A major exhibition of contemporary Latin-American art opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 5 October 2005.  The Hours: Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America comprises 121 works from the Daros-Latinamerican collection, one of the most important private collections of contemporary art in Europe, with its own museum in Zürich. For the past five years the museum has been collecting works by many of Latin America’s most influential contemporary artists, creating one of the world’s foremost collections of Latin-American art. This is the largest exhibition of Latin-American art ever staged in Ireland. The exhibition is organised by Daros-Latinamerica, Zürich, in co-operation with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and is curated by Sebastián López, former Director of Gate Foundation, Amsterdam, and Curator of the Shanghai Biennale 2004.

The exhibition presents works by some of the most celebrated Latin-American artists working today, including Guillermo Kuitca (Argentina), Doris Salcedo (Colombia), Los Carpinteros (Cuba) and Vik Muniz (Brazil). The work of rapidly-emerging younger artists, such as María Fernanda Cardoso (Colombia), Nicola Costantino (Argentina) and Dario Escobar (Guatemala), is also featured. In addition to the works in the galleries, the exhibition will also include a number of off-site public works – in IMMA’s grounds and in a number of locations in Temple Bar – and a performance piece by Tania Bruguera (Cuba).   A number of works in the exhibition have already been shown at Documenta 11, the 2005 Venice Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, the Shanghai Art Museum and in other prestigious venues worldwide.

As the title suggests, in curating the exhibition Sebastián López has taken the concept of time as a revealing perspective from which to explore and present the works. This, in his words, “reveals some of their most significant traits and permits us to isolate them within a historical moment in the production of Latin American art. Many of the works reflect the social and political circumstances of particular countries or regions. Other deal with the past and the way it still plays a role in the present”. López takes his inspiration for this approach from the works of the great Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, in whose work time plays a central role, enabling him to inhabit various real and imagined worlds at the same time.

López sees a world of affinities between Borges’ universe and the artists in The Hours.  His aim is to “enable us to traverse different levels, spaces and times of varying intensity, with the mornings, siestas, afternoons and evenings that we find in the production of contemporary Latin American artists”.   In November the 6th, 2001, Doris Salcedo uses one of the most important dates in recent Colombian history, on which guerrillas overran the palace of justice killing 115 people, not only to anchor her work in a particular time frame, but also to indicate the wounds which these events left on her country. In An Eight Day Diary Guillermo Kuitca is engaged in a retracing of time through a series of drawings, created since 1981, populated by subjects and images, which have recurred throughout his career. Vik Muniz, familiar to IMMA visitors from his very popular exhibition in 2004, uses images from publications on modern art and the history of photography, but transforms them to make them relevant to the present. His Che (Black Pepper Soup), 2000, based on Alberto Korda’s famous photograph, is a witty take on modern-day Cuba and on the status of Che Guevara’s image in contemporary society. The work of the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto and Santiago Sierra, born in Spain and now living in Mexico, have also already been shown at IMMA.   Placed in the contexts of their peers in this exhibition, their work shows the rich connections one can find in contemporary Latin America art.

The exhibition also has a special programme of video works which includes works by Juan Manuel Echavarría (Colombia), Priscilla Monge (Costa Rica), Lilliana Porter (Argentina-USA), Martin Sastre (Mexico) and Santiago Sierra (Spain–Mexico).

In addition to the works in the galleries, The Hours will also include a number of off-site projects.  Chilean/US artist Alfredo Jaar’s video A Logo for America, is being shown in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar. Challenging the near universal USA-centred perception of “America”, at the expense of the southern continent, the work made a major impact when originally seen in Time Square, New York. A much-acclaimed sound installation, by the Colombian/UK artist Oswaldo Macia, will be located in the colonnades at IMMA. Entitled Vespers, it traces its origins to the role of the female chorus in Greek tragedy and was created using 55 different testimonies of women recorded in seven languages, set in a hauntingly beautiful choral arrangement similar to those found in Greek Orthodox liturgical music. Another off-site work by the Cuban artist Wilfriedo Prieto will take the form of a series of flags along the Liffey. Nicola Costantino’s striking works on gender and objects will be displayed along the corridor beside the Museum’s bookshop and café.

The exhibition also has a Reading Room with relevant literature on the artists in the show.

Since the beginning of 2000, Daros-Latinamerica has been devoted to building up a collection of contemporary art from Latin America. Today the collection contains the work of more than 70 artists from almost every country in Latin America. All genres and media are represented, in work created largely over the last 20 years and complemented with a few selected earlier works.

Panel Discussion: Wednesday 5 October at 3.00pm in the Chapel at IMMA Sebastián López, curator of the exhibition, will chair a discussion with a number of artists      represented in the exhibition. Admission is free, but booking is essential. To book please telephone the automatic booking line on Tel: +353 1 612 9948 or Email: [email protected]

A substantial full-colour publication with a foreword by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA, and Hans–Michael Herzog, Director of the Daros-Latinamerica collection with essays by Sebastián López and Eugenio Valdés Figueroa, curator and critic, accompanies the exhibition. The catalogue comes with an art historical description of the works in the exhibition authored by Herzog, López and Valdés Figueroa.

The Hours: Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America continues until 15 January 2006.

Admission is free.

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

Monday and 24 – 27 December  Closed

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

14 September 2005

An exciting, new exhibition resulting from a collaboration between the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Youngfringe opens to the public at IMMA today (Tuesday 13 September 2005). Precaution provides alternative spaces for work to be shown in seven different locations around the Museum; a tree on the east avenue, the front lawn, an artists studio, a shipping container, a staircase, the Process Room and the Project Room. This is the first year that the Dublin Fringe Festival has included a Youngfringe programme as part of the festival. Much of the work in the exhibition is being exhibited for the first time. 

John Beattie has produced a site-specific piece, Extension, physically linking the grounds of the Museum with an installation inside. The performative painting involves the use of a customised video camera attached to the artist’s foot and arm, which documents actions around areas surrounding the Museum. This act is also documented through photography. The video/sound piece created while the artist walked is shown on the screen of the customised video camera that was used to record it. This work is process-driven, with the idea itself as the core of the piece. The Museum space, the equipment, the artist’s walk and the artistic documentation of the experience become both the process and the finished work.

An installation by Eoin McHugh involves a number of framed drawings hung in close proximity to each other that depict objects, experiments, performances and narratives. McHugh states that he is ‘interested in the structuring of language involved in the interpretation of ambiguity in an artwork; in the space between the image, the object and the idea.’  Objects and ideas depicted in his drawings are further explored in a new dimension through the development of an ambitious new sculpture and a site-specific work on the front lawn of the Museum titled Garden. This temporary intervention is again exploring a conceptual space, that between the physical plants and the idea of transience.

Vanessa Donoso López explores the complexities of human relationships. Through the use of patterns, colour, line drawing and collage set against stark backgrounds she creates energetic and sometimes eccentric characters bursting with life and complexities. Continuing with some of the themes such as childhood memories, dreams and fantasy in her mixed media pieces, López has created a number of delicate clockwork kinetic sculptures to bring a new dimension to the characters from her paintings.

In Caroline Donoghue’s work, created on a found handwritten ledger – a ‘day book’ from Belfast Gasworks dated 1916, a miniature forest of trees appears to grow randomly from the open pages. The miniature landscape that is conjured presents a dreamlike state and perhaps promises escape. Within the ledger is the sense of a time past, the model trees the only reference point. Trained as a printmaker, Donoghue also uses new media and sculpture to express her ideas. Her video works in this exhibition deal with her interest in the human need to collect and archive. 

Eilis McDonald gathers debris from her surroundings on which to make paintings.  Located in a shipping container outside the main entrance to the Museum, McDonald’s site-specific work reacts to the constraints of this space in an explosive manner. The piece has an anxious energy, which results from the layering of paintings, noise, lights and video work. The installation combines a range of media that bring together themes relating to confusion and popular culture, art history and value systems.

Nina Canell combines found and custom-built objects to make sculptural and sound works. Objects are balanced and positioned in order to sustain a flexible state in which formations move with a seeming randomness, provoking an interesting clash between the visual and the sonic impact. Canell creates an alternative perspective on structures that we may normally perceive as purely utilitarian. She finds the hidden language of these objects and with ingenuity turns these everyday objects into works of art.

Paul Coffey’s works, which are a combination of artistic actions or experiments, are made using familiar everyday materials. His gently humorous and questioning works are so understated that they force us to look for things, to question the why and how.  Rich in metaphor and ambiguity the first of Coffey’s two works is an intervention by the artist with a tree in the grounds of the Museum which involves using a dot punch to create holes in the leaves of the tree. The second installation of a single Christmas decoration, powered through a coil of extension leads, is located on a staircase at the Museum.  Both works link the exterior and interior and use materials from urban daily life in an unlikely fashion playing with expectations and perceptions of the ordinary. 

Brigette Heffernan’s work I propose a toast is an entertaining installation that demands audience participation. The participant chooses a piece of bread and pops it into a toaster before launching it along a measured track. The results are marked onto a score sheet and at the end of the exhibition, the overall winner is told of their victory by their chosen means of contact. Heffernan has a strong focus in her work on whimsy and humour. Access is paramount; there must be no barriers between the artistic endeavour and the audience. 

A full-colour publication with a text by the curators Janice Hough, Johanne Mullan and Marguerite O’Molloy accompanies the exhibition. 

There will be an opportunity to meet the artists at IMMA on Sunday 18 September from 3.00pm – 5.00pm.

Precaution continues until the 2 October.
         
For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at Tel: +353 1 612 9900, Fax: +353 1 612 9999, Email: [email protected]

13 September 2005

The first exhibition in Ireland by the renowned British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 21 September 2005.  Isaac Julien comprises three audiovisual works Paradise Omeros, 2002, Vagabondia, 2000, and The Long Road to Mazatlán, 1999.  Each work will be shown for one month and the exhibition space will be re-configured to a two-screen or three-screen format creating a specific environment for each work.  Isaac Julien effortlessly breaks down the barriers that exist between different artistic disciplines, drawing from and commenting on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture, and uniting these to construct a powerful visual narrative. 

The first film in this exhibition Paradise Omeros was much celebrated at Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany, in 2002.  The installation delves into the fantasies and feelings of "creoleness" – the mixed language, the hybrid mental states and the territorial transpositions that arise when one lives in multiple cultures.  Using the recurrent imagery of the sea, the film sweeps the viewer into a poetic meditation on the ebb and flow of self and stranger, love and hate, war and peace, xenophobe and xenophile.  Paradise Omeros is set in London in the 60s and on the Caribbean island of St Lucia today and is loosely based on some of Nobel Prize winning poet Derek Walcott’s poems from Omeros.  Derek Walcott and the musician and composer Paul Gladstone Reid collaborated with Julien on the text and score for the film.  Paradise Omeros is co-scripted by Isaac Julien and Grischa Duncker.

Vagabondia was filmed in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Here a conservator, played by Cleo Sylvestre, reveals to the viewer the hidden histories and objects within the museum’s cornucopia of curios, collected by Soane during his Grand Tour.  Into this environment Julien places a Vagabond who brings the spirit of the Grand Tour back to life through his movements which where choreographed by the acclaimed dancer and choreographer Javier de Frutos.
 
The Long Road to Mazatlán was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001.  This work is another collaboration with Javier de Frutos and was commissioned by ArtPace and Grand Arts Kansas City.  This work draws on the mythologies of the frontier culture of the American west and in particular the loaded iconographies of the Cowboy and is imbued with a homoerotic quality redolent of Andy Warhol’s Lonesome Cowboys.  It also references the work of Martin Scorsese and David Hockney and continues, as with Julien’s earlier film work, to subvert preconceptions of race and sexuality.

Biographical Details
Isaac Julien was born in 1960 in London, where he currently lives and works.  Julien graduated from St Martin’s School of Art, London, where he studied painting and fine art film.  Julien’s recent films include Fantôme Afrique, 2005; True North, 2004; Baltimore, 2003, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Kunst Film Biennale in Cologne; Paradise Omeros, 2002; Vagabondia, 2000; The Long Road to Mazatlán, 1999, which was nominated for the 2001 Turner Prize.  Earlier films include Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask, 1996; the Cannes prize-winning Young Soul Rebels, 1991, and Looking for Langston, 1989.  Julien was the recipient of the prestigious MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, 2001.  Solo exhibitions have included GL Strand Kunstoreningen, Denmark; Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal, Canada; House of World Cultures, Berlin; Art Pace, San Antonio, Texas, and Bohen Foundation, New York.  The Film Art of Isaac Julien, curated by Amada Cruz at Bard Curatorial College, was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and toured to the Bildmuseet Umeå, Henie Onstad Museum, Norway, and Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco.

Exhibitions in 2005 include Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, MAK Center, Los Angeles, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami.  Isaac Julien is currently visiting Mellon Professor at University of Pittsburgh and is a Trustee of the Serpentine Gallery and InIVA in London and of the Art Pace Foundation in San Antonio in Texas.

Exhibition Screening Dates
Paradise Omeros, 2002    21 September – 23 October
Vagabondia, 2000      4 November  – 4 December
The Long Road to Mazatlán, 1999  20 December – 15 January

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

A fully-illustrated catalogue, with texts by scholars Giuliana Bruno and José Esteban Muñoz, Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA, Seán Kissane, and an interview with Derek Walcott by Marie-Hélène Laforest, accompanies the exhibition (price €29.00).

Artist’s Talk
Isaac Julien presents an illustrated lecture on his work practice on Tuesday 20 September at 5.00pm in the Lecture Room at IMMA.  Admission to the talk is free but booking is essential as space is limited.  To book please call the automatic booking line on tel: 01 612 9948 or email [email protected] 
 
The exhibition continues until 15 January 2006.  Admission is free.

Opening hours:  Tuesday to Saturday  10.00am – 5.30pm
                           except Wednesdays  10.30am – 5.30pm
                           Sundays and Bank Holidays  12noon- 5.30pm

                           Mondays and 24 – 27 December  Closed

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

12 September 2005   

An exhibition of works from the Collection of Irish Museum of Modern Art opens to the public on Thursday 1 September 2005 at the Iontas Arts Centre, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan. Visual Eyes: Selected artwork from the IMMA Collection is shown in collaboration with the Iontas Arts Centre and is the Centres inaugural exhibition. The exhibition includes work by prominent artists such as David Godbold, Tim Mara, Brian Maguire and Paul Winstanley.  

Brian Maguire deals with ideas of alienation and isolation within society and in personal relationships.  His work has been at the cutting edge of contemporary Irish art in spite of the fact that he continued to use the medium of painting at a time when many artists were turning to other media. In 1998 he was commissioned to represent Ireland in the Bienale de São Paulo. The resulting Casa da Cultura Project was donated to IMMA in 2000. During his stay in Brazil, Maguire worked on a series of drawings at an arts centre where local children from the Favela Vila Prudente, one of the city’s slums, attended classes. Maguire made drawings of sixty children during his four month residency. Two drawings of each child were completed, one was given to the child to take home, and the other drawing remained with the artist.  When Maguire visited the children’s homes, the portraits had found their niche, sometimes in the most unexpected places: drawings were hanging from coat-hooks, on curtains and perched alongside treasured nick-knacks and soft-toys on sideboards. The photographs which were taken make up the series called Favela Vila Prudente and serve not only as a document of the exchange between the artist and the children but also as a testament to the duality of the life of these portraits. Bare concrete walls and naked bulbs are the backdrop to the drawings in the photographs – a striking contrast to the white walls of the Museum. 
 
Paul Winstanley’s paintings are meticulous, meditative renderings of vacated spaces such as waiting rooms, deserted passages and lobbies. Sometimes looking out from these interior spaces onto the landscape, Winstanley frames the natural world with the clean lines of 1970s utopian architecture. The spaces he is interested in are those spaces which are most often the last place you want to be – like doctors’ waiting rooms or official spaces where people count minutes and wait their turn. Time is slowed down here and the smallest of details occupy the eye as it wanders over the interior, becoming familiar with its every crack and crevice. In Veil a common white net curtain is elevated to the poignant and poetic status of a veil. We can imagine its folds and edges stirring slightly in the breeze, but somehow the image is not benign and innocent, instead it is melancholic and unsettling. We are excluded or deprived by the veil, the space beyond it is hidden from us and we are concealed from the outer world.

Also included in the exhibition are prints by Tim Mara who is widely considered to be one the most important printmakers of our time. The self-portrait Reeded Glass and Shadow is one of a series of three prints. On the left, there is an image of the artist wearing his father’s black-rimmed glasses, his face distorted by the textured glass; on the right Mara’s silhouette is barely visible against the cream wall suggesting the passage of time and the importance of family history.

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of workshops facilitated by artist Cliona Harmey in response to the film Hereafter by Paddy Jolley, Rebecca Trost and Inger Lise Hansen. A projection of the resulting work will be shown alongside Hereafter as part of the exhibition. IMMA staff will also facilitate workshops and talks for local national and secondary schools, supported by the Department of Education & Science. 

The exhibition will be officially opened by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA.
 
The 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 programme facilitates the creation of exhibitions and other projects for display in a range of locations around the country.

Visual Eyes continues until 7 October 2005.

Opening Hours: Sunday – Saturday 10.00am -5.30pm

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at Tel: +353 1 612 9900, Fax: +353 1 612 9999, Email: [email protected]

1 September 2005

An exhibition of works from the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection opens to the public on Monday 5 September 2005 at County Buildings, Wicklow Town. Cherrypicking is an exhibition of artwork from the IMMA Collection curated by the staff of Wicklow County Council. The exhibition includes well-known Irish and international artists such as Hamish Fulton, Brian Maguire, John Kindness and Alice Maher.

The Wicklow County Arts Office in partnership with IMMA’s National Programme invited staff members of Wicklow County Council to curate an exhibition of work from the IMMA Collection. This process involved a series of discussions and visits to the Museum. The panel of staff from various departments within the council explored the curatorial process and the behind-the-scenes work involved in selecting, presenting and publicising an exhibition.

Hamish Fulton’s art takes the form of walks in the landscape.  In the past 20 years, he has covered more than 20,000 miles on five continents.  The photographs and texts produced as a result of these walks are simply objects, intended to bring his own experience within nature to the viewers of his art. Fulton’s philosophy is “no walk, no art.”  Thus each object is based directly on a specific journey, in this case Seven Days Walking and Seven Nights Camping in a Wood, Scotland. Fulton’s work can be seen as part of the wider Conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s in particular Land Art which in his case embraced performance, photography, text, mapping and digital imagery.

Belfast artist John Kindness began his career as an illustrator before moving on to large- scale painting and sculptural installations. His work is characterised by its sharp-witted satire and derives as much from popular culture and kitsch as it does from conventional fine art. Dog with Altar Piece and A Monkey Parade are satirical representations of the two opposing factions in the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. The orange sash and symbolic imagery of King Billy and his white horse crossing the river Boyne belong here to an order of monkeys who are foolishly following a blindfolded leader in the wrong direction while their Catholic counterparts are led by vicious hounds with studded "dog-collars".

Commenting on the selection of the John Kindness works A Monkey Parade and Dog with Altar Piece Garvan Hickey, employee of Wicklow County Council who selected the work said:‘’ I chose these pieces not for any particular artistic feature or achievement, which I would know nothing about, but because I liked them and they struck me as being particularly vibrant and humorous. The paintings are engaging and the strong use of colour draws one in and shows that emotive issues, which are the potential source of conflict, can be viewed in a humorous way. The paintings show that there is more than one way of looking at and engaging with any one situation.’’

Tipperary-born Alice Maher works within the realms of nature and culture, subversion and transformation, mythology and memory. 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.  Berry Dress presents the delicate shape of the child’s dress, decorated with ripe berries.  On closer inspection, the dress loses its innocence, taking on a more sinister appeal. The pins, which hold the berries in place, are arranged internally and should the dress be worn, these pins would pierce the skin. Coma Berenices, another work by Maher included in the exhibition, refers to a classical story concerning the hair of Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy III of Egypt. In return for the safe return of Ptolemy from war Berenice offered her beautiful tresses to Aphrodite.

The 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 for national and secondary students supported by the Department of Education & Science.

Cherrypicking continues until the 30 September 2005 at County Buildings Wicklow.

Opening Hours: Monday – Friday 10.00am – 5.00 pm.

For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy at Tel: +353 1 612 9900, Fax: +353 1 612 9999, Email: [email protected]

24 August 2005

The first solo exhibition in Ireland of the internationally acclaimed German artist Franz Ackermann opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 20 July 2005. Franz Ackermann comprises a series of large brightly coloured paintings and installations which reflect the changing nature of today’s increasingly globalised society. Two of the works have been designed especially for the spaces at IMMA. The exhibition also includes smaller works on paper in which the artist has been creating since 1991, reproducing the cities and landscapes he visits in the form of a topographic memory.

Ackermann’s work derives from his wide-ranging travels from Tokyo, Manila, Hanoi and Bangkok to Rome and São Paolo.  His experiences within this world are that of a tourist, rather than a traveller, and his work reflects this dizzying sensory overload.  Ackermann’s large installation paintings depict urban dynamics in the form of organic energy centres via documentation, postcards and newspapers.  His works read as a geographical metaphor for the ways in which travel and digital communication can be substituted for each other in a world which is becoming faster and easier to navigate every day.  For this exhibition Ackermann explores the conflict between fears and freedoms inherent in 21st-century travel and tourism and what precisely it means to participate in the global tourist economy.
 
Faceland III was first shown as part of the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.  Ritualistically, as with all his works, Ackermann spent time in the weeks leading up to the exhibition walking the well-trodden tourist paths of Venice, actively scanning the environment and morphing into the identity of the tourist.  Faceland III is characterized by interconnecting works, which look like a hallucinatory urban planning system, there is a distinct centre around which are built interconnected satellite systems that suggest a fragmented sense of detail and other scenes from the landscape which contain obvious sites of tourist interest in Venice.  As part of the installation one area is illuminated by a sphere of light bulbs, that look like a builders demolition ball, ready to demolish the environment.  It also could be seen as an advertising sign for Ackermann, as we see a graphic black and white outline of his face, with the obligatory tourist’s RayBans. 

In Travelantitravel, 2004, Ackermann explores the dialogue between tourism-terrorism and the emotions associated with theses issues.  Berlin is the subject of this work, where Ackermann is resident and returns to from his travels.  There is a violent beauty to this work as we see the imposing prominent steel cages which house most of the paintings.  A steel and glass structure reminiscent of an interrogation area adds a sense of surveillance to the installation, which could allude to Berlin’s past and present histories.  Guns, a sleeping bag and structural carnage are also included in the installation and are hung in a way that forces us to confront the relationship between violence, mobility and tourism.  A prominent theme in Ackermann’s work is how easily travel can be disrupted, in the work we see a network of passages blocked by iron railings.  These architectural forms suggest the numerous physical, social, political, economic and ethnic upheavals that have characterized urban centres over the past decade.
 
The Landing Room and The Staying Room, both 2005, are based on Ackermann’s relationship to Dublin from the invitation to show his work at IMMA and an unplanned visit to Dublin during an emergency airplane landing due to a bomb warning.  As he took to the role of tourist in Dublin, from viewing the Spire to walking down Grafton Street and visiting Temple Bar, Ackermann considered the socio-economical and political effect of the Celtic Tiger.  The dynamics of contemporary tourism where affected by the Celtic Tiger and many believe the culture of Ireland has been eroded by growing consumerism and the acceptance of American capitalist ideals.  Cities like Dublin are organic breathing entities to Ackermann and as they expand he captures the changing urbanization and profound social values reflecting the shifting nature of attitudes to cities in an ever more globalised society. 

Franz Ackermann has exhibited internationally including Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; the Castello di Rivoli, Turin; White Cube, London; Portikus, Frankfurt and the Galerie neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Recent group shows have included the São Paulo Biennial, 2002, Casino at SMAK, Gent, 2002, and Painting at the Edge of the World, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2001.

Panel Discussion: The Condition of Painting: Franz Ackermann and Contemporary Painting
Tuesday 19 July at 4.00pm, Lecture Room, IMMA.
The panel will examine Franz Ackermann’s work and aims to consider some of the issues relating to contemporary painting.  The panel is chaired by Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA, and includes Marcella Beccaria, Curator: Castello di Rivoli, Italy, and Raimar Stange, freelance curator, Germany. Admission is free, but booking is essential on Tel: +353 1 612 9900 or on the automatic booking line +353 1 612 9948: Email: [email protected]

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

The exhibition is supported by the Goethe Institute, Dublin.
A publication with essays by Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, curator and art critic, Daniel Birnbaum, Director of Portikus, Frankfurt, and Rachael Thomas accompanies the exhibition. (Price €25.00).

Franz Ackermann continues until 23 October 2005.

Admission is free.

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

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

14 July 2005

An exhibition of works by members of the White Stag Group, a number of British artists active in Ireland in the late 1930s and 1940s, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 6 July 2005. The exhibition, entitled The White Stag Group, comprises some 80 works and reflects the youthful dynamism and energy which artists such as Basil Rakoczi, Kenneth Hall, Thurloe Conolly and others brought to the Irish art scene, when they settled here, mainly as conscientious objectors, at the outbreak of World War II. Works by Irish artists who became associated with the group, including Patrick Scott and Bobby Dawson, are also being shown.

The White Stag Group grew up mainly around Rakoczi and Hall. Rakoczi was born in London in 1908 of mixed Irish and Hungarian parentage.  He trained as an artist in Britain and France before founding the group with Hall, a self-taught English artist, in 1935. They moved to Ireland in 1939 attracted, like a number of other pacifists and refugees, by Ireland’s neutral status in relation to the War. The group held its first exhibition in Dublin in April 1940, followed by a second show in October of the same year, which was opened by Mainie Jellett. In her view the group was the prime focus for Modernism in Ireland and the aim of those involved was “to interpret the times in which we live”, without being linked to any particular school or “cramped by academic conventionality”. Many other exhibitions followed.

Rakoczi and Hall rapidly became leaders of a notable, even notorious avant-garde movement, which attracted many other painters and writers to their “subjective” approach to art.  Several artists who had belonged to other groupings, such as the Society of Dublin Painters, became followers of the White Stag Group. Events and meetings became a regular part of their activities, harking back to their associations with the Bloomsbury set in London. The group took its name from the family shield of a patron of the group, Herbrand Ingouville-Williams.

The vigour and vitality with which the group influenced the Irish arts scene in the War years in clearly evident in the works in the exhibition. Hall’s Bird Turning in Flight, 1943, and Drake Resting, 1944, are part-Surrealist and part-Symbolist in derivation, the latter showing the final phase of his subjective style, in which he simplified the appearance of the creatures he painted to a near symbol of their species, while at the same time emphasizing their natural attributes and habitat.  Rakoczi’s Surrealist-inspired images Child Flying and Three, both 1943, are typical of his work at this time and illustrate his playful psychological fantasies.  In most of Scott’s works colour is secondary in importance to the aesthetic aspects of the linear division of the picture plane.  The severely linear treatment of Renvyle, 1943, as well as the slightly more colourful Evening Landscape, 1944, illustrate these concerns, which where to remain characteristic of much of his work.  Paul Egestorff, who had studied under Mainie Jellett, emphasized the structural element of his compositions in Stranded Boiler, 1952, he concerns himself with tone and prismatic colour progression in order to enable the eye to move freely around the composition.

The group’s multi-disciplinary ethos embraced many artistic forms, including philosophy, music and literature and some examples of their work in these artforms can also be seen in the exhibition.  New recordings of the work of the composer Brain Boydell will be available at a listening post in the exhibition space and on a CD that accompanies the catalogue.  Also included are novels by Ralph Cusack, illustrated poems by Nick Nicholls and the poetry of Thurloe Conolly.

The exhibition is co-curated by S B Kennedy, former Keeper of Art at the Ulster Museum, Belfast, and Bruce Arnold, critic and art historian.

Concert
A concert featuring the music of Brian Boydell, organised jointly by IMMA and the Contemporary Music Centre to coincide with the show, will be held at IMMA at 3.00pm on Sunday 17 July 2005.  The concert is made possible by the funding support of Trinity College, Dublin, Varming Mulcahy Reilly Consulting Engineers and Mr Aleck Crichton.

Talk
S B Kennedy will give a gallery talk on the White Stag Group and their influence on Irish painting in the New Galleries at IMMA at 11.00am on Wednesday 6 July 2005.  Admission is free, but booking is essential on Tel: +353 1 612 9900 or on the automatic booking line +353 1 612 9948: Email: [email protected].

A significant, fully-illustrated catalogue, written by S B Kennedy with an essay by Bruce Arnold and a CD on the work of the composer Brian Boydell, accompanies the exhibition. Published by the Museum, it serves as an important record of the group’s activities, as no such publication previously existed. The catalogue is supported by Mason Hayes & Curran Solicitors. (Price €32.00).

The White Stag Group continues at IMMA until 2 October 2005.

Admission is free.

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10.00am-5.30pm,
                           except Wednesdays 10.30am-5.30pm
                           Sundays and Bank Holidays 12 noon- 5.30pm
                           Mondays Closed 

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

22 June 2005

An exhibition of some 30 works by the American sculptor Catherine Lee opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 22 June 2005. Entitled Catherine Lee, this small retrospective focuses on the artist’s work from the past decade, exploring the period from which her work began to deploy three-dimensional space through the powerful use of material, colour and form.

Catherine Lee’s works are a hybrid of painting, sculpture and installation. Juxtaposing the simplicity of a repeated form with an astonishing variety of materials, they give expression to the artist’s preference for materials that are changeable, for “anything that has been in a liquid state – clay, concrete, fibreglass, all sorts of metals. I have difficulty with wood, because it begins as one thing and remains that thing. Mutability is what interests me”. Her small table-top objects, such as White Cubic, 2004, made of fired clay have a delightful fluidity, which can also be seen in the glazed surfaces of Russian Cubic, 2005 and Red Cubic Copper, 2005, with their almost watery shimmer.

Lee’s work is frequently presented in groups or “families”, ranging from simple wall pieces to large formal arrangements comprising a number of separate elements. In this exhibition, however, the families have been dismantled and the works are displayed chronologically, giving a clear overview of the development of her work since the mid-1990s. Lee began her career as a painter and her wall sculptures, mostly dating from the late 1980s, could be seen as a continuation by other means of her early interest in two-dimensional works.

Her free-standing sculptures, mark an acceleration of this process. In Union Two, 1992, a figure reaching upwards seems to cast a shadow above and behind it, simultaneously embracing and threatening the very figure which created it in the first place. Lee’s recent large-scale bronzes, The Hebrides Series, which will be shown in the courtyard at IMMA, mark the latest stage in this evolution. Several of the artist’s works also evoke tribal artefacts, such as shields and masks. Archaic Figures, 2004, comprises eight glazed shapes closely resembling broad-bladed knives, although the material from which they are made might also suggest serving trays.

Above and beyond all of this writer Nancy Princenthal, in her catalogue essay, describes the central quality of Lee’s work as an ability to dissolve the distinction between the animate and the inanimate. “From her most intimate table-top ceramic objects to the large free-standing bronze sculptures, Lee’s work is endowed with a presence that is simultaneously geological and human. Indeed, although all sculpture can be said to participate in the fourth dimension . . . Lee’s sculptures cross a further threshold between still imagery and moving pictures; their painterly surfaces and distinct, eccentrically shaped facets create isolated images that assemble themselves, as one engages with them I turn, into almost filmic sequences”.

Born in Texas in 1950, Catherine Lee first exhibited in New York at P.S.1 in 1980 and since then has participated in numerous exhibitions internationally. Her exhibition, The Alphabet Series, was shown in Texas, Washington, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. More recently her work has been shown in Barcelona, Salzburg, Milan and Copenhagen. Her work is included in the collections of SFMOMA, San Francisco; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London, and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.

A catalogue, with essays by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA; Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith, curator and critic; Lorand Hegyi, Director, Musee d’Art Moderne, Saint Etienne, France, and Nancy Princenthal, critic and curator, accompanies the exhibition.

Talks
On Tuesday 21 June at 4.30pm  Catherine Lee will talk about her work in conversation with Enrique Juncosa. Admission is free, but booking is essential on Tel: +353 1 612 9900 or the automatic booking line: +353 1 612 9948; Email: [email protected].

Catherine Lee continues at IMMA until Sunday 4 September 2005. Admission is free.

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

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

27 May 2005

An impressive new publication, highlighting selected works from the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection, was launched today (Thursday 7 July) by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr John O’Donoghue, TD.  The first full-colour publication on the Museum’s Collection, it presents more than 180 artworks selected to give a sample of the quality, range and international nature of the works acquired by the Museum since its foundation in 1991.  Short texts accompany each work, together with an introduction on IMMA’s collecting policy by Director Enrique Juncosa, and essays on the history of the Collection and the Royal Hospital building by Catherine Marshall, Senior Curator: Head of Collections.

Speaking at a reception at IMMA, Minister O’Donoghue said he was very pleased to launch the new publication, which had been funded by a special subvention from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. “I think we can all agree that the Museum has made excellent use of these extra resources in producing this attractive and informative book.  I must also congratulate those involved on achieving that difficult balance between the scholarly and accessible – a rare enough achievement in visual arts publishing” he said.

The Minister said that the publication marked something of a coming of age for the Collection, which had grown enormously since 1991. The sheer number of items it now contained – over 4,300 pieces – and the quality and range of the works, held by IMMA on behalf of the Irish people, made this an appropriate point at which to celebrate the Collection in this way. “The publication is designed to give the Museum visitors, sister institutions at home and abroad, scholars and the ever-increasing number of groups and individuals interested in the Museum’s work a greater insight into the treasures it contains.  Indeed, we need look no further than the fascinating Eye of the Storm exhibition, currently on show, to see the wonderful richness and diversity evident in these 68 works alone” he said.

Mr O’Donoghue went on to say that his Department had been happy to play its part in facilitating the development of the Museum’s Collection, “by providing funds for direct acquisitions and by encouraging donations and loans through taxation legislation and special funding for works of outstanding national importance.  This had made possible the acquisition of key works, such as the series of films by the celebrated Irish artist James Coleman, acquired in 2004.  IMMA, in the person of its Director, Enrique Juncosa, has been commendably proactive in making the best possible use of these schemes, and in addition to the Coleman works, has also recently acquired three important paintings by Hughie O’Donoghue and a major body of work by 20th-century Irish artists from the McClelland Collection by this means”.

Commenting on the publication, IMMA’s Director, Enrique Juncosa said, “I believe the publication of this book is an important enterprise for several reasons. A previous catalogue exists covering the period 1991 to 1998. However, this was intended as a reference catalogue only, and in any event the Collection has grown significantly since then.  To date the Collection has been shown at the Museum in rotating displays, both due to lack of space and to the very recent nature of the Collection. We hope that this book, along with a new policy of showing the Collection more frequently in venues abroad, will help to raise the international profile of the IMMA Collection. Recent exhibitions in China and Newfoundland are the result of this commitment”.

“In addition to funding this publication, the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism has also increased IMMA’s acquisitions budget this year, which is in itself very good news. This increase has already enabled us to buy two important works, Eye of the Storm, the painting by Michael Craig-Martin which is reproduced on the cover of this book, and Back of Snowman, by Gary Hume, a bronze sculpture which has been displayed in the courtyard of the Museum for almost two years now”, he said. 

The Museum’s Collection has developed rapidly since 1991 through purchase, long-term loans and donations and by the occasional commissioning of new works. The Museum purchases the work of living artists but accepts loans and donations of more historical art objects with a particular emphasis on work from the 1940s onwards.  The majority of artworks in the Collection are of Irish origin but regular purchases of work by artists from other countries and continents ensure a fascinating range of material from painting to film and installation, by artists as diverse as James Coleman, Rebecca Horn, Stephan Balkenhol, Willie Doherty, Sean Scully, Dennis Oppenheim and Joseph Kosuth.  This book will serve as an important function in enabling visitors and other interested parties to gain a better understanding of the overall Collection.

The Collection book was published in consultation with Vermillion, a specialist design, art colour reproduction and print management company.

The publication costs €45.00 and is available from the Museum’s bookshop.

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

7 July 2005

An exhibition from the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art which will bring the work of 22 leading Irish artists to St John’s, Newfoundland, opens on Thursday 30 June 2005. The exhibition will be officially opened by John O’Donoghue, TD, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism. Comharsana Beal Dorais (Next Door Neighbours) will include works by such distinguished artists as Willie Doherty, Brian Maguire, Clare Langan, Nigel Rolfe, Kathy Prendergast, Sean Scully and Hughie O’Donoghue, who will be joined by younger artists such as Isobel Nolan, Paul Nugent and Helena Gorey.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership and Culture Ireland. It is being shown to mark the opening of The Rooms, The Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador. It will be visited by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, TD, when he travels to Newfoundland in September.

The exhibition brings together artworks that examine traditional and historical issues in Irish culture, as well as very recent developments such as the changes that arise as a result of the development of a multicultural society alongside economic and social changes in Ireland. An awareness of the strong historical links that exist between Ireland, Newfoundland and Labrador and similarities in traditional rural and maritime lifestyles in both locations can also be seen. Global change has impacted on both cultures and the works on show attempt to address some of those changes in relation to Ireland.

Images of the Irish landscape, in the work of Stephen McKenna, Maria Simonds-Gooding and Alanna O’Kelly, draw attention to the history of the landscape and of man’s ceaseless struggle to make a livelihood from the natural environment, while Clare Langan’s film trilogy looks at more futuristic scenarios that have been largely filmed in Ireland but have universal reference.

The Northern Troubles form the background of Willie Doherty’s work. In Sometimes I imagine it’s My turn he puts the viewer into an ambiguous relationship with a dead body lying on the ground in a quiet woodland place. The identity of the viewer is as open to question as that of the body and we are forced to confront the circumstances of a violent death. Brian Maguire’s Memorial also deals with politically motivated deaths but the dead in this work are unnamed prisoners who died following a prison riot. Maguire recalls the human need for commemoration often denied to those who are the victims of political oppression.

The satirical side of the Irish character is embodied in the work of John Kindness and Caroline McCarthy. Both artists take as their reference point the art of the past. McCarthy’s The Luncheon refers to traditional Dutch still-life painting to make witty comments about consumerism using the most disposable consumer item, toilet-paper, to make a sculpted display of food while Kindness uses recycled parts from a New York taxi-cab in his work Scraping the surface to make a pointed reference to the superficiality of contemporary urban lifestyles. 

Different ways of representing the body are powerfully displayed in the sculpture of Janet Mullarney and the Body Map drawings of Kathy Prendergast, while a more abstract approach to painting is seen in Sean Scully’s As Was. 

Commenting on the exhibition Catherine Marshall, Senior Curator: Head of Collections said: “The links between Ireland and Newfoundland are such that Irish music, and even the Irish language have had an important place in the culture of Newfoundland for several centuries. Irish visual art has not been shared with our neighbours across the Atlantic to the same extent and it is the aim of this exhibition to show that it has the same depth and range of expression as poetry and music. It is a great honour for IMMA to be invited to mark the opening of The Rooms, The Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador with this exhibition and a great opportunity to showcase the diversity and quality of recent Irish art”. 

Comharsana Beal Dorais (Next Door Neighbours) continues at The Rooms, The Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador until 12 October 2005.  

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

28 June 2005