The first solo exhibition in Europe of the American sculptor Lynda Benglis, best known for her ground-breaking work challenging accepted artistic norms through a pioneering merging of content and form, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin, on Wednesday 4 November 2009. Comprising works from the 1960s to date, Lynda Benglis highlights the artist’s extraordinary creative output, which has defied prevailing views on the nature and function of art over 40 years. The exhibition is organised by IMMA in collaboration with museums in the Netherlands, France and the USA.

Lynda Benglis focuses on the way in which the artist’s interest in process has led her to expand the possibilities of material from latex pourings and expansions to more precious materials such as glass and gold. Taking the body and landscape as prime references, she creates abstract works that oozes immediacy and physicality. Many appear to a defy gravity, being famously described as ‘frozen gestures’. Her interest in process first manifested itself in her early wax reliefs, created by applying one layer of wax on top of another, building up a geological landscape in such works as Cacoon, 1971. Materials are also at the core of Benglis’s ‘Fallen Paintings’, such as Blatt, 1969, in which liquids, including rubber latex or polyurethane foam, are poured directly onto the floor and against the wall.

In the 1970s she created a series of metallised and sparkling ‘Knots’, such as the glittering wall sculpture Psi, 1973. Looped and tied with her own physical force, they also serve Benglis’s wider purpose of disrupting the male-dominated worlds of Modernist and Minimalist art. In 1989, she described society’s attitude to matters of good and bad taste: “There will always be a Puritan strain in society that gets nervous if things are too pleasurable, too beautiful or too open. That’s the most significant legacy of feminist art; it taught us not to be afraid to express these things.”

The exhibition includes a number of the artist’s well known video works, many toying with the recurring theme of gender politics. Videos such as Now, 1973, and Female Sensibility, 1973, capture and mock the sexual prejudices of the times as well as breaking new ground in terms of early video and documentary-making techniques. Other notable works include Wing, 1970, an incarnation of one of her cantilevered sculptures, and the 1975 installation Primary Structures (Paula’s Props). Benglis’s metalised ‘Pleats’ sculptures of the 1980s and ‘90s and her more recent works in polyurethane, such as The Graces, 2003-05, and Chiron, 2009, are also being shown.

The exhibition also presents documentary material outlining the artist’s statements and photographic gestures: ‘The Sexual Mockeries’ series. Benglis used media to control her image and highlight and challenge gender imbalances and power struggles. Her most famous and explicit gesture, in Artforum magazine in November 1974, created a long-running controversy in the American art world. This was part of a series that began at the same time as she worked on videos and famously collaborated with Robert Morris.

A new work, North South East West , 2009, taking the form of  a cast bronze fountain, will be shown for the first time  in the Formal Gardens at IMMA. The artist has been developing the idea of this hydraulic sculpture since her extraordinary cantilevered installations of the early 1970s, now mostly destroyed. Her first fountain The Wave (The Wave of the World), 1983, was created for the World Fair in New Orleans.

Born in 1941 in Louisiana, USA, Lynda Benglis lives and works between New York, Santa Fe, Kastelorizo and Ahmedabad. Solo exhibitions include Shape Shifters, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, 2008; Lynda Benglis: Pleated, Knotted, Poured…, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, 2007; Lynda Benglis, Cheim&Read, New York, 2004; Lynda Benglis: Sculptures, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, 2003; Michael Janssen Gallery, Cologne, 1998; Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, 1991; Dual Natures, curated by Susan Krane, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1990; The Kitchen, New York, 1975; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 1975; The Clocktower, New York, 1973; Lynda Benglis: Video Tapes, curated by Robert Pincus-Witten, Video Gallery, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, 1973; Kansas State University, Manhattan, 1971; Hayden Gallery, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1971; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 1970; Galerie Hans Müller, Cologne, 1970. In 2007 Cheim & Read staged the critically acclaimed exhibition Circa 70: Lynda Benglis and Louise Bourgeois. Benglis has also exhibited widely in major group exhibitions including the seminal Anti-Illusion. Procedure/Materials, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, 1969; The New Sculpture 1965-75: Between Geometry & Gesture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1990; Fémininmasculin: le sexe dans l’art, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1995, and more recently Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, Tate Modern, London, 2001; Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art from the 60s, Tate Liverpool, 2005; High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975, Independent Curators International, New York, 2007, and Lynda Benglis/Robert Morris: 1973-1974, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, 2009.

Her current exhibition is organised by IMMA, Dublin, in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Le Consortium, Dijon, France;   Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, and New Museum, New York.

A 480 page fully-illustrated hardcover monograph, produced by Les Presses du Réel, accompanies the exhibition. It comprises texts by Dave Hickey and Elisabeth Lebovici, and exhibition curators Franck Gautherot, Caroline Hancock, Laura Hoptman and Judith Tannenbaum, an interview with the artist conducted by curator Seungduk Kim, and an in-depth chronology compiled by curator Diana Franssen. Famous and unseen archival material (magazine articles, photographs, letters, installation shots) will be reproduced as well as an overview of Benglis’ work since the mid-1960s. Seminal articles published in Artforum magazine are reproduced: “The Frozen Gesture” by Robert Pincus-Witten (November 1974) and “Bone of Contention” by Richard Meyer (November 2004). 

This exhibition is made possible by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The partnership includes the loan and subsequent donation to IMMA and the Rhode Island School of Design of two of Benglis’s sculptures from the bank’s corporate collection, Caelum, 1986, and Pleiades, 1982.

Rena DeSisto, head of Marketing & Corporate Affairs for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Global Arts & Heritage Executive said: “Bank of America Merrill Lynch has a well-established art and art-lending programme in the U.S. and we are very excited to be extending this to Europe. We are especially proud to help introduce to European audiences this particularly exciting and pioneering American sculptor. Lynda Benglis explores universal subjects such as body and mind using highly original materials. Her thought-provoking pieces will create dialogue and connect people on new levels.”

Lynda Benglis continues at IMMA until 24 January 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, 24 – 26 Dec & 28 Dec: Closed

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

8 October 2009

Notes to editors
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a major supporter of arts and culture in the United States, and increasingly in Europe. The bank’s support is built on a foundation of responsible business practices and good corporate citizenship that helps improve access to the arts and arts education in local communities. Through its travelling exhibition programme, Bank of America Merrill Lynch shares exhibits from its corporate collection with the community through museum partners. In addition, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation provides philanthropic support to museums, theatres and other arts-related nonprofits to expand their offerings to schools and communities. Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s unique arts and culture programme makes good business sense by providing customers with a distinct benefit, while supporting the economic and cultural vitality of the communities the bank serves.

An exhibition presenting a variety of fresh perspectives on the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection opens to the public at Ormeau Baths Gallery on Friday 16 October 2009. As a publicly funded gallery, the Ormeau Baths Gallery is supported by Belfast City Council and The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, OBG are proud to be exhibiting a unique artistic concept from an international gallery such as IMMA. This exhibition marks the first occasion that IMMA’s National Programme and OBG have collaborated.

Exquisite Corpse comprises 17 works from IMMA’s Collection selected by range of people from across the Irish and international arts world. These include renowned Surrealism scholar Dawn Ades, award-winning writer Colm Tóibín, celebrated artist Michael Craig-Martin and senior Tate curator Frances Morris. The resulting exhibition features a diverse range of works, including those by Barrie Cooke, Dorothy Cross, Richard Hamilton, Rebecca Horn, Caroline McCarthy, Vik Muniz, Kathy Prendergast and many more. The exhibition will be officially opened by Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator: Head of Collections, IMMA, at 7.00pm on Thursday 15 October.

Also known today as Consequences, the game Exquisite Corpse was invented by the Surrealist poets in 1925 and derives its name from a phrase used by them:  Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine). This involved several participants creating a poem or drawing with the idea of the body as a point of departure. A crucial element was that each player was unaware of what the others had written or drawn, resulting in a sequential collage of words or images.

The game grew out of the Surrealists’ interest in developing techniques that inspired free forms of association, unfettered by aesthetic, moral, and rational considerations. This mechanism provided a strategy for drawing out content in a spontaneous, unselfconscious way to allow the creative process to come to the fore, thus broadening the range of possible meanings. One of the fascinating aspects of the game is how, despite its apparently disparate elements, underlying connections often materialise, and visitors can judge for themselves the extent to which this is also the case with this exhibition.

The process of selecting the participants has been the main curatorial input by the Museum. Eligibility relied on the participants’ having some previous experience of IMMA’s Collection. The period of deliberation was kept as brief as possible, in order to maintain the instinctive nature of the game. It was serendipitous that Dawn Ades, renowned for her scholarship in Surrealism, was by virtue of her surname also the first player and so was able to bring her particular expertise to bear at the very beginning of the process. This led to her essay on Surrealism and the Outsiders and her choice of a work by Madge Gill from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection at IMMA. As she mentions in her text, the Surrealists were among the first to recognise the potency of Outsider art (created by those working outside established art structures) and in it the freedoms that they advocated.

The paradoxical title Exquisite Corpse itself influenced diverse choices and responses. Some works evoke the body in a visceral sense, others through abstract means, and some both at the same time, such as From the Mechanism of Meaning, 1971, by Shusaku Arakawa, chosen by Mick Wilson. Nicola Lees’ selection is a response involving the Ulysses inspired prints of Richard Hamilton from the Collection and a book installation by artist Simon Popper consisting of 120 copies of his alphabetized version of Ulysses. Artist Mark Garry’s selection plays on the ruse inherent in the game by inviting Erin Potts to choose the artwork and collaborating with Dianne De Stefano and Potts to evolve the text. The other participants are Gerald Barry, Aileen Corkery, Jonathan Carroll, Michael Craig-Martin, Deirdre Horgan, Jaki Irvine, Nicola Lees, Tony Magennis, Lisa Moran, Frances Morris and Colm Tóibín.

Commenting on the use of the Exquisite Corpse device to generate new insights into the Collection, Christina Kennedy, Head of IMMA’s Collections and the curator of the exhibition, said: “Exquisite Corpse could be seen as an elaborate, esoteric, some might say frivolous, historical model, yet it provides a unique methodology for a form of experimentation and creative experience which bypasses the exhaustive mediation of post-modernism and is a framework which allows for the possibility of the unknown, the unforeseen, the ambiguous, the open-ended”.

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 is supported by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.

The exhibition is co-curated by Christina Kennedy and Charlotte Bonham-Carter, former Assistant Curator: Collections at IMMA. The exhibition was first shown at IMMA in 2008/09. 

A fully-illustrated publication, with an introduction by Christina Kennedy and texts by all the participants, accompanies the exhibition.

Exquisite Corpse continues at Ormeau Baths Gallery until 21 November 2009.

Ormeau Baths Gallery
Ormeau Baths Gallery is a converted Victorian Bath house situated in the heart of Belfast; exhibiting international and local artists in contemporary and traditional practices.
Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am – 5.00pm
Address: Ormeau Baths Gallery, 18a Ormeau Avenue, Belfast, BT2 8HS
Tel: +44 (0)289 032 1402, Email: [email protected] Web: www.ormeaubaths.co.uk

For more information on OBG’s education programmes and artist talks please contact Ciara Hickey on tel: 028 9032 1402 or email: [email protected]

For press information please contact Gillian Collins, Ormeau Baths Gallery, on email: [email protected]  or Monica Cullinane, Irish Museum of Modern Art, at tel: +353 1 612 9900 or email: [email protected]

5 October 2009

An exhibition of works from the Collections of Mayo County Council, South Tipperary County Council and the Irish Museum of Modern Art opens to the public on Friday 14 August 2009 at the Ballina Arts Centre, Ballina, Co Mayo. Altered Images includes work by artists Thomas Brezing, David Creedon, Alice Maher, Caroline McCarthy and Abigail O’Brien, with especially commissioned works by Amanda Coogan and Daphne Wright. The exhibition will be officially opened by Aidan Dunne, Art Critic, The Irish Times, on Thursday 13 August 2009.
 
Accessible, interactive and inclusive in ethos, Altered Images aims to stimulate engagement with the visual arts for the general public and particularly for people with disabilities. The idea that a visual art exhibition should be accessible to all is not a new one, most museums and galleries have an access programme that enables people with disabilities to experience art works. However, the idea of selecting an entire exhibition with an emphasis on accessibility in a multi-dimensional way is relatively new in Ireland. The exhibition aims to enhance people’s engagement with the works through the tactility of relief models, by listening to the audio and artist’s descriptions and by viewing the sign language interpretation by Amanda Coogan.

Altered Images works on many levels. Firstly, curatorial decisions were taken to ensure a cohesive body of work. The selected works all make reference to classical or art historical sources either in the method of depiction or their subject matter. While each of the partner organisations has very different Collections in terms of capacity and the period of time they have been collecting, it was agreed at the outset that each would be represented equally. Each art work is accompanied by a multi-sensory display in order to provide meaningful access. In addition, an audio CD and Braille documentation of the large-print exhibition catalogue are available on request. Sign language tours are available by arrangement and an accessible website for the project can be found at www.alteredimages.ie

Padraig Naughton, Director, Arts and Disability Ireland has commented on the exhibition in the accompanying catalogue; “What makes Altered Images an advance on what has gone before in an Irish context is the curation of a whole exhibition that has a multi-sensory approach to access thus having an inclusive appeal that will reach the widest audience possible. While in my reflections I have concentrated predominantly on my access requirements as a visually impaired person, Altered Images intends to provide access solutions that are cross-impairment while simultaneously creating an exhibition of equal interest and accessibility to a non-disabled audience. Consequently encouraging disabled people and their families and friends to come and explore the exhibition together. Furthermore it will for example allow people who are blind or deaf to explore the conceptual nature of visual and sound art along side non-disabled people.”

Altered Images continues until 30 September 2009 at the Ballina Arts Centre.

Altered Images was shown at South Tipperary County Museum from 20 June to 5 August 2009, and will tour to the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2010.

Visitor Information:
Ballina Arts Centre, Ballina Civic Offices, Arran Place, Ballina, Co Mayo
Tel: +353 96 73593, Email: [email protected] Website: www.ballinaartscentre.com

Opening Hours:
Monday – Friday: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Saturda: 10.00am – 3.00pm
Closed: Sundays

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

31 July 2009

An exhibition of new and recent work by Irish artist Alan Phelan opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) on Wednesday 22 July 2009. Alan Phelan: Fragile Absolutes presents 16 works inspired by the artist’s ongoing engagement with political history, cultural theory, popular culture, masculinity and modified cars. A new IMMA-commissioned sculpture, created to coincide with the exhibition, is located in the Museum’s Formal Gardens. The exhibition continues a strand of programming at the Museum showcasing emerging Irish and international artists, which has already included Shahzia Sikander, Ulla von Brandenburg, Orla Barry and Paul Morrison.

The new commission, Goran’s Stealth Yugo, 2009, began in 2006 during a residency in Belgrade, Serbia, where Phelan collaborated with Goran Krstiæ, a car designer from the Zastava/Yugo car factory in the city of Kragujevac. The work resembles a stage in the design process, where 3d modelling is used to approximate a structural framework for a new car design. This phase has been rendered in chrome-plated steel, supported by extended twin exhaust pipes, attached to an underwater stabilising base. The effect is both dynamic, as the car turns and points into the sky; as well as disguised, with the framework covered in Phelan’s signature fake pine twigs, drawn from the ‘blend-in’ techniques used in the telecommunications industry to hide mobile phone masts (generally as fake trees). As Dušan I. Bjeliæ writes in an essay published in the accompanying monograph on Phelan’s work, the sculpture represents the “complex totality of geopolitics, history, industrial production, and aesthetics using the car as a central metaphor”.

The titles, subtitles and structure of the exhibition are derived from a project Phelan completed during his time on IMMA’s Artists’ Residency Programme in 2008. Taking the italicised words from the Slavoj Žižek book The Fragile Absolute – or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for? and using them as random word associations towards 15 ideas for works, now realised in a variety of materials and processes, from hand-carved marble, through to video and papier-mâché sculptures.

The works in the exhibition traverse numerous sources and time periods, from current affairs, popular fiction, boy racers, nationalist heroes, world war, economics, psychoanalysis and globalisation. Phelan sets up a complex mix of the literal and metaphorical references, simultaneously providing background information on many of his subjects, yet leaving them open to conflicting modes of interpretation. Heroes are vilified and despots are celebrated. Good and evil mix freely, undermining the certainty of truth. The decapitated head of Douglas Coupland, the Canadian writer famous for creating the term Generation X, is displayed on a basketball hoop stand; while laudatory death notices for former Serbian President Slobodan Miloševiæ are framed on the wall. Irish nationalist hero Arthur Griffith is rendered as an irritating mosquito, while fictional Irish Times columnist Ross O’Carroll Kelly is celebrated for his legendary sexual prowess. A woman who stole from a farmer is represented by her court-exit outfit and cute baby seals made from papier-mâché are clubbed to death. Classical Greek statuary is reduced to a store-bought modelling hand, resized and carved in marble in China, while the beginnings of World War I are displayed as a mock-billboard television bank.

In these, and other pieces, we see the artist humorously undermining the content of his own work by setting up sometimes inappropriate, or even tasteless, relationships between his subjects. These works operate side by side in a form of parataxis, without hierarchy – feeding off, informing and contradicting each other – yet shaped from Phelan’s interests in narrative, trans-cultural potential, and provisional meaning. As he reconfigures diverse elements they are lent a new voice – their context providing a means towards interpretation. A number of common elements can be discerned within the Fragile Absolutes body of work. They have a raw, unfinished quality – almost a sense of incompleteness which points to the artist’s intention of presenting discursive or dialogical structures in the place of ‘finished’ artworks. Dušan I. Bjeliæ uses Heidegger’s term Zuhandenheit to frame the materiality of Phelan’s practice, pointing to a type of ‘infrastructural aesthetic’ which focuses on what is left in the background of a philosophy rather than on what it specifically brings to light.

Born in Dublin in 1968, Alan Phelan studied at Dublin City University and Rochester Institute of Technology, New York. He has exhibited widely internationally including Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; SKUC, Ljubljana; Feinkost, Berlin; SKC, Belgrade. In Ireland he has exhibited at mother’s tankstation, Dublin; MCAC, Portadown; Limerick City Gallery of Art, and Solstice Arts Centre, Navan. He was editor/curator for Printed Project, issue 5, launched at the 51st Venice Biennale, and has curated exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, and Rochester, New York. Phelan was short-listed for the AIB Art Prize in 2007 for his work on the new commission, Goran’s Stealth Yugo, 2009.

The exhibition is curated by Seán Kissane, Curator: Exhibitions at IMMA.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated monograph with essays by Seán Kissane, Curator, IMMA; Dušan Bjelic, Professor of Criminology at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, USA; Medb Ruane, writer and journalist, and Tony White, novelist and journalist.

The exhibition is a collaborative project between three venues with new works and configurations appearing at each. The other venues are Limerick City Gallery of Art in November 2009, and Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales, in December 2009.

Alan Phelan: Fragile Absolutes continues until 1 November 2009.

Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays 12noon – 5.30pm
Culture Night: Friday 25 September open until 11.00pm
Mondays Closed

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

8 July 2009

An exhibition celebrating the diversity of contemporary art practices represented in the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art opens to the public at Artlink Gallery, Fort Dunree, Buncrana, Inishowen, Co Donegal, on Saturday 4 July 2009. Different Things focuses on the double video projection work, Dark Mirror, 2004/05, by leading Mexican artist Carlos Amorales and includes a film work, Dúscáthán-Dún an Rí: On the Lake of Shadows, made by local primary school children inspired by this work. Many of the artists featured in the exhibition, although very different in their practices, are linked through their use of drawing as an investigative tool, these include Irish artists Tom Molloy and Garrett Phelan and international artists Michael Craig-Martin, Franz Ackermann and Fred Tomaselli. The exhibition marks the first collaboration between IMMA’s National Programme and Donegal’s Artlink.

Carlos Amorales’s practice uses drawing as the basis from which to develop paintings, video animations and performances. In Dark Mirror, Amorales presents a double video projection featuring an animation by graphic designer André Pahl and an original score of piano music, performed by the composer and musician José María Serralde. The result is a nightmarish animation depicting man and beast in apocalyptic scenes, the imagery of which is rooted in contemporary popular symbols and Mexican icons. The film work inspired by this work, Dúscáthán-Dún an Rí, was made by local primary school pupils in workshops facilitated by visual artist Sara Greavu; contemporary dancer Carrie Logue, and storyteller Joe Brennan.

After moving to the Burren in Co Clare, Tom Molloy became interested in the collection, classification and registration of the natural world carried out by botanists in the area by drawing rather than painting, to minimize the effects of seasonality, colour, brushstroke and other formal considerations associated with expression. In Oak, 1998-99, Molloy focuses on individual leaves from one particular oak tree to query how we arrive at the general idea of a species. Molloy drew each individual leaf which was governed by the same rules of production, the uniqueness of each leaf coming to the forefront. The intense repeated labour of drawing and redrawing an object recurs throughout Molloy’s practice. Garrett Phelan in his work, NOW: HERE 24, 2006, investigates the notion of ‘collective belief systems’ and the ways in which ideas and beliefs enter into society. The NOW: HERE drawings stem from a body of work in which Phelan spent weeks in a semi-derelict apartment within Pallas Heights drawing and writing over as much of the available wall space as possible. Phelan engaged an excess of ambiguous symbols, signs and diagrams, referencing the communication of science, industry and technology, the resulting message is full of uncertainty.

Artlink, Buncrana, aims to link artists to the community and the community to art by devising and delivering innovative art projects resulting in exhibitions, public art and community projects. Artlink seeks to captivate the imagination of the public through participatory, educational and outreach programmes. It invests in national and international emerging and professional artists by creating opportunities for artists to develop their creativity and art practice. Artlink was formed in 1992, their workshop spaces are based in Tullyarvan Mill and the gallery is based in Fort Dunree Militart Museum, Buncrana.

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.

Workshops with local primary schools were supported by the Department of Education and Science.

The exhibition is supported by the Arts Council, Donegal County Council and the Inishowen Gateway Hotel and has been programmed in association with Earagail Arts Festival.

The exhibition continues until Sunday 2 August 2009 in Artlink Gallery, Fort Dunree, Buncrana, Co. Donegal.

Artlink Gallery
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10.30am – 5.00pm, Sunday 1.00pm – 6.00pm, Monday: Closed
Telephone: 074 936 3469
Email: [email protected] 
Website: www.artlink.ie

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

30 June 2009

The work of the distinguished contemporary composer Kevin Volans will be celebrated with two free concerts at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July 2009. The concerts, which also include pieces by a number of younger composers who have been influenced by Volans’ work, are being presented by IMMA to mark the composer’s 60th birthday this year. The Saturday concert begins at 8.00pm, while the Sunday concert begins at 12.30pm. 

The series is being presented by the Ensemble Madrid, a contemporary music group from Spain, and the SISU percussion ensemble from Norway. The central piece is Chakra, Volans’ spectacular percussion piece, which will be played at both the Saturday and Sunday concerts. The Saturday concert will present two world premieres: Volans’ No Translation – 6 Sketches after Juan Uslé (2009) for string sextet and percussion, and Arild Suárez’s Dúo no 1- dedicated to Kevin Volans (1998) for two percussionists. The concerts will also feature five Irish premiers.

Kevin Volans has been described, by Village Voice, as “one of the planet’s most distinctive and unpredictable voices”. Born in South Africa in 1949, he studied in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen and later became his teaching assistant. In the mid-1970s his work became associated with the New Simplicity movement – the beginnings of post-modernism in music. In 1979 he embarked on a series of works based on African compositional techniques, which quickly established him as a distinctive voice on the European new music scene. In 1986 he began a productive collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. Their recordings of his White Man Sleeps and Pieces of Africa broke all records for string quartet disc sales.

Volans has also written for dance, collaborating with Siobhan Davies, Jonathan Burrows and others. Latterly, he has turned his attention to writing for orchestra and to collaborating with visual artists and has recently completed a piece with the South African artist William Kentridge. In 2004 he received the Martin Toonder Award from the Arts Council. He has lived in Ireland since 1986.

Admission to the concerts is free, but booking is essential on email: [email protected]

Programmes

Concert I – Saturday 4 July at 8.00pm

Kevin Volans, No Translation – 6 sketches after Juan Uslé (2009). World premiere.  String sextet and percussion.
Arild Suárez, Dúo no.1 – dedicated to Kevin Volans (1998). World premiere. Two percussionists.
Kevin Volans, Quartet No.6 (2000). Irish premiere. String quartet and recorded sound.
Kevin Volans, Chakra (2003). Irish Premier. Three percussionists.

Concert II – Sunday 5 July 2009 at 12.30pm

Jose Luis Turina, Lama sabacthani (1980). Irish premiere. String quartet.
Arild Suárez, Sexteto No.2 (1996). Irish premiere. String sextet.
Alberto Iglesias, Suite Cautiva (1992). Irish premiere. Sting trio.
Kevin Volans, Chakra (2003), Irish premiere. Three percussionists.

Ensemble Madrid: Joan Espina, violin; Laura Salcedo, violin; Cristina Pozas, viola; Iván Martin, viola; Pedro Karasiuk, cello; Miguel Jiménez, cello.
SISU Percussion Ensemble: Bjørn Skansen; Marius Søbye; Tomas Nilsson.

This event is kindly supported by the Embassy of Spain, the Embassy of Norway, and the Embassy of South Africa.

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

23 June 2009

An exhibition of works from the Collections of South Tipperary County Council, Mayo County Council and the Irish Museum of Modern Art opens to the public on Saturday 20 June 2009 at the South Tipperary County Museum, Clonmel, Co Tipperary. Altered Images includes work by artists Thomas Brezing, David Creedon, Alice Maher, Caroline McCarthy and Abigail O’Brien, with especially commissioned works by Amanda Coogan and Daphne Wright. The exhibition will be officially opened by Mary Cloake, Director, The Arts Council, at 7.30pm on Friday 19 June 2009.
 
Accessible, interactive and inclusive in ethos, Altered Images aims to stimulate engagement with the visual arts for the general public and particularly for disabled people. The idea that a visual art exhibition should be accessible to all is not a new one, most museums and galleries have an access programme that enables people with disabilities to experience art works. However, the idea of selecting an entire exhibition with an emphasis on accessibility in a multi-dimensional way is relatively new in Ireland. The exhibition aims to enhance people’s engagement with the works through the tactility of relief models, by listening to the audio and artist’s descriptions and by viewing the sign language interpretation by Amanda Coogan.

Altered Images works on many levels. Firstly, curatorial decisions were taken to ensure a cohesive body of work. The selected works all make reference to classical or art historical sources either in the method of depiction or their subject matter. While each of the partner organisations has very different Collections in terms of capacity and the period of time they have been collecting, it was agreed at the outset that each would be represented equally. Each art work is accompanied by a multi-sensory display in order to provide meaningful access. In addition, an audio CD and Braille documentation of the large-print exhibition catalogue are available on request. Sign language tours are available by arrangement and an accessible website for the project can be found at www.alteredimages.ie

Padraig Naughton, Director, Arts and Disability Ireland has commented on the exhibition in the accompanying catalogue; “What makes Altered Images an advance on what has gone before in an Irish context is the curation of a whole exhibition that has a multi-sensory approach to access thus having an inclusive appeal that will reach the widest audience possible. While in my reflections I have concentrated predominantly on my access requirements as a visually impaired person, Altered Images intends to provide access solutions that are cross-impairment while simultaneously creating an exhibition of equal interest and accessibility to a non-disabled audience. Consequently encouraging disabled people and their families and friends to come and explore the exhibition together. Furthermore it will for example allow people who are blind or deaf to explore the conceptual nature of visual and sound art along side non-disabled people.” 

Altered Images continues until 5 August 2009 at the South Tipperary County Museum. From there it will tour to Ballina Arts Centre, Co Mayo from 14 August – 30 September 2009 and finally to the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2010.

Visitor Information:
South Tipperary County Museum, Mick Delahunty Square, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Tel: 052 34550, Email: [email protected], Website: www.southtippcoco.ie

Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Last admission: 4.45pm
Closed: Sundays, Mondays and Bank Holidays

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

4 June 2009 

A new arts and literary publication featuring contributions by Francesco Clemente, Seamus Heaney, Nalini Malani, David Mitchell, Sean Scully, Colm Tóibín and a host of other leading art world figures, will be launched by the Irish Museum of Modern Art at 6.00pm on Thursday 11 June 2009. Boulevard Magenta is the brain child of IMMA’s Director, Enrique Juncosa, himself a noted poet, who has brought together a collection of works ranging across the visual arts, prose, poetry, music, film and architecture for the first issue of the biannual magazine. The launch coincides with the opening of a new exhibition at the Museum by the celebrated American artist Terry Winters, who has contributed nine drawings incorporating texts by the American writer Ben Marcus to the publication.

The literary pieces include a short story by Colm Tóibín, based on an undeveloped plot from one of Henry James’s notebooks; a poem by Seamus Heaney, written in response to a painting by Colin Middleton; an excerpt from a forthcoming novel by David Mitchell and three poems by the Spanish poet José Carlos Llop. Also included is an unpublished interview with the Polish poet Czes³aw Mi³osz, carried out by the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and the French artist Philippe Parreno just prior to Mi³osz’s death in 2004.

Several of the artists featured in the publication have exhibited at IMMA, such as Miquel Barceló, who is represented by a series of paintings inspired by creatures of the sea; Francesco Clemente, whose portraits include three of his fellow contributors, and Nalini Malani, whose watercolours combine Indian and Western mythologies. This first issue also includes ten paintings by Sean Scully, an exhibition of whose work will be presented by IMMA in collaboration with the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane in 2011.

Boulevard Magenta also presents the design for a private house in Dublin by the London-based architecture firm Amanda Levete Architects, whose commissions also include the Spencer Dock Bridge; excerpts from the script for the long-awaited new film by Tran Anh Hung, and an unpublished early score by Kevin Volans.

Enrique Juncosa was particularly keen that the new publication would reflect the Museum’s multi-disciplinary approach to programming, echoing early avant-garde magazines: “In recent years, IMMA has organised numerous projects involving not only artists but also writers, architects, musicians, filmmakers and dancers. We believe that in this acknowledgement of the interconnection between art forms, we are offering our audiences the context and background to understand, learn from and enjoy more fully what we have to give.”

The title, Boulevard Magenta, is inspired by the street of that name in Paris, which Enrique Juncosa discovered on a visit there. He subsequently learned from one of the contributors, the poet Derek Mahon, that the street takes its name from the Battle of Magenta, fought in northern Italy in 1859 during the French-Piedmontese war against the Austrians, where French troops defeated the Austrian army, forcing them out of the country. The French were lead by General Patrice de Mac-Mahon, a member of the French nobility whose family originated in Co Limerick, who was given the title Duc de Magenta for his role in the battle.

Boulevard Magenta is edited by Enrique Juncosa and Seán Kissane, Curator: Exhibitions at IMMA. The project is funded through the sale of  the limited edition print, Gray’s Robe, 2008, specially created for the Museum by Sean Scully, and also by a generous donation from Marie Donnelly.

The publication will be launched in New York at 12 noon on Bloomsday, Tuesday 16 June, by Niall Burgess, Consul General of Ireland, and Enrique Juncosa, at the Residence of the Consul General, 240 East 39th Street, # 52C.

Copies are available via the Museum’s website at Publications and at the Museum bookshop, price €25.00.

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

3 June 2009

Seanscéalta / Myths and Legends, an exhibition developed through the continued partnership between Iniscealtra Festival of the Arts and IMMA’s National Programme, opens to the public at Raheen Hospital Day Care Centre and Scariff Library, Co Clare on Monday 25 May 2009. Seanscéalta / Myths and Legends explores the world of childhood stories and memories, nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

In Scariff Library, artworks from IMMA’s Collection by Irish artist Alice Maher are exhibited alongside works made by local primary school children and visitors to the Raheen Hospital Day Care Centre in workshops inspired by both Alice Maher’s and  Paula Rego’s practices. Born in Tipperary, Alice Maher works within the realms of nature and culture, subversion and transformation, mythology and memory. Maher explains that working with materials like bees, berries and hair, she builds up a strong relationship with their histories and cultural associations in the creation of surreal works, that appear, like enchanted objects from a medieval folk tale. 

Maher’s Berry Dress, 1994 presents the delicate shape of the child’s dress, decorated with berries. On closer inspection, the dress loses its innocence and protective role, taking on a more sinister appeal. The pins, which hold the berries in place, are arranged internally – should the dress be worn, these pins would pierce the skin. Maher frequently uses materials in such a way that they challenge our interpretation of them. 

Prints from IMMA’s Collection by Paula Rego, the celebrated Portuguese painter and print-maker, are exhibited in Raheen Hospital Day Care Centre. Rego’s works are highly figurative and explore, often through illustration of well-known works of literature, frightening or disturbing situations, many of which have a semi-overt sexual aspect. A number of her prints relate specifically to children’s literature, to fairy tales, nursery rhymes and longer fictional works which have a wide popular appeal. Using powerfully contrasting light effects, sharp, angular forms and child-like shifts in scale she communicates a sense that cherished children’s stories often contain messages that are profoundly unnerving from a child’s perspective or, alternately, are accepted by the child while it is the adult reader who is not comfortable with them.

Rego’s Little Miss Muffet, 1989 was made in response to a request from her grandchild, who did not seem distressed as Rego recalls by the enlarged spider and adult face. The etching has Freudian connections, as Freud believed that the mother was often perceived by a child as a spider, capturing it in her limbs and encroaching on its life. Daughters and their relationship with their mothers is a recurring theme in Rego’s work.

IMMA’s National Programme is designed to create access opportunities to the visual arts in a variety of situations and locations in Ireland. Using the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and exhibitions generated by the Museum, the National Programme facilitates the creation of exhibitions and other projects for display in a range of locations around the country. The National Programme establishes the Museum as inclusive, accessible and national, de-centralising the Collection, and making it available to communities in their own localities, on their own terms, in venues with which the audience is comfortable and familiar.

The exhibition will be accompanied by workshops and tours funded by the Department of Education.

Opening Hours:
Scariff Public Library, Mountshannon Road, Scariff, Co Clare
Monday – Friday: 12.00am – 5.00pm
Tel: (061) 922893

Raheen Hospital Day Care Centre:
Monday – Friday: 11.00 am – 5.00pm

Seanscéalta / Myths and Legends continues until Friday 29 May 2009.

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

12 May 2009

An exhibition from the IMMA Collection, featuring sculptures and installation works from the 1990s, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 14 May 2009. Between Metaphor and Object provides new perspectives on the diversity of practices represented in the IMMA Collection from this period, explores its particularities, and considers them in the context of international trends of the decade. Central to the exhibition are a number of key works from the Weltkunst Collection, which is on loan to IMMA since 1994. This significant collection of British sculpture and drawings of the 1980s and ‘90s will return to the Weltkunst Foundation in 2010. The exhibition acknowledges the vision and generousity of this loan. 

The Weltkunst Collection epitomises what is popularly referred to as ‘New British Sculpture’, a term used to describe the quite disparate work of young sculptors who emerged in the late 1970s and ‘80s and who showed renewed interest in using traditional materials after the dominance of Minimalist and Conceptual practices. The principal artists associated with this movement and featured in the exhibition are Barry Flanagan, Shirazeh Houshiary, Anish Kapoor and Alison Wilding. Other key Weltkunst artists included in the exhibition are Avis Newman, Lucia Nogueira, Julian Opie, Jacqueline Poncelet, Rachel Whiteread and Richard Wentworth. Work by Irish artists using a variety of materials include a totemic cast resin sculpture by Eilís O’Connell, a work by Siobhán Haphaska of lacquered fiberglass, basalt and moss playfully pitching the organic with the mass produced and a bronze installation by Michael Warren in homage to Eileen Gray. The exhibition also includes other works of the 1990s  from the IMMA Collection by artists such as Kiki Smith, Ann Hamilton and Maud Cotter whose presence references a central focus of the period on issues of identity, gender and the politics of the body and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, whose works imply stories which must be imagined by their audience.

Commenting on the exhibition Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator: Head of Collections, IMMA, said “Rather than addessing an overarching theme, each of the works in this exhibition operates as a sort of microcosm of each artist’s practice. However, the exhibition title Between Metaphor and Object takes its cue from the figurative and metaphoric imagery and titles of many of the Welkunst works and invites us to consider  how we look at and engage with a work of art. It calls attention to the range of readings that can accrue around a work of art and the idea of the continuous flux that such engagement elicits  between symbolism and objecthood in the mind of the viewer.”

The exhibition reflects the growing prevalence of installation works at the critical forefront of art developments in the 1990s. The international dominance in the ‘90s of interactive art practices that draw on human relations and their social context, termed ‘Relational Art’, is not reflected in the Weltkunst Collection, although noted exponent Douglas Gordon does feature with the work Above all else, 1991. In the context of this exhibition Literally Based on H.Z., 2006, by Liam Gillick, goes on view on the Landing for the first time since its acquisition. Much of the work for this project is based on academic research produced in South America concerning industrial working practices in Scandinavia in the 1970s. The work operates in parallel with Construcción de Uno Gillick’s ongoing open-ended writing project about the notion of continued production in a post-industrial landscape, where the former workers return to their now abandoned experimental factory to revisit the progressive models of production that led to their subsequent redundancy. Austrian artist Heimo Zobernig was also involved in the making of the installation.

Between Metaphor and Object is co-curated by Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator: Head of Collections, IMMA, and Marguerite O’Molloy, Assistant Curator: Collections, IMMA.

Between Metaphor and Object continues until 4 April 2010.
Litterally Based on H.Z., 2006, by Liam Gillick, continues until 27 September 2009.

Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am – 5.30pm
except Wednesday 10.30am – 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays 12noon – 5.30pm
Culture Night: Friday 25 September open until 11.00pm
Mondays Closed

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

12 May 2009