The first exhibition in Ireland by the internationally-acclaimed American artist Ann Hamilton opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 27 March 2002. Ann Hamilton at hand encompasses a broad range of the artist’s work, from a new complex installation to a series of video and photo works and sculptural objects, and spans her practice from the early 1980s to the present day. It includes the first European showing of a dramatic new work, at hand, created in 2001.

Ann Hamilton creates sensory environments that often combine sound, text, video, photographs, books and vast quantities of material substances. They can also, conversely, be a space emptied of everything but its own presence and, crucially, the visitor is present to witness the work. These process-based installations are so particular to their sites that, after their initial showing, they survive mostly in documentary form. Quite often however, the sculptural objects and videos from the installations are recognised as independent works by the artist and take on another existence beyond the life span of the installation. Whether amassing enormous quantities of material or clearing large architectural spaces, Hamilton’s focus is always on the way a body of knowledge is generated, contained, perceived and absorbed. All, be they three-storey buildings or objects the size of a thimble, are imbued with new meaning, creating environments that are in the words of Robert Storr, Director MoMA, New York, “elegantly simple and gently disorienting”. In the past decade Hamilton has collaborated more and more with poets and dancers aligning her work more closely with performance art than traditional sculpture, she is currently collaborating on a performance entitled Mercy with choreographer and dancer, Meredith Monk.

Key to the show is the series of four video works which focus on acts of speaking and hearing – aleph, 1992/1993, dissections…they said it was an experiment, 1988/1993, linings, 1990/1993 and the capacity of absorption, 1988/1993. Each video displays a tightly-cropped image of the artist rolling pebbles in her mouth, allowing water to spill in or out of her mouth, onto her throat and into her ear. These simple isolated gestures, which seem to block hearing and speaking, are repeated to abstraction. Key photographic works include the body object series from the early 1980s and the face to face series from 2001.

Also included in the exhibition are several additional video works, sculptural objects and her most recent installation at hand, 2001. This installation comprises light leaves of paper floating endlessly down from the ceiling in response to visitors passing through the space to an accompanying soundtrack of the artist’s voice.

Since she first came to public attention in the early 1980s Ann Hamilton has exhibited at MoMA, New York; the 1999 Venice Biennale, where she was the official US representative, and at Tate Liverpool. Her many awards included the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship Award, as well as the Guggenheim and the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowships.

At 11.30am on Wednesday 27 March Ann Hamilton will give an illustrated lecture on her work at the Museum and will sign copies of Ann Hamilton, a comprehensive publication on her work by writer, editor and curator Joan Simon, published by Harry N Abrams Inc, New York (price €75.00). Admission to the lecture is free, but booking is essential.

Ann Hamilton at hand continues until 14 July 2002. The exhibition is supported by Atlas Copco (Ireland) Ltd.

Admission is free.

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

For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Philomena Byrne or Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999 email [email protected]
15 March 2002

An exhibition of work by nine young Irish based artists, who are gaining increasing recognition both in Ireland and abroad, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 27 February 2002. How things turn out forms part of the projects strand of exhibitions, which the Museum has used over the last few years to bring the work of cutting-edge international artists to Irish gallery-goers. On this occasion, however, the focus turns to artists in Ireland who are contributing to an extended definition of contemporary art practice.

Curated by curator and critic Annie Fletcher, How things turn out takes a fresh look at current art production in Ireland, north and south, through the work of Heather Allen, Gerard Byrne, Ann Marie Curran, Seamus Harahan, Garrett Phelan, Eoghan McTigue, Isabel Nolan and Walker & Walker. Much of the work has been created specifically for the show and is being shown for the first time. Comprising painting, sculpture, photography, film, video installation and performance, it takes a refective view of life, suggesting that rather than attempting to influence the future it may be wiser to seek meaning in events as they unfold. To this end each artist seems to be engaged in diverse ways with a process of reinterpretation.

Mountain, 2002, and Northern Star, 2002, from artistic partners Walker & Walker, explore the history of German Romantic painting – painstakingly extracting the physical elements from Caspar David Friedrich’s best known painting The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, c 1818, and wittily remaking them in pristine sculptural form. Heather Allen gives a performance/reading on the opening night combing texts from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and her own writing on the instability of relationships, which she sees as inextricable from recent traumas in her home town of Portadown. She is also creating an elaborate installation, simulating the tired aftermath of an event when everyone has gone home and only the props remain. Many of the artists, including Garrett Phelan, Seamus Harahan, Ann Marie Curran, Gerard Byrne and Isabel Nolan, mine various cultural reservoirs such as history, art, literature and memory, to form rich and rewarding new work.
Commenting on the exhibition curator Annie Fletcher said: “What we set out to do in this exhibition was to create an interesting framework in which the real
diversity and strength of these young artists’ work could be shown. A whole range of interests and subjects are interrogated here from Eoghan McTigue’s tricolour photographs, which make us reconsider the symbolism of the national colours, to Seamus Harahan’s powerful meditations on everyday life on the street and how we occupy public space.”

How things turn out continues until 26 May.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, with essays by its curator, Annie Fletcher, and by the international curator and critic Maria Hlavajova. (Price €10.00)

Admission is free.
Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Closed Mondays
29 March
For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Monica Cullinane or Juliette Gash at Tel : +353 1 612 9900,
Fax : +353 1 612 9999 email [email protected]
19 Februray 2002

The many fans of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and of the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Sunday afternoon concert series will be delighted to learn that the ICO is returning to IMMA for a series of four concerts starting on Sunday 24 February. The ICO Spring Series 2002 will see the orchestra perform with a number of leading conductors and soloists, including the acclaimed US-based conductor Nicholas McGegan; the Austrian pianist Stefan Vladar, making his first visit to Ireland; the leading Romanian-born violinist Mariana Sirbu; Irish double-bass payer Malachy Robinson and the orchestra’s very popular leader Fionnuala Hunt.

For the first concert on Sunday 24 February the ICO will be conducted by Nicholas McGegan, Music Director of the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Baroque Series Director of the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. McGegan will be joined for Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 2 K.211 in D by Fionnuala Hunt who has, since 1995, been the ICO’s Artistic Director and Leader, and has directed the orchestra in performances all around Ireland as well as on tour in Europe. Other works in the programme include Mozart’s Symphony no 29 K.201 in A and Stravinsky’s Concerto in D.

Fionnuala Hunt directs the orchestra on Sunday 10 March in Grieg’s Holberg Suite and Norwegian Airs and Suk’s Serenade for Strings. The ICO’s principal double-bass Malachy Robinson can be heard in Zoran Eric’s double-bass concerto Off. A member of the cutting-edge Crash Ensemble, Robinson also appears regularly with such period-instrument groups as Christ Church Baroque.

On Sunday 14 April the Austrian pianist Stefan Vladar takes the roles of director and soloist in Rossini’s Sonata a Quattro no. 6 in D, Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 12 K.414 in A, Barber’s Adagio and Stostakovich’s Chamber Symphony. Winner of the 1985 Beethoven Competition of Vienna, Vladar has worked with conductors such as Abbado, Dohnanyi, Hager, Hogwood and Marriner and made appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony, among others.

The final concert on Sunday 26 May sees the return of the Romanian-born violoinist Mariana Sirbu as director/soloist in a lively programme of works by Vivaldi, Rossini, Dvoøák, Bartok and Pärt. Sirbu has appeared as soloist in
many of the world’s great concert halls including the Berlin Philharmonic, Sydney Opera House, Musikverin in Vienna and Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. She was founder and leader of the Academica String Quartet, with which she toured widely, and is also a member of the celebrated Italian chamber music ensemble I Musici as both leader and soloist.

The Irish Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble of professional musicians committed to excellence in the performance of classical and contemporary music. It has received plaudits both at home and abroad for sustaining the highest artistic standards. Under the artistic direction of the internationally acclaimed Irish violinist Fionnuala Hunt, the ICO offers a new and refreshing perspective on the chamber music repertoire through an energetic and unique approach to performance. Activities include a busy concert schedule at both national and international levels; commissioning and performing new work by Irish and international composers; recording classical and contemporary works; organizing the Killaloe International Music Festival and managing a comprehensive schools and community outreach programme.

Concert-goers at IMMA can also enjoy the exciting range of exhibitions on show, including the newly-open Rowan Collection of cutting-edge contemporary British and Irish art, Irish Art Now, examining the repositioning of Irish identity in the 1990s as reflected in the work of 13 artists, the very popular exhibition of portraiture from the Museum’s own Collection and a series of displays from the Gordon Lambert Trust. In addition, the Grassroots Café, already a major attraction after less than a year in business, and the expanded bookshop, both in the Vaulted Cellars, make for a really enjoyable and interesting day out.

The concerts are on Sundays 24 February, 10 March, 14 April and 26 May at 3.00pm. Tickets for individual concerts are €15.00, concessions €9.00. There is a special subscription offer of tickets for all four concerts for €45.00, or four for the price of three. Booking at the Irish Museum of Modern Art tel: 01-6129900; fax: 01-612 9999; email: [email protected].

Brochure for the series attached.

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

6 February 2002

The first public exhibition from an important collection of contemporary British and Irish art, owned by Belfast collector Dr Ian Rowan, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 13 February 2002. The Rowan Collection: Contemporary British and Irish Art comprises 30 challenging and dynamic works by leading exponents of the genre, many being seen in Ireland for the first time. They include Darren Almond, Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport, Felim Egan, Tracey Emin, David Feeley, Barry Flanagan, Mark Francis, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Tom Hunter, Sarah Lucas, Elizabeth Magill, Martin Maloney, Fionnuala Ní Chiosáin, Chris Ofili, Richard Patterson, Simon Patterson, Marc Quinn, Fiona Rae, Sean Scully, Paul Seawright, Sean Shanahan and Sam Taylor-Wood.

The exhibition, in the New Galleries, includes paintings, photographs, sculpture, installations and graphic works. The subject matter is equally diverse embracing abstraction, figure composition, portraiture, still life, landscape and text. Key works include Sarah Lucas’s Divine, 1991, a photographic self-portrait which interrogates the status and sexuality of the artist, and a recent neon work, You forgot to kiss my Soul, 2001, by Tracey Emin, famous for her My Bed installation for the Turner Prize exhibition in 1999. Recent works include The Outlaw, 2001, by Tom Hunter, whose photographic compositions re-examine famous paintings from art history while exploring notions of contemporary disenfranchisement and difference.

Dr Rowan began by collecting early Irish modern art, only to find that over time a new interest in cutting edge contemporary practice beckoned. Excited by the emergence of a generation of young British artists (widely referred to as yBas), he began to collect what are undoubtedly some of the canonical names of 1990s and early 2000s ‘Britart’. Many of the artists represented in the collection are trail-blazers of yBa, having participated in exhibitions such as Freeze, The British Art Show, Sensation and the Turner Prize, which are regarded as defining moments in the rise of the phenomenon. His collection, something of a rarity in Irish art circles, was built up primarily on the basis of what appealed to him personally and what he could live with in a domestic environment. Indeed, one of the most engaging aspects of the exhibition is the opportunity it affords visitors to experience what has been until now a private dialogue between the collector and his collection.

Commenting on the exhibition, the curator of the show and Head of Exhibitions, at IMMA, Brenda McParland, said “Dr Rowan is a passionate and avid collector. What makes his collection unique is that he maintains an interest in what he considers to be the best of contemporary Irish art alongside British art, and so his collection provides an invaluable opportunity to observe contemporary British Art beyond the narrow confines of the yBa frame.”

A catalogue, with an essay by curator and writer Virginia Button, accompanies the exhibition (price €10.00).

The Rowan Collection: Contemporary British and Irish Art continues until 3 June 2002.
Admission is free.
Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Closed Mondays, 29 March

For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Monica Cullinane or Juliette Gash at Tel : +353 1 612 9900,
Fax : +353 1 612 9999 email [email protected]
1 February 2002

An exhibition of recent work by the celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois, a major retrospective of the work of the German photographer Thomas Ruff and an exhibition of lens-based work from the Museum’s Collection are all part of an exciting and wide-ranging programme for 2002 announced today (Tuesday 29 January) by the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Plans for the coming year also include the first showing in this country by the leading American installation artist Ann Hamilton, displays from the Gordon Lambert Collection, the first public showing of an important collection of contemporary British and Irish art and a new strand of workshops exploring the interplay between drama and the visual arts.

Speaking at the launch of the programme at IMMA, the Museum’s Acting Director, Philomena Byrne, said: “As the Museum enters its second decade we are delighted to present a programme for 2002, which builds on the best of the Museum’s existing range of activities and also introduces a number of exciting new developments. The temporary exhibition programme offers visitors an opportunity to enjoy the work of many highly-acclaimed internati0nal artists alongside several lesser known names, while the Collection Department follows its very popular portraiture show of 2001 with further lively and ingenious themed exhibitions exploring abstraction and lens-based art. New developments for 2002 include a shift in the projects strand of exhibitions from overseas to younger generation Irish artists, a greatly increased education input in the National Programme and an important collaboration between the National Theatre and our Education and Community Department, linking the visual and performing arts.”

Exhibitions
The new temporary exhibitions programme includes installations, video and photographic works by the American artist Ann Hamilton (27 March – 14 July), drawings and prints, based on Joyce’s Ulysses, by the distinguished British artist Richard Hamilton (7 June – 15 September) and a major showing of photographs by Thomas Ruff (2 August – 6 October), one of the most acclaimed photographers working today. Later in the year, the Museum presents the first Irish showing by Karen Kiliminik (27 September – 5 January 2003), whose work takes as its source the world of
fairytales, high fashion and pop culture; recent soft sculptures and related drawing by the renowned Louise Bourgeois (18 October – January 2003) and a mid-career retrospective of the work of Willie Doherty (1 November – February 2003), exploring themes of memory and place.

Group shows include the first public exhibition of cutting-edge British and Irish art, from the Rowan Collection (13 February – 2 June), How things turn out (27 February – 26 May), showcasing some of the most exciting work being made in Ireland today, and Beautiful Productions (19 June – 29 September), an exhibition of artists’ editions, curated by the international art magazine Parkett.

Collections
The Collections’ year begins with Profile of a Collection (22 January – 23 June), an exhibition of 55 works from the Gordon Lambert Collection bringing together new additions and familiar favourites. From 9 May to 1 September the focus moves to the many languages of abstraction in No Object, No Subject, No Matter …. The Museum celebrates the donation of a complete set of Louis le Brocquy’s Táin tapestries by Dublin businessman, Brian Timmins, by putting all 20 tapestries on show as a continuation of the Work-in-Focus strand of programming. From 18 September to February 2003, The Unblinking Eye explores other aspects of lens-based art alongside those presented in the Thomas Ruff and Willie Doherty shows.

In addition to the Collection shows at IMMA, Kathy Prendergast’s City Drawings will travel to the Sydney Biennale and an exhibition of Outsider Art from the Musgrave Kinley Collection will be shown at the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester (22 March – 2 June). Proposals for exhibitions in Britain and Belgium are under discussion. Loans to museums and galleries in Ireland include the National Gallery, the Douglas Hyde Gallery, the Crawford Gallery, the Hugh Lane Gallery and the RHA Gallagher Gallery.

Education and Community
The Museum’s extensive range of programmes designed to create and increase access to the visual arts continues to operate on many levels in 2002. These include research projects in association with museums and arts organisations
nationally and internationally, community-based programmes within the local catchment area, primary school projects with the Department of Education and Science and adult education and youth programmes.

The Older Peoples’ Programming links to the Bealtaine Festival with exhibitions and workshops in Blanchardstown, Dublin, and Skibbereen, Co Cork. A special Bealtaine event will take place in April in association with the Irish Film Centre and the National Theatre.

In the primary school sector, the general access programme caters annually for 80 schools developing classroom-based projects based this year on Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political. Research funded by the Department of Education and Science on the long-term programme with the Breaking the Cycle unit will be completed and published and a new access programme will be developed with further grant-in-aid, extending IMMA’s reach to a broader range of schools.

In addition, teachers will be invited to take part in a new strand of workshop programmes exploring the interplay between drama and visual art in a jointly created collaboration with the National Theatre.

Focus on…… is an ongoing programme which provides an introduction to the Museum for a variety of community groups, including youth and after-school groups, people with learning disabilities, community development groups and members of Ireland’s new communities.

Artists’ Work Programme
The Artists’ Work Programme, the Museum’s studio/residency programme, has hosted more than 120 artists since its inception in 1994. The Work Programme operates in eight studio spaces in renovated coach houses, adjacent to the main Museum building. There are also three self-contained apartments and five spacious bedrooms in the Flanker Building, providing living accommodation for the studios. During 2002 artists from Ireland, the UK, Germany, France, Finland, Latvia, the Czeck Republic, Iceland, Spain, the USA, Canada, Nigeria and Peru will participate in the programme.

The Work Programme is open to artists in all disciplines and of all nationalities. Artists participating in the programme are encouraged to make themselves as available as possible to meet with visitors to the Museum, providing access to
the process of making art and giving the public an additional layer of experience to that available in the Museum’s galleries. A series of slide talks, studio visits, panel discussions and open days are organised around the residencies, all of which are free and open to the public.

The National Programme
The National Programme, is designed to make the Museum’s assets, skills and resources available to centres outside Dublin, through the lending of exhibitions and the development of collaborative projects with other organisations. Exhibitions and other events are devised and organised in partnership with local venues and groups through Ireland, who are encouraged to establish a familiarity and dialogue with the Museum.

The programme for 2002 sees the Museum continue relationships with festivals, such as Iniscealtra in Mountshannon, Co Clare, and establish new collaborations with the Éigse festival, Carlow, and the Sonas Festival in Louisburgh, Co Mayo.

In particular, this year will see the National Programme establish a dynamic educational programme including talks by artists such as Brian Maguire and Maud Cotter and the Head of the Collection at IMMA, Catherine Marshall. In March a selection of work from the Madden-Arnholz Collection will travel to the County Museum in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. The programme will also collaborate with the Education Department in realising various exhibitions such as the Once Is Too Much exhibition at Siamsa in Tralee and the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny. In August the Outsider Fellowship and the National Programme will co-ordinate From the cradle to the grave, an exhibition of work from the Musgrave Kinley Collection at the Catalyst Gallery, Belfast.

For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Monica Cullinane or Juliette Gash at Tel : +353 1 612 9900,
Fax : +353 1 612 9999 email [email protected]
29 January 2002

The Irish Museum of Modern Art is looking determinedly to the future. This was the message from the Museum’s new Chairman, Eoin McGonigal, SC, at the launch by Síle de Valera, TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, of Celebrating a Decade, a new publication to mark the Museum’s tenth anniversary, at IMMA this evening (Thursday 13 December).

Speaking at the launch Mr McGonigal said: “We are all only too painfully aware of the difficulties which have surrounded the Museum in the recent past. However, all of us are now looking determinedly to the future, and to taking the Museum into a second dynamic and successful decade. As we set about the task of seeking a new director, we shall not be inhibited by recent events in seeking out the most dynamic, creative and imaginative candidate for this crucial post in the Irish art world.”

The Acting Director of the Museum, Philomena Byrne, stressed the fact that throughout the past year the business of the Museum has proceeded very much as usual, with no diminution whatsoever in its service to the public. In fact, in several respects it had, she said, been a particularly good year for the Museum at an operational level with:

· the widely-praised tenth anniversary programme and celebrations,
· the Marking the Territory performance event and Shirin Neshat exhibition, which were such critical and popular successes,
· major improvements in visitor facilities, such as the new café and bookshop,
· the continued expansion of the Collection, with such notable donations as Barry Flanagan’s Drummer,
· an increase of almost 70% in primary school projects, despite the foot and mouth crisis and
· an overall programme which had seen visitor numbers rise to their highest level since the Warhol exhibition in 1998.

Celebrating a Decade documents the three principal programming strands of the Museum – Exhibitions, Collection and Education and Community – over the past ten years. It also includes essays from external commentators – Aidan Dunne, art critic, The Irish Times, and the artist, teacher and writer, Siun Hanrahan – with perspectives on each of the Boards of the Museum from their respective Chairmen.

The report is jointly sponsored by the Ireland-America Arts Exchange Foundation and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. The Department’s involvement is one of a number of initiatives to mark 50 years of Government support for the arts, dating back to the first arts legislation, which allowed for the establishment of the Arts Council and the funding of museums, galleries and other arts institutions.

Celebrating a Decade is available from the Museum bookshop (price €20.95, £16.50).

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

13 December 2001

An exhibition of works drawn primarily from the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s own Collection, which has recently completed a successful two-year tour of the USA and Canada, opens to the public at IMMA on Wednesday 14 November. ‘Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political’ examines the repositioning of Irish identity in the 1990s as reflected in the work of 13 leading artists. The 44 works mirror the profound changes in Ireland’s political economic and cultural life in a decade which raised questions about traditional identities and the relationships between male and female, urban and rural, North and South, history and the present.

‘Irish Art Now’, organised by Independent Curators International, New York, in collaboration with IMMA, is curated by the Museum’s former Director, Declan McGonagle. It brings together younger as well as more established artists and includes works by Dorothy Cross, Willie Doherty, Mark Francis, Ciarán Lennon, Alice Maher, Caroline McCarthy, Fionnuala Ní Chiosáin, Abigail O’Brien, Maurice O’Connell, Alanna O’Kelly, Kathy Prendergast, Billy Quinn, and Paul Seawright. Using painting, photography, sculpture, video and installation the artists explore subjects ranging from the personal and poetic to the political.

The commonly held perception of Irish art as poetically engaged with the misty, boggy landscape of the west of Ireland, is wittily questioned by Caroline McCarthy in ‘Greetings’, a video piece in which the artist attempts, unsuccessfully, to find a place in this landscape. In Kathy Prendergast’s ‘Love Object’, ‘Secret Kiss’ and ‘Prayer Gloves’ the lasting and enduring qualities of love and human aspirations cause the fusion of the person and the object, a process that is mirrored by the act of knitting by which the work was created. Alice Maher combines nature and art in ‘Berry Dress’ and ‘Staircase of Thorns’ to present images that are simultaneously alluring and frightening, while the fairytale element in these works is taken up again in her remarkable hair drawing Coma Berencies.

Commenting on the exhibition, Catherine Marshall, Head of IMMA’s Collection said: “The thirteen artists assembled in this group exhibition have one overriding thing in common. They are all sophisticated art practitioners in a world that is constantly changing. They are not merely aware of that changing landscape but ready to contribute to the changes themselves, not just in Ireland but in a wider world. Their art is a vehicle for direct engagement with the world, ultimately a political position.”

Since September 1999 the exhibition has toured to the McMullen Museum, Boston; the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador, St Johns; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and the Chicago Cultural Center.

A 96-page, full-colour catalogue, published by Merrell Holberton features an in-depth discussion of these artists’ work by curator Declan McGonagle as well as a general portrait of contemporary Ireland by cultural critic Fintan O’Toole (price £19.95, €25.33).

Irish Art Now continues until 7 March 2002.

Admission is free.
Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Hols 12 noon – 5.30pm
27 – 29 Dec

Closed:Monday
24 – 26, 31 Dec

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

2 November 2001

A staggering 1,300 people turned out over the weekend to attend an amazing three-day performance art event, curated by the distinguished performance artist Marina Abramovic, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Marking the Territory began on Friday 19 October when German artist Daniel Muller-Friedrichsen set the tone for the weekend with, ‘Starless’. The artist arrived into the Museum’s courtyard in a limousine, security men kept back crowds of screaming teenagers as he tried to make his way into the North Range of the Museum. Muller succeeded in creating a heightened sense of anticipation at the opening of the event as visitors wondered who was this famous celebrity? The evening continued with live performances, installations and artists’ interventions by more then 23 artists involved in the event and concluded with staged performances in the Great Hall.

Saturday and Sunday brought a further programme of intriguing and unexpected performances. The Indonesian artist, Melati Suryodarmo, presented ‘Lullaby for Ancestors’, a stunning piece, where the dramatically dressed artist led a beautiful white pony around the cobbled courtyard as she explored the theme of animal energy. Nesket Ekici covered walls, windows, floors and ceilings, and a large number of passers by, with lipstick vivid pink kisses in her piece, ‘Emotion in Motion’. The Class of Abramovic wound up the weekend on Sunday 21 October with a group performance in the Great Hall to great applause.

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

23 October 2001

A major three-day performance art event, being curated by the distinguished performance artist Marina Abramovic, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from 19 to 21 October 2001, is already almost fully booked. The event, entitled Marking the Territory, brings to Ireland some of the world’s leading exponents of current performance art practice ranging from Chiharu Shiota’s stunning installation, where the artist sleeps under a threaded mesh of wool and light, to Nedko Solakov’s two painters who endlessly follow each other around the gallery space, one painting the walls white and the other changing them to black. Each evening the focus will be on the stage in the Great Hall with individual performances from many internationally renowned artists, which will be introduced by Abramovic herself.

The programme comprises Abramovic’s personal selection of works by 23 artists from 16 countries which she sees as defining a new “territory” in the field of performance art: “I believe that at the present moment there is a strong need within contemporary culture, to express the immateriality which you can find in the direct energy and communicative force of performance. Marking the Territory is my attempt to give a direct and subjective view on the state of performance art today, through a selection of work by 23 artists whose work interests me and who I identify as addressing these current concerns and needs.”

Over the three days, a wide range of work will be presented in the North Wing of the Museum, from live performances on stage, to video installations and artists’ interventions. At 6.30pm on the evening before the event, Thursday 18 October, Marina Abramovic will give a lecture in the Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College, at which she will explain her approach to curating Marking the Territory and discuss her view of current performance art practice.

During the event a special menu of “spirit” food, devised by Abramovic, will be served in the Museum’s Grass Roots Café.

A video document will be available on VHS tape to mark the event. It will include an introduction by Marina Abramovic, interviews by the artists and video documentation of their work (price£9.99, €12.70)

The Museum is extremely grateful to the British Council, the Goethe Institut,
Panasonic Ireland and Pro Helvetia for the financial support of the exhibition,
and to the Grass Roots Café at IMMA, Temple Bar Properties, the History of Art
Department, Trinity College, Dublin, and the Office of Public Works for their
assistance with the event.

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

3 October 2001

An exhibition of works based on the theme of the portrait opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday 9 October. enVisage comprises some 60 paintings, sculptures and prints from the Museum’s own Collection, all inspired by the human face, which has been the focus of creative interest since the beginning of time.

Some artists have seen the face as a mask, disguising or concealing the person to whom it belongs; others as a mirror in which the full force of the personality is revealed. The exhibition explores these and other aspects of the genre through works by artists such as John Bellany, who used the puffin as a self-image and Sava Seculic, whose triple-headed ‘Gourd’ is one of the most unusual items on display. enVisage combines portraits in print by Tim Mara, Mimmo Paladino and Wilfredo Lam with sculptures by John Ahearn and Stephan Balkenhol and, for the first time since its acquisition, works from Brian Maguire’s important ‘Casa da Cultura’ project.

Commentating on the exhibition Catherine Marshall, Head of the Collection at IMMA, said: “since the day we were born we are all concerned with faces, either our own, those of the people we love, the imaginary faces we project on to the moon, even the letter ‘O’ in the newspaper. We attribute qualities like guilt, innocence, intelligence and kindness to faces we see on television. The IMMA Collection has an astonishing range of artist’s impressions of the face, including works exhibited here for the first time. This exhibition gives us a chance to assemble these portraits and tease out some of the issues that accompany our perceptions of them. The face becomes a landscape in a painting by Martin Wedge, a split face by Eithne Jordan raises perennial questions of identity and Brian Maguire’s faces from Sao Paolo make us think again about the individual, the political realities we operate within and the traditional contexts for portraiture”.

The exhibition will include a Work in Focus, in which one work, ‘Francis Street Boys’, 1994, by American artist John Ahearn, Úna Kealy and the Sixth class boys from Francis Street C.B.S. will be explored in more depth.

enVisage continues until 21 April 2002.

Admission: Free

The exhibition is accompanied by a guide with a text by Catherine Marshall (price £2.00, €2.52). A Work in Focus leaflet on John Ahearn’s ‘Francis Stree Boys’ is also available (price £1.20, €1.50).

Opening Hours:Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 2 noon – 5.30pm
Mondays: Closed, 24 – 26 December

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

25 September 2001