The first exhibition in Ireland of the work of the radical post-war Cobra group of artists and poets opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 3 July 2003. Comprising over 110 works by 19 artists, it includes a major collection of paintings and drawings by each of the key figures: Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Constant, Asger Jorn and Carl-Henning Pedersen. The main focus of the show is on the ground-breaking Cobra exhibitions held in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam between 1948 and 1951. The exhibition is a National Touring Exhibition, organised by the Hayward Gallery, London, in collaboration with BALTIC, The Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. The exhibition is presented at IMMA in association with THE IRISH TIMES.

The name Cobra was coined in 1948 by the Belgian poet Christian Dotremont from the three cities where the main participants lived: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Explosively expressive, with an emphasis on myth and the untutored art of children and the mentally ill, the Cobra artists were anti-élitist in their desire to address a universal public. Painting and drawing spontaneously, they produced imagery teeming with fantastic creatures and exuding intense emotions, such as rage, joy and humour. Cobra was also anti-specialist and collaborative: poets painted and organised exhibitions, artists wrote manifestos and illustrated and published books of poetry.

The exhibition conveys the energy and subversive power of this influential movement, its experimental and provocative spirit, and its attempts at forging a new visual language in a post-war climate of both austerity and hope. Key publications of the period and collaborative book projects by the Cobra artists and poets are also included.

The exhibition has been selected by Peter Shield, art historian and chief curator of the exhibition, with Roger Malbert, Senior Curator, National Touring Exhibitions, on behalf of the Hayward, and Sune Nordgren, Director of Baltic.
An illustrated catalogue, published by the Hayward Gallery, with essays by Peter Shield and art historian Graham Birtwistle, and a chronology and artists’ biographies, accompanies the exhibition (price €25.00).

Alongside the Cobra exhibition IMMA is also displaying a selection of works by Outsider artists. The Irish Museum of Modern Art has had an interest in the work of Outsider artists since 1998, when it was given a spectacular collection of work by the Musgrave Kinley Collection of Outsider Art. Since then, works by Outsiders have been represented repeatedly in displays of the Museum’s own Collection and throughout Ireland, North and South, through IMMA’s National Programme. Outsider artists are self-taught, making art as their only viable means of self-expression. They are often marginalised through mental ill health or social disadvantage.

For over 30 years, the Hayward Gallery, part of London’s South Bank Centre has played a key role in creating imaginative, high-profile exhibitions in London and, through National Touring Exhibitions, the UK and, occasionally, in Ireland.

On Thursday 3 July at 11.30am Roger Malbert and Peter Shield will discuss the Cobra movement in the Lecture Room at IMMA. Booking essential on
tel: 01-612 9948 or email [email protected]
Cobra: Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam continues in IMMA’s New Galleries until 21 September 2003.

Admission is free.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Mondays: Closed

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

13 June 2003

A group of more then 150 older people from East Clare, who for the first time in 70 or 80 years were encouraged to take up a pencil and allow their creativity to flow, have produced drawings, paintings, and works in clay, resulting in an engaging exhibition Journey: Through Memories. Artist Terry O’Farrrell, a member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s education team, was invited by the Iniscealtra Festival of the Arts to facilitate workshops over a two-month period with ten community groups at Raheen Day Care Centre and Residential Hospital, Co Clare, as part of IMMA’s Branching Out project which is supported by National Irish Bank. Members of the Raheen Hospital and Day Care Centre, Mountshannon, will present their exhibition to St Michael’s Parish Active Retirement Art Group, Inchicore, Dublin, on Wednesday 25 June at the newly-opened Aistear Centre in Mountshannon.

Since 1991, St Michael’s Parish Active Retirement Art Group have been involved in a broad range of programmes with IMMA, through its Education and Community Department, at local, national and international level. During that time they have exhibited both on site and in venues throughout the country. Starting in 2000 the Group participated in workshops with Terry O’Farrell in the Museum’s studios on a project exploring significant themes from their life experiences which resulted in the exhibition, Equivalence, earlier this year, which included paintings, drawings and works in clay.

This meeting between members of the Raheen Hospital and Day Care Centre, and St Michael’s Parish Active Retirement Art Group will give both groups the opportunity to share their experiences and explore the ideas presented in the exhibition. The importance of the role of older people in contemporary visual art is recognized in such collaborations. Pauline McNamara, Matron, Raheen Community Hospital, said “Terry O’Farrell came into our lives earlier this year – leaping, laughing, bounding, singing, shining, piercing our darkness in all things artistic – we the staff, patients and day visitors of Raheen Community Hospital will never be the same again. Research shows continuing creativity is possible in old age and negative attitudes towards capability and contributions of older people are a form of social discrimination. It was a completely new experience for our patients and Day Care Centre attendees and staff. The stimulus of an interested and supportive person helped them explore new avenues of creative self-expression and uncovered latent talents. At first, people needed gentle support and encouragement in order to overcome inhibitions, but within days that was gone and what talent ensued”.

Commenting on her experience working on the project Terry O’Farrell said: “I came to a centre, which has the feel of home and met staff who respect and support the lives that these older members of the community have lived. I invited people to draw a memory, to remember times past. There is a huge wealth here in the memories of the full lives lived and courage still in starting something new, in wanting to know more, willing to be open – continuing to explore”.

Branching Out is a programme designed by IMMA and National Irish Bank to be national, inclusive and participative, bringing the visual arts to the community and providing opportunities for the community to get involved. 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.

Journey: Through Memories continues at the Aistear Centre, Mountshannon, Co Clare, until 26 June. The work can also be seen at IMMA as part of the Branching Out exhibition in January 2004.

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

11 June 2003

An Open Day, which will enable members of the public to see and meet artists in their studios, is being held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Sunday 15 June. The seven artists currently participating in the Museum’s Artists’ Work Programme will open their studios to visitors from 2.00 to 5.00pm. Visitors will be able to see the variety of work being produced by the artists currently participating in the programme, ranging from Dimitri Tsykalov’s life-size, hand-crafted wooden Porsche filled with growing tomato plants to elegant paintings of garages and flyovers by Gavin O’Curry. The Open Day is being organised to coincide with the exhibition of artwork in the Process Room and landing area at IMMA by four of the artists presently working in the studios, – Frances Goodman, Gavin O’Curry, Jonathan Owen and Dimitri Tsykalov.

The Artists’ Work Programme is a studio / residency programme, which has been in operation at the Museum since 1994. Designed to provide opportunities for artists to develop their work practice, it provides eight studios, with accommodation spaces for three residents, located in the former coach houses beside the main Museum building.

The Artists’ Work Programme reinforces the defining principle of the Museum, which is that of access, by inviting visitors to the Museum to meet with artists in their studios and discuss their work with them. Artists are selected to participate in the Artists’ Work Programme on the basis of a proposal submitted, describing their objectives for a period of work. Since its inception, the Programme has hosted over 150 artists, both Irish and international, and has made many connections with artists’ associations and similar residency programmes all over the world. A current participant on the Programme is Micaela de Vivero, a sculptor from Ecuador, who is here through the UNESCO / Aschberg Bursary for Artists.

The studios will be open from 2.00 to 5.00pm on Sunday 15 June. The work from the studios will be shown in the Process Room and landing area until the last week in June.

On Thursday 19 June at 11.30am the four artists showing artwork in the Process Room and landing area will give a gallery talk on their work.
Details of the artists working in the studios are attached.

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

9 June 2003

The Irish Museum of Modern Art is delighted to learn that the Derry-born artist Willie Doherty has been shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize 2003. Doherty has been shortlisted for the continuing strength and relevance of his film installations and photographic works in addressing the complexities of living in divided societies as demonstrated in his exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and his contribution to the XXV São Paulo Bienal.

The exhibition at IMMA, entitled ‘Willie Doherty: False Memory’, ran from 31 Ocotber 2002 to 9 March 2003 and was the first substantial showing of Doherty’s work in Ireland and one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of his work anywhere to date. ‘False Memory’ comprised of more than 40 photographic works and slide/tape and video installation, exploring themes of memory and place – concerns which have preoccupied the artist throughout his career. Closely keyed to his native city of Derry and the Northern Ireland “Troubles”, like all Doherty’s work, it revealed the complex shifting range of relationships between places and events and the images by which they come to be represented and recalled.

The exhibition was curated by Brenda McParland, Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, and had a total attendance of 87,000 visitors.

The other shortlisted artists are Jake and Dinos Chapman, Anya Gallaccio and Grayson Perry.

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

29 May 2003

The Irish Museum of Modern Art, in collaboration with Dúchas – the Heritage Service, presents for its third year an exciting Heritage Season at the magnificent 17th-century Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Dúchas is offering guided heritage tours during the summer months from 28 May until 21 September 2003, which allows visitors to discover and explore the building and grounds of the Royal Hospital. They include the stunning Baroque Chapel, with reconstructed papier maché ceiling, the impressive Great Hall, where its public collection of 17th and 18th –century portraits still remain in their original location, the beautiful 17th-century formal gardens and Bully’s Acre one of Dublin’s oldest cemeteries. The heritage programme also includes a video and permanent exhibition, which are available to view all year round.

The permanent exhibition brings together many fascinating and intriguing artifacts and documents relating to the original grounds and building of the Royal Hospital. These include the Blackjack, a jug capable of holding 5 gallons of ale – on account of its weight the phrase ‘more power to your elbow’ was coined. Also on view are the uniforms of the retired soldiers, such as the scarlet summer full-dress and the dark blue winter greatcoat. The typical daily life of a retired solider living in the hospital can be explored in the minutes from the meetings of the Board of the Hospital, which include such items as the order made on 16 December 1700 “That it be an established rule, that if any soldier of the Hospital shall presume to marry, he be immediately turned out of the house, and the Hospital clothes taken from him.” The Heritage video is 13 minutes long and provides an overview of the history of the original building and grounds, from the sites earliest settlers – the monks of St. Maignend’s Christian monastery established in 606AD – to the building of the Royal Hospital in 1684 and finally the opening of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 1991.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art is Ireland’s leading national museum for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. The Museum presents a wide variety of art and artists’ ideas in a dynamic programme of exhibitions and other activities. This regularly includes exhibitions of work from the Museum’s own Collection, projects by its award-winning Education and Community Department and Studio and National Programmes. Dúchas, the Heritage Service cares for many of Ireland’s national monuments, parks, gardens and nature reserves. Dúchas will be running the heritage season at the Royal Hospital until 21 September, which includes National Heritage week. The permanent heritage exhibition, video and guided tours are offered between 12noon and 5.30pm.

Price for Guided tour:
Adult €3.50
Concession €2.00
Family €6.00

Opening Hours:
Tue – Sat 12noon – 5.30pm
Sun & Bank Hols 12noon – 5.30pm
Monday Closed

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

22 May 2003

An exhibition of works from the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection opens to the public on Saturday 24 May 2003 at St Caimins Church of Ireland, Mountshannon, Co Clare, as part of the Iniscealtra Festival of the Arts. Journey takes its theme from the Festival, which this year focuses on journeys, and includes works by well-known Irish and international artists, such as Georges Braque and Anne Madden, shown alongside younger contemporary artists, such as Elizabeth Magill and Nick Miller. A selection of individual works from the collection will also be placed in four venues in Scariff, Co Clare. The exhibition is accompanied by a full and engaging series of workshops and talks presented as part of the Branching Out programme supported by National Irish Bank.

The works in the exhibition, selected by the Iniscealtra Festival, represent many diverse interpretations of the central theme in a wide variety of media. The renowned Kilkenny artist, Tony O’Malley, whose paintings were inspired by his travels to the Caribbean, reflects a new-found discovery of colour, light and warmth, celebrating the sea and sun and the exotic birds and foliage of his tropical paradise. In ‘Isla de Graciosa – Light – Caleta del Sebo’, O’Malley draws on his memory of a place so that the totality of his experience is expressed – the seeing plus the feeling – reaching beyond the surface to find a more complete and personal expression of a place.

A journey through the inner realm of the mind is the inspiration for the strange magic of Colin Middleton’s surrealist and symbolic paintings. In ‘Bon Voyage’ a female figure is suspended by her head from a geometric kite as she flies over a vast landscape with the setting sun visible below. British artist Colin Harrison’s work reveals a private world filled with cryptic clues and private references culled from the artist’s own memory. His sculpture, ‘Portable History of the World’, is a wooden structure in the shape of a suitcase, which is opened as if it where a cabinet. Within the box a grid like arrangement of small artefacts can be found which are drawn from the memories of the artists many travels.

In tandem with the exhibition, artist Terry O’Farrell, a member of IMMA’s Education team, has been facilitating workshops over a two-month period with ten community groups at Raheen Day Care Centre and Residential Hospital as part of the Branching Out project. Up to 200 older members of the East Clare community have been exploring the theme of memories throughout life’s journey. The resulting drawings, paintings and works in clay are exhibited at the newly-opened Aistear Centre, Mountshannon, throughout the Festival. Commenting on the project Terry O’Farrell said: “I came to a centre, which has the feel of home and met staff who respect and support the lives that these older members of the community have lived. There is a huge wealth here in the memories of the full lives lived and courage still in starting something new, in wanting to know more, willing to be open – continuing to explore”. Branching Out is a programme designed by IMMA and National Irish Bank to be national, inclusive and participative, bringing the visual arts to the community and providing opportunities for the community to get involved.

Catherine Marshall, Head of Collection, IMMA, who will be speaking at the launch of the Festival, said “IMMA has been proud to be associated with the Iniscealtra Festival each year since its commencement in 1996. I am amazed at what a small but dedicated and imaginative team can do with such limited material resources. The Iniscealtra Festival is a model of excellence in terms of its artistic goals and its outreach activities.”

The National Programme’s involvement with the Iniscealtra Festival of the Arts is considered to be one of its most successful collaborations. 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.

Catherine Marshall will give a lecture on the exhibition on Saturday 24 May at 2.00pm.

Journey continues until 2 June 2003 at St Caminins Church, Mountshannon, Co Clare and at four venues in Scariff, Co Clare – the Medical Centre, the Bank of Ireland, the Credit Union and Loughnane & Co. The work produced by the older people with Terry O’Farrell will be exhibited at the Aistear Centre, Mountshannon, Co Clare, until 24 June.

For further information and colour images please contact Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999 Email [email protected]
14 May 2003

A new exhibition of works from the Weltkunst Collection of British Art of the 1980s and ‘90s, curated by the distinguished British critic and curator Adrian Searle, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 24 April 2003. Searle’s approach to the exhibition is unusual, being based on a selected body of work about which he has written a fictional text. Taking its title from a sculpture of Richard Wentworth, ‘Glad that things don’t talk’ is a journey around both the works and the New Galleries building that contains them. The exhibition marks the end of the Weltkunst Collection’s stay at IMMA, where it has been on long-term loan for ten years. In addition to the Wentworth sculpture, the exhibition also includes sculptures and works on paper by Art and Language (Mel Ramsden and Michael Baldwin), Eric Bainbridge, Antony Gormley, Michael Landy, Richard Long, Lucia Nogueria, Julian Opie, Rachel Whiteread, Alison Wilding and Bill Woodrow.

‘Glad that things don’t talk’ is displayed as an installation which is intended to reveal itself gradually, hand in hand with the accompanying text, where Searle writes “Glad that things don’t talk. But they do, don’t they, they talk all the time; saying first one thing, and then another. You mustn’t let things get on top of you.” Searle is also conscious that the works are being displayed in what was once a house – in fact, the Deputy Master’s House – attached to the Royal Hospital, “Being alone in a house is a bit like the feeling an artist has, alone in the studio, thinking about what to do next. The things here – a flower stall in the basement, bullets in a bedroom, a sealed room within another room, a mysterious hidden painting – all have their own life, their own private histories and stories removed from their context as examples of British art of a certain period” he writes.

The Weltkunst Collection of British Art was begun in 1986 on the advice of Adrian Ward-Jackson as part of the work of the Weltkunst Foundation, which since 1981 has been responsible for a number of donations to leading British arts institutions, including the Royal Opera House and Ballet Rambert. Adrian Ward-Jackson died in 1991, and in 1992 the Foundation decided to continue developing the collection and lend it to museums and institutions in Adrian’s memory with his brother, Nicholas, acting as co-ordinator.

In 1994 the collection was given to IMMA on long-term loan for a period of ten years. The following year the Museum presented a large-scale exhibition British Art of the 1980s and 1990s; the Weltkunst Collection and published a major book on the collection entitled, Breaking the Mould in 1997. Since then IMMA has shown the collection in several group shows and in displays from the Museum’s Collection as well as throughout Ireland through the National Programme.

The Weltkunst Collection focuses predominantly on sculpture but also includes many large-scale photoworks, video and film installations, drawings and works on paper, and portfolios of prints. The diversity of the artworks provide a rich resource to the Museum, not least the opportunity to develop and maintain relationships with the artists involved, many of whom have visited Dublin to install their work over the years.

On Thursday 24 April at 11.30am Adrian Searle will present a lecture on curating from the Weltkunst Collection of British Art.

This exhibition continues in the New Galleries until 15 June 2003.

Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Mondays Closed

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

17 April 2003

A richly diverse exhibition of works from the Irish Museum of Modern Art Collection, curated by fifth-year art students from Meánscoil na Toirbhirte, Dingle, Co Kerry, opens to the public on Thursday 1 May 2003 at three venues in Dingle – Siopa na bhFíodóirí, Údarás na Gaeltachta and St Mary’s Church. Smidiríní, the culmination of a year-long curatorial project represents a celebration of a creative collaboration between the students and staff of Meánscoil na Toirbhirte and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, embodies the spirit and participative objectives of the National Programme.

The project was designed both to increase and develop the students individual abilities while at the same time encouraging them to collaborate with their classmates in a constructive and productive way. Most of the works represent the individual choices of the students and was followed by research on each of the artworks. The artworks encompass a wide range of media such as the screenprint, ‘When I woke up in the morning, the feeling was still there’, by Angus Fairhurst, a coloured panel which is deliberately blurred around the edges to suggest the uncertainty of the emotions mentioned in the title, selected by Julie Ní Mhuircheártaigh. The sculpture,
‘Francis Street Boys’, selected by Bríd Ní Churraín, a portrait of 15 students made from a plaster cast of their head and shoulders, was made as the result of a collaboration between the artist John Ahearn and the 4th class boys of the Christian Brothers School, Francis St. However some work received unanimous approval such as the film piece, ‘Waves’, by Marie Jo LaFontaine, shot in the West Coast of Ireland it displays the power and passion of the natural world.

The curatorial process involved a series of meetings, both in Dingle and Dublin, where the artworks were discussed and selected and where venues and layout where researched and decided upon. Each student designed an individual catalogue, the overall design was then debated by the whole group and elements of each design were incorporated into the final catalogue.

Commenting on the project Johanne Mullan, National Programmer, IMMA, said: “IMMA welcomes the opportunity to be challenged and questioned about what it means to put art on show for the public. During Smidiríní it has been thoroughly refreshing for the Museum to be held to account by such an enthusiastic group of young curators. With its kaleidoscope of diverse elements Smithiríní represents the exuberance of youth, yet is unified and underlined by themes of community and locality. The group worked above and beyond our most optimistic expectations, approaching the project with a vigour and freshness which could challenge any professional curator. The project would not have been possible without the continuous commitment of the group and their art teacher, Brenda Friel”.

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 is supported by Údarás na Gaeltachta and Féile na Bealtaine.

A full-colour catalogue designed by the students accompanies the exhibition (price €5.00).

Smidiríní continues until 10 May 2003 at three venues in Dingle, Co Kerry – Siopa na bhFíodóirí, Údarás na Gaeltachta and St Mary’s Church.

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

16 April 2003

An exhibition based on the results of a number of artists residencies in schools, both north and south of the border, opens to the public on Thursday 17 April at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition, entitled Multimedia Maps, is organised by the Museum’s Education and Community Department and the Sligo based Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership. It will be opened by Jerome Morrisey, Director of the National Centre for Technology in Education, Dublin City University.

Multimedia Maps is the result of a three-year project initiated and run by Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership. The project placed artists in school communities in the border counties in Ireland to investigate the use of new technologies as tools for creativity and the exchange of ideas. From 2000 to 2001 over 500 children in the border counties of Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Sligo and Tyrone, worked with six artists – Owen Crawford, Julie Forrester, Angela Ginn, Rachel Glynne, Ann Henderson and Sharon Kelly – in a series of residencies as part of the Multimedia Maps project. The exhibition shows some of the work created during those residencies and represents some of the most exciting work by young people using new technologies in Ireland. Works range from sand and water drawings to maps made from felt, maps based on aerial photography, and traditional charcoal drawings.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art has always been interested in artists’ practice and the many ways in which artists work. The Museum’s Education and Community Department has developed a series of projects which explore the way artists work outside their studios. Multimedia Maps is the third in a series of exhibitions, along with Equivalence and John the Painter, presented to the public over the past six months in which the practice of artists working outside the studio is revealed. The staging of an exhibition based on this work serves to underline the importance which the Museum places on making the outcome of such projects available to a wider public. This policy has been endorsed by the level of interest shown in such projects by both museum professionals within Ireland and internationally, and by the general gallery going public.

Commenting on the exhibition, Helen O’Donoghue, Head of Education and Community, IMMA said: “ What is new for IMMA in Multimedia Maps is the
outcome of the experiences of teachers, artists and children, mapping a new terrain in new technologies. What is visible in the final work is the familiar playfulness of a child exploring their world, fusing the natural environment with
the virtual, linking what has been known and is familiar in childhood for centuries with the ‘new world’ of virtual space. This project is, as in all successful contemporary art practice, built upon the history and knowledge of children’s art and offers a new way of re-examining and re-looking at what is universal and stable in the ever changing world – the voice and the viewpoint of childhood. It respects the visual language of early childhood and the drawings that children produce to make their mark – making being the centre of the process.”

On Thursday 17 April at 11.30am Orla Kenny, Creative Director of Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership, will discuss the role of technologies in art in the context of Multimedia Maps.

The exhibition continues until 20 July 2003.

Admission is free.

An exhibition guide, with an essay by Helen O’Donoghue, will accompany the exhibition (price: € 4.00).

Opening hours:

Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm

Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm

Mondays, 18 April Closed

For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Patrice Molloy at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999

Email : [email protected]

10 April 2003.

An exhibition of recent acquisitions to the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection has lately opened to the public at IMMA. Recent Acquisitions to the IMMA Collection comprises approximately 30 paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and installations which have been acquired by the Museum, either through direct purchase, donation or long-term loan over the past 3 years.

Works range from Rebecca Horn’s ‘Take me to the other side of the Ocean’, a sculpture of a pair of shoes under a mound of blue pigment, which is endlessly worked away by a pendulum, a reflection on the eternal conflict between time and beauty, to Ann Hamilton’s ‘filament II’, an installation featuring a silk organza curtain revolving on a circular rail in the centre of a room, which envelopes the viewer who ventures into it – a comment on public and private space. Both works have been purchased by the Museum. A work by the American artist Leon Golub, ‘Burnt Man’, refers to the brutality of war and represents the donation process to the Museum. Peter Doig’s ‘Almost Grown’, a landscape painting based on photographs and imagined places, has been given on loan to the Collection.

Shown alongside international artists are the works of important Irish artists. Louis le Brocquy’s ‘A Picnic’ is an important early work in which le Brocquy combines the influence of Degas with his own preoccupation with the human body as a reflection of the body’s inner state. This work is a significant precursor of le Brocquy’s later paintings exploring the human psyche. Four important paintings by Jack B Yeats are also shown for the first time at IMMA, including one of his best known works ‘Confidence’, a romantic scene with the dreamlike figure of a horse being lead through a mountainous landscape by his owner and his later work ‘St. Stephen’s Green, Closing Time’, a painting featuring two elderly people in the park at twilight. A study by the well known Irish artist Micheal Farrell for his painting ‘Madonna Irlanda’, a work which aims to question traditional representations of Ireland and its culture is also shown.

A variety of artistic backgrounds are represented in the exhibition which includes work by established artists, including a drawing by Henri Matisse, and emerging young figures like Paul Doran, Caroline McCarthy and Isabel Nolan. Isabel Nolan’s video installation ‘Sloganeering 1-4’ deals with the issue of personal identity, while Caroline McCarthy’s ‘The Luncheon’, a photograph of a sculpture made from wet toilet paper, comments on the nature of consumerism and representation, while referring to traditional aspects of art history. Apart from works by individual artists, Recent Acquisitions also includes an art work resulting from a group project by the West Tallaght Women’s Textile Group. ‘The Dance of Life’, Shamiana Panel was created by a group of Irish and South Asian women, and celebrates their different cultures.

The Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art comprises approximately 4,000 works by 20th-century and contemporary Irish and international artists. It has been developed through purchase and donations, as well as long term loans and the commissioning of new works. The Museum’s acquisition policy, like its exhibition and education and community programmes, reflects the changing cultural landscape of the late 20th-century and the new millennium. The Museum not only buys the work of living artists but also accepts donations of works from the 1940’s onwards – a decade of significant social and cultural change, both in Ireland and worldwide.

Commenting on the exhibition Catherine Marshall, Head of the Collection at IMMA, said: “It is very gratifying to note that despite limited budgets, and at a time of change in the Museum’s short history, we can develop a varied and challenging collection that draws on the national and the international, the well-established and the new. The size of the Collection already exceeds initial expectations, without the continuing and generous support of lenders, donors and artists this would not be possible.”

Recent Acquisitions to the IMMA Collection continues until 27 October 2003.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Mondays, 18 April Closed

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

25 March 2003