key works by Irish artist Anne Tallentire, created over the last ten years, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 17 February 2010. This, and other things, 1999-2010 brings together two of Tallentire’s earlier works as well as four of her most recent pieces, created in response to the environment at IMMA. Nowhere else, The Readers, Document and Drift: diagram xi, working with architect Dominic Stevens (all 2010), are shown for the first time; alongside Instances, 1999, and a staging of Manifesto 3 (… instead of partial object), 2004, in collaboration with artist John Seth, with whom Tallentire has frequently collaborated since 1993, in a practice formalised as ‘work-seth/tallentire’.

Nowhere else, 2010, invites the viewer to navigate hundreds of images depicting peripheral glimpses of daily life and detritus taken from sites identified by overlaying a chart of the night sky onto a map of London. This work refigures earlier pre-occupations with interrogating the apparatus of mapping and naming, and plays upon the relationship between the specific and the general; social control and urban occupations.

While much of Tallentire’s work has made use of staging and recording her own actions, in Drift the artist documents solely the actions of others in 21 short video clips that portray various routine activities carried out in association with the maintenance of a city’s infrastructure. For Drift: diagram xi, 2010, Tallentire has collaborated with Irish architect Dominic Stevens to present an eight-screen video installation encased within a freestanding scaffolding structure. Each installation is devised specifically for the demands of the space and identified as a numerical ‘diagram’ in order to emphasise the necessity for a critical consideration of context.

A text work developed specifically for this exhibition, The Readers, 2010, attests to the identities, activities and interests existing alongside the shared day to day work practices of those who work in IMMA.

Earlier works include Instances, 1999, produced when Tallentire represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1999. This contemplates the passing of time in relation to perception and meaning. In three parts, it consists of a video projection which depicts, in real time, dawn breaking over a nondescript city landscape, a series of improvised actions and a single image video loop.
 
Since 1993, Tallentire has also worked on many collaborative projects with John Seth, under the collective name ‘work–seth/tallentire’. A version of their work Manifesto 3 (… instead of partial object), 2004, reconfigured specifically for the space at IMMA, exploits the ordering and disordering of things and the juxtaposition of action, object and image. This play between image and object is further explored in Document, 2010, a new work that questions the relationship between things and the significance of things.

Anne Tallentire was born in Co Armagh and has lived and worked in London since 1984. She studied Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Art from 1986 to 1988 and is currently a Professor of Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and co-convener of the Double agents project based at CSM.

Solo exhibitions and projects include Instances, Venice Biennale as the sole representative for Ireland, Lux Gallery, London, 1999; Dispersal, Orchard Gallery, Derry, 2000, (work-seth/tallentire); Drift, Void Gallery, Derry, Arena Industriale, Reggio Emelia, 2005, and A Pursuit of Happiness, Gallery 3, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 2007. Group exhibitions, projects and screenings include Neue Welt, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, 2001; Sum of the Parts, South London Gallery, London, 2002, (work-seth/tallentire); Out of Place, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, 2003, Densité + 0, (work-seth/tallentire); ENSBA, Paris and Fri-art, Fribourg, Switzerland, 2004; labour to Arbeit *, Galerie im Taxipalais, Innsbruck, Austria, 2005; To Here, Bloomberg Space, London, 2006; and Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Hollybush Gardens, London, 2007.

The exhibition is curated by Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA, and co-curated by Karen Sweeney, Assistant Curator: Exhibitions, IMMA.

A fully-illustrated catalogue designed by Åbäke, with a foreword by IMMA Director, Enrique Juncosa and new texts by Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Vaari Claffey, independent curator; Rachael Thomas, and an interview with the artist by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London, accompanies the exhibition.

The exhibition is supported by Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, and the British Council.

Artists’ Talk:
Tuesday 16 February at 5.30pm, West Wing Galleries, IMMA
To mark the exhibition preview Anne Tallentire presents an informal talk in the galleries on her approach to, and use of, materials and media such as found objects, text, video and performance; exploring some of underlining concepts that have informed the works featured in this exhibition. Please note places are limited for this talk. Booking is essential. Please book online at www.imma.ie

Discussion and Screening:
Thursday 22 April
Anne Tallentire will discuss works in the exhibition in the context of her overall practice in a conversation with Jake Irvine at IMMA. This will be followed by an outdoor screening of a series of single screen video works in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar. Please visit www.imma.ie for further information. 

This, and other things, 1999-2010 continues until 3 May 2010.

Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays and Good Friday 2 April:  Closed

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

9 February 2010

The Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo, widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation, returns to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) with his first major solo exhibition in Ireland on Wednesday 17 February 2010. Jorge Pardo is a challenging retrospective that uses the architecture of the Museum to embrace the world of swiftly changing technology and question how art can be innovative and relevant in the 21st century. The exhibition, which follows the artist’s notable participation in the group exhibition .all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reGGae at IMMA in 2006, comprises a single work in the form of photomural wallpaper covering the walls of the entire East Wing Galleries.

Jorge Pardo depicts, in chronological order, all of the artist’s work since the late 1980s, ranging from sculpture and installations to design and architecture. It includes such major projects as Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, an outdoor cinema pavilion created in Braunschweig, Germany, in 2004, and Untitled (Pleasure Boat), a luxury cruise boat built as a functional sculpture in 2005. Every aspect of the exhibition, including labels and wall texts, is incorporated into the wallpaper. On entering the gallery space the viewer is taken on a journey not only through Pardo’s career but also through a social history of his adopted city of Los Angeles, with headlines from the LA Times and photographs of exhibition openings and the architecture of Los Angeles.

Pardo operates at once inside and outside of the art world. He views art largely through the perspective of design and architecture, and making no hierarchical distinctions between his paintings, sculptures, installations, buildings or lamps. Equally important is the framework within which his works are seen, be that a museum or a café. In this, Pardo’s practice taps into a long history of the intersection of art, design and architecture, seen as early as the 1920s and ‘30s in the work of the Hungarian artist László Maholy-Nagy, in whose spacial design project, The Room of Our Time, 1930, all works are presented as reproductions. Pardo extends this line of enquiry, challenging the notion of public and private space and how we use it. Other influences include artist Robert Smithson, exhibition designer Lilly Reich, architects Bruce Goff and Tadao Ando, and the 20th-century Finnish designer Alvar Aalto.

A prominent feature in Pardo’s work is his use of domestic materials in a non-domestic space, thus prompting a re-evaluation of space by the viewer. In 2000, Pardo installed Project in the Dia Art Foundation lobby, bookshop and gallery, New York. By cladding the floor and walls in coloured tiles, he transformed the white-cube space, forcing the viewer to consider whether it was still a gallery space. Social interaction is another key concern, and Pardo uses his furniture and beautifully coloured lamps as a means of transforming everyday spaces into aesthetic environments. Bars, restaurants and even public squares are transmuted into hybrids of high-end interior design, gallery spaces and functional social areas. For example, in 2003 Pardo redesigned the interior of The Mountain Bar, a trendy Los Angeles Chinatown haven that attracts both art aficionados and locals.

Perhaps the best examples of Pardo’s cross-over into architecture are when he makes or remakes buildings. One of his major current projects is his reimagining of a ruined house in the jungle outside Merida, in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. He approaches this act more as a sculptor would an object then an architect would a building. His own house offers a further example. This was built for an 1998 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, where it was shown as 4166 Seaview Lane.

Jorge Pardo was born in Cuba in 1963 and moved with his family to Chicago when he was six years old. In 1984 he move to California and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent exhibitions include mid-career surveys at K21, Dusseldorf, 2009; Jorge Pardo: House, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 2007-08; theanyspacewhatever, Guggenheim, New York, 2008, and Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona, 2004. Architectural projects and non-specific spaces have included renovating a house in Merida, Mexico, 2009; re-designing display cases for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 2007; creating a restaurant, Untitled (Café-Restaurant), 2002, for the K21 Museum in Düsseldorf; and 4166 Sea View Lane, 1998, a house built as an artwork for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in which he now resides.

The exhibition is curated by Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA.

The exhibition is accompanied by a seminal catalogue that challenges the very format a catalogue should take. Using the formal structural conventions of a catalogue, this book is a 21st-century interpretation. The commissioned essays become a live embodiment of the author, resulting in a five-way conference between the writers that can be found on the internet. The writers include Jorge Pardo; Rachael Thomas; Alex Coles, art critic; Shumon Basar, architect, writer and curator, and Shamin M. Momin, Founder/Director of the recently formed Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND). The resulting audio has been transcribed and used as the text for the catalogue, which will be available for download from the IMMA website and on YouTube. It will also be published as an eBook. The catalogue is presented in the exhibition as a series of nine tables on which texts and everything one has come to expect in a catalogue can be read. 

The exhibition continues until 3 May 2010. Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays, Good Friday 2 April: Closed

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

5 February 2010

The most extensive showing to date of the Museum’s own Collection; an exhibition based on the work of American composer Morton Feldman and the many celebrated artists in his circle; a series of displays marking important new donations to IMMA, and a special exhibition promoting engagement with the visual arts by those with disabilities are all part of a busy and wide-ranging programme for 2010 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, announced today (Wednesday 27 January) by the Minister of State with responsibility for the Arts, Dr Martin Mansergh, TD. Plans for the coming year also include solo exhibitions by such leading international artists as Francis Alÿs, Carlos Garaicoa, Jorge Pardo and Anne Tallentire; an intriguing show exploring the life of works within a collection, a development of the What is…? lectures series introducing concepts of contemporary art practice and a new initiative designed to enhance primary schools pupils’ enjoyment of the Museum’s Collection.

Speaking at the launch of the 2010 programme, Dr Martin Mansergh, TD, said: “The vital role which arts and culture plays in both fostering and demonstrating our national spirit of innovation and creativity cannot be overstated.”  Dr Mansergh added:  “This year’s IMMA programme is ambitious, imaginative and wide ranging – all characteristics which are now synonymous with our Irish Museum of Modern Art.  I am delighted to have this opportunity to show my support for the level of initiative and sheer hard work which the IMMA 2010 programme represents.  I congratulate the Chairperson, Eoin McGonigal, SC, Board Members, Director Enrique Juncosa and all the staff at IMMA for all their achievements to date.”

Commenting on the programme IMMA Director Enrique Juncosa said: “We are very pleased to announce the programme for 2010, which includes a great variety of exhibitions and other events: by now a kind of IMMA trademark. This year’s programme is probably a bit more experimental than usual, presenting such leading international artists as Francis Alÿs and Jorge Pardo. I would particularly like to highlight the exhibition about the American composer Morton Feldman, entitled Vertical Thoughts. Feldman was not only one of the most influential composers of the second half of the 20th century, but was also a close friend of artists such as Philip Guston, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work will be presented in the show."

Exhibitions

The new temporary exhibitions programme gets underway on 17 February with exhibitions by Cuban-American Jorge Pardo and Irish artist Anne Tallentire. Widely regarded as one of the most inventive artists of his generation, Pardo follows his participation in IMMA’s 2006 Lunar Reggae show with an exploration of the place of art within new media. His highly conceptual virtual retrospective takes the form of photomural wallpaper, covering the entire gallery space and incorporating every aspect of the exhibition. Anne Tallentire, much praised for the originality of her work, presents recent projects and related pieces focusing on how the ordering, or disordering, of things can signify everyday social and cultural determinants. Juxtaposing action, object and image she employs a range of media from text to photography and film. The exhibition includes a number of collaborative projects, another regular feature of Tallentire’s work.

An exhibition by leading Belgian-born experimental artist Francis Alÿs follows on 26 February, inspired by his personal observations from the many cities to which his compulsive wanderings have taken him. Alÿs works in a variety of media, and at IMMA presents his major series of paintings, Le Temps du Sommeil, which now numbers 111 works; some still being works in progress. The series travels to Tate Modern in June, the first stage in a major international retrospective of Alÿs’s work.

From 31 March Vertical Thoughts focuses on the work of the influential 20th-century American composer Morton Feldman and the many celebrated visual artists with whom he was closely associated. In 1967 Feldman curated an exhibition entitled Six Painters in Houston, Texas, and Vertical Thoughts takes its inspiration from that, presenting the work of such legendary figures as Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and many others not featured in the 1967 show. The exhibition also includes music scores, record covers, photographs and documents, as well as Oriental rugs, which influenced the composer’s work. A film and music programme will accompany the exhibition.

The Latin flavour continues on 9 June with exhibitions by Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa and Spanish painter Ferran García Sevilla. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach embracing architecture, narrative, history, and politics, Carlos Garaicoa uses his native city of Havana as a laboratory to construct provocative commentaries on a range of contemporary issues. These include architecture’s ability to alter the course of history, the failure of modernism as a catalyst for social change and the decay of 20th-century utopias. Ferran García Sevilla’s eclectic style draws on his world travels, and on comic books, urban graffiti, philosophy and Eastern cultures, resulting in sensuous open spaces in which everything, including iconography and ideas, blends together. His raw, colourful, primitive canvases are often peppered with caustic, hand-scrawled commentaries on life and politics.

Collection

The Museum’s Collection takes centre stage from 20 October, when all of the galleries will be devoted to the first of a two-part exhibition of works from IMMA’s own Collection. This will be the first time that the entire Museum has been given over to the Collection, in an ambitious project leading up to and continuing into IMMA’s 20th anniversary year in 2011. Part one of the exhibition, entitled, The Moderns, will trace important artistic events and developments from the early 1900s to the 1970s, presenting some 100 artists through approximately 250 works. In addition, key pieces from other public and private collections will help to form the historical and contextual thread of the exhibition.
 
Another Collection exhibition, entitled What happens next is a secret, opened yesterday, 26 January. This addresses the intriguing question of what happens when works become part of a collection and are subsequently shown in different contexts. During the course of the exhibition works will be removed, pointing to the often hidden nature of museum collections, while replacements will create new associations. Works from the Collection are also featured in Altered Images, which aims to stimulate engagement with the visual arts by the general public and particularly by those with disabilities. A joint project between Mayo County Council, South Tipperary County Council and IMMA, as part of the Museum’s National Programme, the exhibition has already met with an extremely positive response when shown in Clonmel and Ballina in 2009.
 
Meanwhile, the carefully-planned growth in the Collection continues with the acquisition in 2009 of 52 prints by the celebrated American-born artist Mary Farl Powers, generously donated by the artist’s family, and other donated works, including those by Lynda Benglis, Alan Phelan and a joint work by Seamus Heaney and Felim Egan.

This most welcome trend continues in 2010 with the gift of several works from the personal collection of artist Brian O’Doherty and art theorist Barbara Novak. The collection ranges across American art of the 20th century, particularly that of the 1960s and ‘70s, and includes the work of such celebrated artists as Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. An exhibition from the collection will open on 8 September. A further gift of some 30 fine art prints by the Graphic Studio Dublin, being made to mark the studio’s 50th anniversary, will also be celebrated with an exhibition, again opening on 8 September, highlighting the role of fine art printing in the development of contemporary Irish art.

From 14 January to 27 February William Hogarth’s famous prints, A Harlot’s Progress, from the Madden Arnholz Collection at IMMA, are being shown as part of City of Women, at The Lab, Foley Street, Dublin. Loans from the Collection will also travel to the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Musée de la Ville de Strasbourg and the Sprengel Museum, Hannover. Meanwhile, the five-year loan of 22 works by Irish artists to the Irish Embassy in The Hague continues until 2012.

Education and Community

The Education and Community programme continues to create access for all sectors of the public, and to work on specific projects to animate IMMA’s exhibitions and provide in-depth exploration of IMMA’s Collection throughout the year.

New initiatives include a series of themed art packs designed for children at primary school level which will be published throughout 2010 and 2011. Each pack will feature twelve A4-size images of artworks from the IMMA Collection, including written information on the artists and ideas stemming from the artworks. The contents are unbound so that the images can be used as a poster or as a visual resource in the classroom.

There will also be a special programme alongside the Altered Images exhibition to enable groups and individuals with disabilities to access the artworks through a variety of multi-sensory devices. To coincide with the exhibition, the Museum’s Gallery or Mediator staff have been trained to deliver tours using audio description, as a means of enhancing visitors’ experience further.

IMMA’s Talks and Lectures strand continues in 2010 with a diverse range of artist’s and curator’s talks, lectures and seminars, beginning on 16 February with a panel discussion in conjunction with the Jorge Pardo exhibition and a gallery tour by Anne Tallentire. The development of the very popular What is… series of introductory lectures, specifically designed for adults and third-level students, will continue to explore developments in contemporary art practice. Forthcoming talks will deal with installation art, relational art and public art. An information booklet which includes an overview of the topic, the presenter’s text, a reading list, glossary and resources list, has been produced to accompany each talk.

In addition to the new art packs and What is… booklets, publications will include Museum21, comprising the papers presented at IMMA’s 2008 international symposium of the same name, and the Winter Lecture presented by the distinguished Irish artist Anne Madden in 2007.

National and Artists’ Residency Programme

In addition to the exhibitions at IMMA, the Collection will also be shown in a number of arts centres and other locations around Ireland, as part of IMMA’s National Programme, an area in which the Museum has led the way as a truly national institution over the past 13 years. In April an exhibition of work from the Weltkunst Collection on loan to IMMA since 1994 takes place at the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. This significant collection of British sculpture and drawings of the 1980s and ‘90s will return to the Weltkunst Foundation in 2010 and this will be the last showing of works from this collection.

In 2010 the programme will continue to develop its commissioning strand by supporting artists’ interventions in response to exhibitions such as Drawing: A performative action at the Cavan County Museum taking place in November. Exploring the physical nature of drawing the exhibition will include work from the IMMA Collection in a variety of media from traditional works on paper to performance work. Further projects with County Arts Offices will also be much in evidence in the coming year.

The Artists’ Residency Programme will host 15 artists, comprising a diverse group of individuals coming together to live and work at IMMA. Artists from Ireland, England, Scotland, Spain, Germany, USA, Mexico, Canada/Hong Kong and Japan will participate in 2010. The aim of the ARP is to generate a creative space for artists at a crucial point in their career and for the participating artists to leave IMMA with new experiences and networks that will enable them to further their practice. Each artist will also show their studio work in the Process Room for a two-week period during their time at IMMA.

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

27 January 2010

What happens next is a secret, an intriguing, experimental exhibition, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) on Tuesday 26 January 2010. The exhibition attempts to address the question of what happens when artworks become part of a museum collection and are subsequently shown in many different contexts. Working from a potential list, the artworks will be changed during the course of the exhibition, with removals generating absences which call to mind gaps in our memory and point to the partially hidden nature of collections. Meanwhile, the introduction of works may draw out new and unexpected associations, and perhaps new narratives will emerge. Strategies such as repositioning works within the gallery will be used to alter the pace of the exhibition. Films from the IMMA Collection will be shown in a dedicated screening room. Due to the unpredictable changes which are inherent in the exhibition, a list of works will not be disclosed in advance.

A publication will be produced over the course of the exhibition, with the printing happening in four stages – the second stage will be printed directly on top of the first stage, and so on – resulting in chance over-printing. This will form a parallel with the layering of meanings generated in the gallery.

When a group of works is brought together for an exhibition, the possibility for new meaning is created – whether that is a new meaning generated between works, or implied by an overriding theme. This may be intentional or a free association may emerge as a result of a chance coming-together of ideas in the mind of the viewer.

While the exhibition will use mainly works from the IMMA Collection, a small number of works will be borrowed, directly from artists or from other collections. Such as Lawrence Weiner’s statement 021, 1968, which is on loan from the collection of Seth Siegelaub. Also on loan for the exhibition is The Museum Minus the Collection, 2005, by Frantiska + Tim Gilman which was made while they were on IMMA’s Artists’ Residency Programme. This work is an IMMA collection catalogue from which images of the artworks have been cut away creating an intricate lattice. The artists have said that “the holes in our memory define our minds, as windows help define a structure”. The negative spaces left by the absent images create a new structure within the book – each removal acting like a window framing further absences.

Donald Urquhart’s outdoor work Recurring Line is absent from view for most of the year. It is a site-specific work in the Meadow of the Royal Hospital site; home to the IMMA Collection. It is a drawing made annually in the landscape by the appearance of Galanthus Nivalis (snowdrops). During the course of the exhibition Urquhart will be making a related temporary wall drawing in the gallery titled In absentia.

Artists on IMMA’s Artists’ Residency Programme (ARP) will be invited to engage with the exhibition in a variety of ways, such as exploring methods of presentation or intervening in the exhibition by creating temporary works of their own. Past ARP resident Tine Melzer has made a new work in a hidden space, which has been discovered behind a false wall in the gallery. IMMA has commissioned a sound piece by Irish-based artist Russell Hart who will be working with Irish artist Karl Burke to produce a new work in response to the exhibition.

Continuing IMMA’s well-established Limited Edition series, Ilya + Emilia Kabakov have produced a limited edition print titled The Ghosts in the Morning which will be included in the exhibition and is available to buy online at www.immaeditions.com

The exhibition is curated by Marguerite O’Molloy, Assistant Curator: Collections, IMMA.

What happens next is a secret continues until 18 April 2010. Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon – 5.30pm
Mondays, Good Friday 2 April: Closed

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

20 January 2010

An exhibition featuring film works from the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art opens to the public at Friars Gate Theatre on Monday 7 December 2009. Prospect features five film-works which survey environments that bring together a range of perspectives – from the natural to the manmade, the intimate to the vast and the familiar to the unknown. Artists featured in the exhibition include Paddy Jolley, Clare Langan, Brian Duggan and Isabel Nolan. This exhibition marks the first occasion that Friars Gate Theatre and the National Programme have collaborated.

As part of the exhibition Irish artist John Beattie facilitated talks and workshops with local primary and secondary school groups. Resulting artworks are exhibited in the foyer space as part of Prospect. John Beattie frequently works in video, photography and drawing and his practice explores ideas and perceptions relating to the Artist, the Studio and the Audience (viewer, spectator, and participant) in various contexts such as the studio, the gallery, or in more socially engaged environments. The workshops are supported by the Department of Education and Science.

Paddy Jolley’s film-work, Hereafter, 2004, is the result of a commission from 2002 to make a film in Dublin’s north-side suburb of Ballymun – an area targeted for radical social and economic change due to Dublin City Council’s plan to regenerate the area by demolishing and rebuilding residential housing and services. As part of this plan, residents were requested to move from flats in tower blocks, which in many cases were their lifetime dwellings, to new contemporary houses. Jolley in collaboration with German artist, Rebecca Trost and Norwegian artist/animator, Lise Inger Hansen, focused on the freshly departed flats and the physical items left behind.

Clare Langan’s trilogy of films are shot on location between Ireland, Iceland and Namibia, the works explore the seemingly limitless forces of nature, tracing the path of a solitary figure through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Forty Below, 1999, depicts a world where the delicate balance of nature has been upturned. There appears to have been a flood and the familiar world is now submerged in water. There is a weightlessness, a lack of gravity, where time and place merge and the division between earth and sky become unclear. In Too Dark for Night, 2001, the second in the trilogy, there are again violent extremes of climate; in contrast to Forty Below this landscape is an arid one becoming engulfed by an ever-advancing desert. The final part of the trilogy, Glass Hour, 2002, is set in a deserted urban and industrial wasteland which shifts from the natural to the built environment. Smoking chimneys point to the possibility that the apocalypse suggested by all three films is man-made. However, the violence of nature is also present as an angry, fiery-red earth opens up ready to engulf the world.

In Brian Duggan’s work, the artist himself is the protaganist performing activities which are constrained and testing space even when undertaken in the great outdoors. Door, 2005, was made in the Burren, Co Clare, yet the artist has chosen the parameters of a window frame in a ruin in which to perform his feat. In Isabel Nolan’s work Sloganeering 1-4, 2001, notions of identity are explored using a white T-shirt on which Nolan repeatedly scribbles slogans. These slogans are underlined, added to and ultimately cast away as the artist takes off her shirt to start writing on a fresh one worn underneath. This work explores the complexities of identity and how it can be reduced to clichés, it also looks at how in today’s culture communication is often reduced to sound bites.

Friars Gate Theatre, Kilmallock has been operating successfully as a theatre and arts centre since October 1997. The theatre has a vibrant performing, visual and educational programme. Friars Gate is committed to the promotion of arts in their widest form and incorporate the significance of all forms of artistic expression and encourage the participation of all members of the community in activities which enrich appreciation of the arts.

Focusing on the Museum’s Collection, the National Programme facilitates offsite projects and exhibitions in a range of venues and situations throughout Ireland. The Museum aims to act as a resource at a local level through working in partnership and relying on the knowledge and concerns of the local community. Partner organisations are wide-ranging and include a variety of venues both in traditional art and non-arts spaces, allowing for far-reaching access and interaction. The National Programme in 2009 has been supported by the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism.

Prospect continues until 27 January 2010.

Friars Gate Theatre, Sarsfield St., Kilmallock, Co. Limerick
Open: Monday – Friday 9.30am – 5.30pm and later on performance evenings. Other times by appointment.
Telephone: 063-98727
Website: www.friarsgate.ie

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

4 December 2009

An exhibition featuring artworks focusing on the human figure by Irish and international artists represented in the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection opens to the public at Tallaght Community Arts on Tuesday 17 November. Figuring It Out includes artworks by Amanda Coogan, Antony Gormley, Isabel Nolan, Denis Oppenheim and Beverly Semmes. The exhibition is a continuation of Tallaght Community Arts and the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s long-standing partnership as part of IMMA’s National Programme. The exhibition marks the first occasion that they have worked together in the new Rua Red exhibition space. Since March students from Jobstown Community School have been working with Tallaght Community Arts and IMMA’s National Programme exploring the process of curating an exhibition. These students have assisted with the curation and delivery of Figuring It Out. Artworks made in response to the IMMA artworks by the students are also shown.

Born in Washington D.C. and based in New York City, Semmes worked as a performance artist and sculptor using the luxurious world of high fashion as a starting point. Incorporating highly sensuous materials, velvet, tulle, organza and lame – in colours ranging from the most delicate and transparent to the most opaque and intense, she fashions garments which become metaphors for the body and landscape. In 1995, Semmes was invited to design sets for a ballet. Inspired by the dance she began to create dresses which move, further emphasising the absent presence of the body within. Big Silver is one such piece. The work is attached to a motorised pulley so that it rises and subsides at regular intervals, mimicking the ballet dancer at the bar.

Antony Gormley’s sculptures take their starting point from the presence of the body or human form. Sick was cast in lead from the artist’s own body and is an early example of the ‘body case’ sculptures for which Gormley gained wide recognition. A further example of Gormley’s direct use of his body is a series of etchings, Body and Soul portfolio, the impressions having been sourced directly from Gormley’s body are also included in this exhibition. 

The basis of Amanda Coogan’s practice is the durational live performance where her powerful live events are fundamental to her videos and photographs. She aims to condense an idea to its very essence and communicate it through her body. The photograph, Medea, is taken from a three-hour performance which tells the secrets of the deaf community through Irish Sign Language. These are stories of oppression, humiliation, and sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the clergy. Born hearing to deaf parents, Irish Sign Language was Coogan’s first language and this has profoundly influenced her work. 

The central aim of the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s National Programme is to establish the Museum’s core values of excellence, inclusiveness and accessibility to contemporary art on a national level. Focusing on the Museum’s Collection, the programme facilitates offsite projects and exhibitions in a range of venues and situations throughout Ireland. IMMA aims to act as a resource at a local level through working in partnership and relying on the knowledge and concerns of the local community. Partner organisations are wide-ranging and include a variety of venues both in traditional art and non-arts spaces, allowing for far-reaching access and interaction.

The National Programme has been supported by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of workshops for primary schools supported by the Department of Education and Science.

Figuring It Out continues until Saturday 5 December 2009 in Tallaght Community Arts, RuaRed South Dublin Arts Centre, Civic Square, Tallaght, Dublin 24.

Opening Hours:
Monday – Saturday: 10.00am – 6.00pm

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

16 November 2009