An exhibition of works by one of the key figures of American Conceptual Art opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 28 February. Dennis Oppenheim: Land and Body comprises 16 Land and Body works from the 1960s and ’70s including video and three-dimensional installations, mechanised sculptures and large photo and text pieces, which document key works. A video programme of 65 other works provides an essential context for the exhibition within Oppenheim’s overall oeuvre. The exhibition is the most extensive showing of the artist’s work in Ireland to date.

Dennis Oppenheim: Land and Body features many of the revolutionary ideas which Oppenheim, and a small group of other young artists, introduced to the art world of the 1960s and ’70s. A time of great social and political change in the USA and beyond. Chief among these for Oppenheim was his rejection of the conventional gallery space by locating artworks in the real world of the landscape – be it urban or rural. Other defining principles included reconnecting something by radically altering its scale, using quasi-scientific methods for the creation of art and making the work’s configuration or duration subject to climatic or other natural forces. ‘Landslide’, 1968, involved arranging angled boards around a slope of the Long Island Expressway or, as Oppenheim charaterised it, “activating” a pre-existing landscape. For ‘Gallery Transplant’, 1969, Oppenheim marked out the exact dimensions of a gallery in the snow, which then disappeared with the arrival of spring.

In 1970 Oppenheim described his attitude to traditional art spaces: “To me a piece of sculpture inside a room is a disruption of interior space. It’s a protrusion, an unnecessary addition to what could be a sufficient space in itself…At the point I began to think very seriously about place, the physical terrain. And this led me to question the confines of the gallery space and to start working mostly in an outdoor context but still referring back to the gallery site and taking some stimulus from that outside again.”
The exhibition illustrates the extraordinary cohesive development and diversity of Oppenheim’s work, more especially the transition from Land to Body art in the early 1970s. This period saw the artist’s focus of interest move from the macrocosm to microcosm, from the earth to the body and its endangerment and to the body as a means of accessing the mind. In ‘Reading Position for Second Degree Burn’, 1970, Oppenheim lay in the sun for five hours bare-chested except for an open book on his chest. He described the piece as having its roots “in a notion of colour change. I allowed myself to be painted, my skin became pigment.”

The show also includes Oppenheim’s “surrogate performers” – the mechanical puppets which represented the artist’s attempted withdrawl from the use of his own body as an endangered art material. ‘In Theme for a Major Hit’, 1974, a two-foot-high puppet is seen prepeatedly performing strange, contorted movements. The Oppenheim face on the puppet suggest that the artist, despite the myth of autonomy, is constantly manipulated by external forces.

Born in Electric City, Washington, in 1938, Dennis Oppenheim lived in Honolulu and California before moving to New York in 1966, where he continues to live and work. He executed his first earthwork in 1967 and had his first one-person show in New York in 1968 followed by showings in Paris, Bern and Finsterwolde, the Netherlands, in 1969, and at the Tate Gallery, London, in 1972. Since then he has created Earth works and Body works and also monumental fireworks, throughout Europe and North America. In recent years he has had one-person shows in Washington, Mexico City, Venice, Geneva and Barcelona and participated in group shows at the Whitney Museum, New York, the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Admission is free.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun & Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Closed: Mondays, Friday 13 April

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

12 February 2001

A new installation directed by Neil Jordan and based on Samuel Beckett’s play for theatre, ‘Not I’, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 1 February.

‘Not I’ features an actress seated on stage with just the mouth spotlit. The mouth then delivers a long monologue, a constant stream of consciousness. Evasion is the principle theme as highlighted by Beckett’s explicit note to the text in which the mouth’s chief endeavour throughout the play is its vehement refusal to relinquish the third person. The mouth undergoes a desperate struggle to avoid saying “I” marked by four moments of crisis in which the monologue becomes a dialogic question and answer with an inner voice not heard by the audience.

The installation at IMMA comprises six monitors set out in a circle. The viewer is invited to enter the circle and to experience the delivery of the text from six different angles. This is made possible by the unusual process used in making the original film – in six seperate 13-minute takes with multiple cameras. The film is produced by Blue Angel Films.

Commenting on his reasons for realising the piece in this medium Neil Jordan said: “Having completed the film, I realised I was in a unique situation. I had a series of records of the same event, the same performance, from different angles, each of which had their own integrity. What was unique about them is that they were each complete. Normally in film, one breaks a performance, down to various component parts, each piece of which is shot from its appropriate angle, so the film only exists as a composite of all the different shots. In the case of ‘Not I’, each angle was also the complete version. If I could pull them all into sync and present each angle simultaneously to the viewer, the multiplicity with which cinema presents the world would be accessible to the viewer in a unique manner.”

Neil Jordan’s film career began with the role of creative consultant on John Boorman’s ‘Excalibur’ in 1981, about which he made a documentary extitled ‘The Making of Excalibur – Myth in Movie’. Since then he has made twelve films: ‘Angel'(1982), ‘Company of Wolves'(1984), ‘Mona Lisa'(1986), ‘The Crying Game'(1992) for which he won a Oscar for best screenplay, ‘Interview with the Vampire'(1994), ‘Michael Collins'(1995), which was awarded a Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, ‘The Butcher Boy'(1996), for which he won a Silver Bear for Direction at the Berlin Film Festival, ‘In Dreams'(1999) and ‘The End of the Affair'(1999) for which he won the BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay.

This special showing marks the donation of the piece to the Museum by Neil Jordan and coincides with the Beckett on Film Festival at the IFC, where the film version of all 19 of Samuel Beckett’s plays, including ‘Not I’, will be premiered from 2 to 8 February.

‘Not I’ continues at IMMA until 14 February.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Hols 12noon – 5.30pm

Closed: Mondays
Friday 13 April

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 6129999

26 January 2001

Gordon Lambert Collection goes on show at IMMA

An exhibition of some 55 works by leading Irish and international artists, drawn from the Gordon Lambert Trust Collection, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday 22 January 2002. Although works from the Gordon Lambert Collection have been widely seen as part of other Collection shows at IMMA, Profile of a Collection is only the second exhibition drawn exclusively from his Collection since the donation of the works to the State in 1992.

The exhibition highlights a number of the Collection’s special characteristics. The unusually high representation of non-Irish artists, for a collection begun in 1954, can be seen in a tapestry by Josef Albers, an op-art work by Carlos Cruz-Diez, a conceptual piece by Shusaku Arakawa and prints by Picasso, Braque, Miró and others.

Many works have been added to the gift since 1992, including those by young and emerging artists, such as Mark Francis and Corban Walker, and by more established figures including Howard Hodgkin and Sean Scully. For this exhibition some of these new additions to the collection are being shown alongside familiar favourites.

Profile of a Collection spans Gordon Lambert’s 48 years as one of Ireland’s leading collectors from his first acquisition Pont du Carousel (1954) by Barbara Warren to Millennium Eye by Howard Hodgkin from 2000. It also all0ws the public an opportunity to trace the fascinating development of a unique private collection built up with obvious dedication and enjoyment over almost half a century.

An accountant by profession and former Managing Director of Jacob’s Biscuits Ireland, Gordon Lambert has been a committed member, often a leading one, of almost every organisation established to improve the status of the visual arts in Ireland. He has been a senator in the Oireachtas, a member of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, a member of the various ROSC exhibition committees and served on the board of the National Gallery and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery. Recognised internationally for his advocacy of contemporary art, he was invited to join the International Council of MoMA in New York, and served as a juror for the prestigious Art Festival at Cagnes-sur-Mer. However, Gordon Lambert always saw his most important task as the establishment of a
. . .
museum for modern and contemporary art in Ireland. When that vision was finally realised in 1991 Gordon Lambert marked the event by donating much of his private collection to the Museum and through his Trust he has continued to acquire and donate art to IMMA ever since. Gordon Lambert served on the first two boards of the Irish Museum of Modern Art from 1990 to 2000 and was awarded the Business 2Arts Millennium Award in 2000.

Commenting on the exhibition and the importance of the Gordon Lambert Collection to the Museum, Catherine Marshall, Head of the Collection, said: “Gordon Lambert’s Collection is that rare thing – a truly cosmopolition Collection with a perfect balance of local and international artworks. The fact that it was given unconditionally to the people of Ireland through the Museum is an indication of this man’s generosity and his confidence in another generation. Now, nearly fifty years after the Collection was begun it remains refreshingly modern and progressive.”

Profile of a Collection: the Gordon Lambert Trust Collection at IMMA continues until 23 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 Philomena Byrne or Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900,
Fax : +353 1 612 9999 email [email protected]
15 January 2001

An exhibition of some 60 works by the well-known Northern Irish painter Colin Middleton (1910-83) opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 24 January 2001. Colin Middleton: Paintings and Drawings from the McClelland Collection focuses on Middleton’s astonishing output of Surrealist works from the late 1930s and early 1940s. The works form part of the 400-works collection of George and Maura McClelland, Middleton’s good friends and agents. The collection, currently on long-term loan to IMMA, includes a total of 90 of Middleton’s paintings and drawings ranging across his entire oeuvre and dating from 1937 to 1972. The exhibition reveals Middleton’s extraordinary technical skill and range of interests. While these were expressed through a variety of modernist styles they are all pervaded by his fudamentally Surreal vision of the world. Another constant thread is his consistent use of the female archetype in the landscape.

Born in Belfast in 1910, Colin Middleton was probaly the most eclectic Irish painter of the 20th century – moving with ease and conviction through Cubist, Surrealist and Expressionist styles throughout his life. Largely self-taught, his father’s influence as an amateur artist and visits to London and Belgium fuelled his early interest in art. He worked in the family damask business until 1947 when the opportunity to teach art enabled him to give more time to painting. Throughout the rest of his life, frequently made precarious by poverty, Middleton painted images thrown up by his rich imagination. These derived their strength from two main sources – the passion with which Middleton presented them and the artist’s interest in the colourful life of ordinary people – who sold fish, worked the streets and entertained the bus queues.

Middleton received many awards and considerable recognition throughout his career but critical response to his work was always modified by a confused reaction to his numerous stylisic changes. Those changes may have affected Middleton’s commercial success buy they did not alienate the poets, including Michael Longley and Seamus Heaney, who have made a number of references to his work in their poems. George McClelland first met Middleton in the 1960s and began to acquire many of his works. A number of acquisitions in the early 1970s helped fund a visit by Middleton to Australia in 1972. In 1973 McClelland Galleries International showed 27 watercolours based on this trip.

Colin Middletion: Paintings and Drawings from the McClelland Collection continues until 24 June.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Hols. 12 noon – 5.30pm
Closed: Mondays
Friday 13 April

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

12 January 2001

The names of four artists shortlisted for the £15,000 Glen Dimplex Artists Award 2001, orgainsed by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, were announced today (Wednesday 13 December) by the jury panel. They are American film and video artist Matthew Barney, the British photographic artist Richard Billingham, the Irish painter Elizabeth Magill and the Scottish-born sound artist Susan Philipsz.

Described by ‘The New York Times’ as “the most important American artist of his generation”, Matthew Barney is best known for his ‘Cremaster’ film series. Slow moving and hypnotic, his films manipulate different theatrical and cinematic genre to produce works of great richness and complexity. At once biological, psychological and technological, Barney’s films range in subject matter from the plight of a love-lorn queen in turn-of-the-century Budapest to the life story of the Utah murder Gary Gilmore. Each ‘Cremaster’ instalment is accompanied by sculptures, photographs, drawings, artists books and video editions, which serve to embody and define the series as a whole. A graduate of Yale University, Barney has shown in many leading public and private galleries in America and Europe including the San Francisco MOMA, the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, the Tate, London, and the Kunsthalle, Vienna. He is nominated for the award for the ‘Cremaster 2’, shown by Temple Bar Properties, in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin, in May 2000. Born in San Francisco, in 1967, Barney now lives and works in New York.

Richard Billingham’s photographs present an unflinching portrait of his family and the urban environment around his home. He first began taking photographs as a means of getting ideas for his paintings, but later came to the view that they could exist in their own right. The photographs constitute a fascinating portrait of his life – tender, funny and melancholic. Frequent subjects are his father, Ray, whom he describes as a “chronic alchololic” and his mother, Liz, who “hardly drinks but does smoke a lot. She likes pets and things that are decorative.” Billingham has recently completed a number of video works and a series of urban landscapes taken around his home in the North East of England. He is nominated for his exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, which comprised these later works. The exhibition was originally shown at the IKON Gallery Birmingham. Billingham holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Sunderland. Since 1994 he has shown in many group exhibitions and in solo shows throughout the UK and Europe and in New York and Los Angeles. Born in Birmingham in 1970, he now lives and works in Stourbridge, West Midlands.

Elizabeth Magill is a painter of great versatility and inventiveness, whose work has always drawn on a wide range of visual sources. While she has often integrated photographic materials and processes into her painting, her primary concern has always been an exploration of painting itself as a medium. This has taken her through the use of pattern repetition, geometry and the photomechancial. Her most recent body of work is a typically idiosyncratic investigation of the traditions of landscape painting, via a witty parody of the landscapes of the Romantic period. “The spaces I create feel familiar but are more in tune with half visited, non places. Although they appear as landscapes, I relate to them more as some sort of neutral areas,” she says. She is nominated for her participation in the ‘Places in Mind’ exhibtion at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (October-December 2000). Born in Ontario, Canada in 1959, Magill was brought up in Cushendall, Co Antrim. She know lives and works in London. Magill attended the Belfast College of Art and the Slade School of Art, London. She has participated in more than 30 group shows and has had solo exhibitions in several UK venues and in Dublin, Madrid, Dusseldorf and Saarbrucken, Germany.

Susan Philipsz’ work deals with the spatial properties of sound and with the relationships between sound and architecture. She is interested primarily in the emotive and psychological properties of sound, and how it can be used as a device to alter individual consciousness. She has used sound, and more recently song, as a medium in public spaces to interject through the ambient noises of the everyday. Using her own voice, she attempts to trigger an awareness in the listener – to temporarily alter theit perception of themselves in a particular place and time. In the past she has tested her work in a number of modern public buildings where their neutral backdrops have provided an ideal setting for exploring the communal effect her work has on a public audience. Her more recent work has sought to sustain the listeners attention over longer periods of time, where the pauses between the songs are just as important as the singing itself. “My sound pieces are an attempt to lure the listener out of the present, to catapult them from the ‘here and now’ into a more private and personal state of mind”, she says. Philipsz is shorlisted for four sound works – ‘The Internationale’, ‘It Means Nothing to Me’, ‘The Dead’ and ‘Reminds Me Baby of You’. Philipsz holds an MA in Fine Art from the University of Ulster. She has participated in many group shows worldwide, including Manifesta 3, and exhibitions in Derry, Walsal, Amsterdam and Chicago. Born in Glasgow in 1965, she lives and works in Belfast and is currently on a PSI scholarship in New York.

One hundred and ten nominations were received this year, 36 from overseas. Commenting on the shortlist panel member Polly Devlin, the writer and art collector, said: “We were all greatly impressed at the richness and diversity of the submissions and these qualities are also reflected in the shortlist, with each artist’s work being not only so entirely different but created by such diverse means. These artists and their work are already lodged in the mind of the gallery going public, yet each has created work which is at once new, surprising and familiar – the shock of the familiar made completely new”. Fellow panel member Jonathan Watkins, Director of the IKON Gallery, Birmingham, said: “The 2001 shortlist was arrived at in the most obvious and democratic way. They were all neck and neck and clearly ahead of the rest. The artists short-listed had such different strengths, working across a wide range of media, styles and propositions. So far they are equally impressive to the panel. Our next step, deciding who will win, is obviously going to be very difficult.”

The Glen Dimplez Artists Award, sponsored by the Irish-based company Glen Dimplex in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, is designed to mark a significant level of achievement of development in the work and practice of exhibiting artists. The 2001 award was open to Irish artists who have exhibited in Ireland or elsewhere from 25 November 1999 to 24 November 2000 and to non-Irish artists who have exhibited in Ireland in the same period. The four shortlisted artists will now be invited to show work on exhibition at the Museum, which opens to the public in May 2001. All four will be paid a fee of £1,000 at this stage. The £15,000 award will be presented to the winning artist at a dinner following the final jury meeting later in the year. The award was first made in 1994. Since 1998 an additional non-monetary award for a substained contribution by an Irish artist to the visual arts in Ireland has also been made.

The jury panel for the 2001 award is:
Polly Devlin, writer, art collector and Chair of IMMA’s International Council.
Jonathan Watkins, Director, IKON Gallery, Birmingham.
Mark Francis, Director, Fig. 1, London.
Gavin Friday, composer and performer.
Dr Margaret Downes, Chair, BUPA Ireland, and Director, Bank of Ireland.
Fiona o’Malley, Board Member, IMMA.
Brenda McParland, Head of Exhibitions, IMMA (Chair of panel).

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

Shifting Ground at the Irish Museum of Modern Art

A major exhibition examining aspects of Irish art of the last 50 years through the eyes of five noted critics and commentators opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Friday 10 November. Shifting Ground: Selected Works of Irish Art 1950-2000 has been selected by Bruce Arnold, Dorothy Walker, Oliver Dowling, Medb Ruane and Caoimhín MacGiolla Léith, each of whom were invited to apply their own criteria to identifying key works in each of the five decades. The exhibition comprises over 60 paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, multi-media and installation works by some of Ireland’s best-known artists including Jack B Yeats, Patrick Hennessy, William Scott, Barrie Cooke, Robert Ballagh, Felim Egan, Brian Maguire, Dorothy Cross, James Coleman, Willie Doherty, Siobhán Hapaska and many others. Shifting Ground is presented in association with The Irish Times.

The overall intention of Shifting Ground is to present, in the millennium year, a speculative rather than a definitive survey of Irish art, and to articulate the shifting ground of the Irish context within which art was made and seen during the second half of the 20th century. It is hoped that the exhibition will also create a debate about the artists and works selected and serve to place today’s confident Irish art practice in the context of art activity in the post-war period.

The question of identity has been an important consideration in the choice of artists. The exhibition includes works by artists such as Sean Scully and Michael Craig Martin who, although born in Ireland, lived and worked mainly or entirely abroad and by artists like Stephen McKenna who, while born outside Ireland, developed aspects of their practice within and made a significant contribution to Irish art of the period.

Commenting on the exhibition IMMA’s Director, Declan McGonagle, said:
“Shifting Ground presents an opportunity for people to see how recent contemporary Irish art, which is gaining increasing international attention, relates to Irish art of the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition brings together key works of this period and presents various readings of Irish art in order to generate debate and discussion, challenging the idea of a single authoritative viewpoint.”

The selectors are all respected commentators who have had a varied involvement in the Irish art context over the past 50 years – Bruce Arnold and Dorothy Walker as art critics and writers, Oliver Dowling, formerly as a gallery owner and currently as Visual Arts Officer of the Art Council, Medb Ruane as critic and Caoimhín MacGiolla Léith as a writer and critic.

On Friday 24 November at 12noon Declan McGonagle, Director, IMMA, chairs a discussion with the selectors in the Lecture Room, National Museum of Ireland – Collins Barracks. Admission is free, booking essential.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated publication, with essays by the selectors, looking at Irish art in the period 1950 to 2000. Price £9.95.

Shifting Ground continues until 18 February 2000.

Admission is free.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
and 27-30 December

Closed Mondays
23 – 26 December

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

26 October 2000

Shamiana : Mughal Textiles at the Irish Museum of Modern Art

An exhibition of some 20 textile panels inspired largely by the magnificent collection of Mughal paintings held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Friday 27 October. The works in Shamiana: Mughal Textiles, which is organised by the Museum’s Education and Community Department, were created by groups of mainly Asian women and children, primarily in the United Kingdom but also in a number of other countries, as part of an arts education project developed by the V&A in 1997. One panel The Dance of Life, 1993, is the work of Irish and East Asian women who worked with artist Wendy Cowan at the West Tallaght Womens’ Textile Group. Drawing on the Mughal miniatures in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the women explored the social restructuring of their lives in contemporary Ireland.

The Shamiana panels, exhibited at the V&A in a Mughal ceremonial tent (or Shamiana) depict narrative scenes relating to home, refuge and dispossession. Most of the participants in the core UK groups shared the common experience of immigration, usually from South Asia but also from the Middle East and North Africa. The women were particularly concerned with their own, and their children’s, alienation from their root culture. A growing generational and cultural gap with their children spurred many to becoming involved as a means of addressing their sense of isolation and loneliness.

Many of the panels reflect both the superb skills traditionally seen in the depiction of familiar South Asian celebratory themes and the social importance of embroidery in these communities. However, for many of the younger participants both the process and the outcomes were new. The Shamiana project is part of a long tradition of innovative education work at the V&A, who are currently partners with the Irish Museum of Modern Art in a Socrates-funded European transitional project exploring museums’ education practice.

. . .
Commenting on the project, Helen O’Donoghue, Head of the Education and Community Department at IMMA, said: “This international project, which included Irish and Indian women living in Ireland in 1993, is an opportunity to explore the outcomes of a unique project initiated by Shireen Akbar at the V&A. It is particularly relevant in present day Ireland to show these textiles, which deal with cultural diversity and immigration and the role that museums can play in facilitating integration and understanding of the lives of people with different backgrounds and perspectives. The project will act as a springboard for a new collaboration between the IMMA and the Chester Beatty Library and aims to open up both the Museum and the CBL Galleries to new communities living in Ireland.”

During the exhibition, IMMA is organising an intensive education and community programme, in association with the Chester Beatty Library, focusing on developing social diversity in Ireland.

Shamiana: Mughal Textiles continues until 18 February 2001.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun & Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Closed Mondays
23 – 26 December

For further information and images please contact Philomena Byrne or Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999

13 October 2000

Launch of Nissan Art Project for the Millennium

The Nissan Art Project for the Millennium – Bamboo Support by British artist Dan Shipsides – was officially launched at a lunchtime reception at the Gresham Hotel today (Wednesday 27 September). Bamboo Support, which comprises a bamboo scaffolding structure attached to the facade of the Carlton Cinema building in O’Connell Street, Dublin, is the third Nissan Art Project, and follows the highly successful GHOSTSHIP by Dorothy Cross (1999) and For Dublin by Frances Hegarty and Andrew Stones (1997). The project, organised and curated by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, is sponsored by Nissan Ireland who increased the budget from £40,000 to £100,000 for the millennium year. Bamboo Support will remain in place until 2 December 2000.

Over 12,000 metres of bamboo was shipped from Hong Kong for the structure, which is 30m long x 20.5m high x 1.5m wide. A team of six professional scaffolding workers from the Ever Need Company Ltd, Hong Kong, supervised by company manager Albert Lai, erected the scaffolding using simple hand tools over a five-day period, under the direction of the artist and Museum staff with the assistance of Scafform, Dublin.

In addition to the visual impact of such an unusual structure in the capital’s main thoroughfare, Bamboo Support is intended to highlight the current redevelopment of Dublin and its role as a gateway to Europe in attracting overseas investment. The project also examines the cultural and economic parallels between Ireland and the Far East; between their turbulent tiger economies and our own much-talked-about Celtic Tiger. The artist’s choice of bamboo scaffolding, commonly used in many Asian countries, provides an aesthetically beautiful and contextually pertinent counterpoint to the steel scaffolding used within urban developments in Ireland. The project sets out to be an aesthetic experience for the public as well as drawing attention to some of the social and economic issues facing Dublin today.

The choice of the Carlton Cinema building – for its location, visual aspect and cultural / economic significance – is central to the work. The building’s current state of disuse represents a common phenomenon in the O’Connell Street area, with many buildings now earmarked for renovation under a major scheme for inner-city redevelopment. Architecturally it represents an earlier period of redevelopment by city architect H T Rourke in the 1930s, following the destruction of much of the street during the 1916 Rising and the Civil War. The Carlton Cinema is owned by the Carlton Group, who have kindly given permission for the project, and is due to be redeveloped as a shopping mall shortly after the end of the project.

Speaking at the launch Paul O’Sullivan, Marketing Director, Nissan Ireland, said:
“Nissan are delighted to be launching such a unique art project. We believe this, the Millennium Nissan Art Project, is testament to the tremendous talent of the artist who has merged two very different cultures with such a highly visual project. Bamboo Support will undoubtedly make a huge impact on O’Connell Street and to its public.”

Declan McGonagle, Director, Irish Museum of Modern Art said: “This is a very subtle work of art which people will discover as they go about their day-to-day business in Dublin’s main thoroughfare. Bamboo Support depends on the actual experience of moving through the urban environment and seeing something displaced from another culture, another place, which is relevant to the issues associated with development facing our society today.”

Born in Burnley, Lancashire, in 1972, Dan Shipsides has exhibited in solo and group shows in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Chicago and Helsinki including the 1999 Melbourne International Biennial, the Art Gallery of Victoria, Canada; the Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, and the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. Recent projects have included Sporting Life, Sydney Olympics Festival Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (August 2000), Dopplarity, Bank Tube Station and Hiscox Gallery, London (August 2000), Signs of Life, Melbourne
International Biennial, Australia (May 1999), Perspective 98, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (Prizewinner, October 1998). Forthcoming projects include Attractions, City Projects, London, and a residency at An Tuireann Centre, Isle of Skye. Dan Shipsides was formerly co-director of Catalyst Arts, Belfast.

For further information and images please contact Philomena Byrne or Monica Cullinane at
Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999

27 September 2000

The Nissan Art Project for the Millennium – Bamboo Support by British artist Dan Shipsides – will be officially launched on Wednesday 27 September. Bamboo Support, which comprises a bamboo scaffolding structure attached to the facade of the Carlton Cinema building in O’Connell Street, Dublin, is the third Nissan Art Project, and follows the highly successful GHOSTHIP by Dorothy Cross (1999) and For Dublin by Frances Hegarty and Andrew Stones (1997). The project, organised and curated by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, is sponsored by Nissan Ireland who have increased the budget from £40,000 to £100,000 for the millennium year. Bamboo Support will remain in place until 2 December 2000.

Over 12,000 metres of bamboo has been shipped from Hong Kong for the project. A team of seven workers from the Ever Need Company Ltd, a professional scaffolding company in Hong Kong, will erect the scaffolding using simple hand tools over a five-day period, under the direction of the artist and Museum staff with the assistance of Scafform, Dublin.

In addition to the visual impact of such an unusual structure in the capital’s main thoroughfare, Bamboo Support is intended to highlight the current redevelopment of Dublin in its role as a gateway to Europe in attracting overseas investment. The project also examines the cultural and economic parallels between Ireland and the Far East; between their turbulent tiger economics and our own ubiquitous Celtic Tiger. The artist’s choice of bamboo scaffolding, commonly used in many Asian countries, provides an aesthetically beautiful and contextually pertinent counterpoint to the steel scaffolding used
. . .

within urban developments in Ireland. The project sets out to be an aesthetic experience for the public as well as drawing attention to some of the social and economic issues facing Dublin today.

The choice of the Carlton Cinema building – for its location, visual aspect and cultural / economic significance – is central to the work. The building’s current state of disuse represents a common phenomenon in the O’Connell Street area, with many buildings now earmarked for renovation under a major scheme for inner-city redevelopment. Architecturally it represents an earlier period of redevelopment in the 1930s, which was of particular note due to the recently established Irish Free State. Much of O’Connell Street had been destroyed during the 1916 Rising and the Civil War and the consequent redevelopment, dictated by city architect H T Rourke, was designed to introduce more uniform materials and height lines.

The Carlton Cinema is owned by the Carlton Group, who have kindly given permission for the project and is due to be redeveloped shortly after the end of the project.

Born in Burnley, Lancashire, in 1972, Dan Shipsides has exhibited in solo and group shows in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Chicago and Helsinki including the 1999 Melbourne International Biennial, the Art Gallery of Victoria, Canada; the Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, and the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. Recent projects have included Sporting Life, Sydney Olympics Festival Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (August 2000), Dopplarity, Bank Tube Station and Hiscox Gallery, London (August 2000), Signs of Life,
. . .

Melbourne International Biennial, Australia (May 1999), Perspective 98, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (Prizewinner, October 1998). Forthcoming exhibitions include Attractions, City Projects, London, and a residency at An Tuireann Centre, Isle of Skye. Dan Shipsides was formerly co-director of Catalyst Arts, Belfast.

The Nissan Art Project, sponsored by Nissan Ireland in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, is designed to give artists the opportunity to realise major new temporary works for the public domain, defined as any space in the Dublin area to which the public has immediate access. Following the success of the two previous projects – For Dublin by Fran Hegarty and Andrew Stones (1997) and GHOSTSHIP by Dorothy Cross (1999) – Nissan Ireland announced in 1999 an increase in its sponsorship from £40,000 to £100,000 for the millennium year, making the project one of the largest visual arts sponsorships in these islands.

The members of the 2000 selection panel were:
* Sune Nordgren, Director, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts, Gateshead
* James Lingwood, Director, Artangel, London
* Mary McCarthy, Director, National Sculpture Factory, Cork
* Jim Barrett, Dublin City Architect, Dublin Corporation
* Brenda McParland, Head of Exhibitions, Irish Museum of Modern Art.
The panel was chaired by Declan McGonagle, Director, Irish Museum of Modern Art.
For further information and colour and black and white images please contact
Philomena Byrne or Onagh Carolan at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999

13 September 2000

An exhibition of approximately 60 works from an important collection of over 400 artworks generously given on long-term loan to the Irish Museum of Modern Art by George and Maura McClelland opens to the public at the Museum on Wednesday 20 September. Selected Works from the McClelland Collection illustrates a lifetime of collecting by the McClellands, who are former gallery owners and promoters of such leading Irish artists as Colin Middleton, Tony O’Malley and Dan O’Neill.

The exhibition, like the collection, is particularly strong in mid 20th-century Irish painters and sculptors – more especially Northern Irish artists – and includes works by William Conor, Gerard Dillon, William Scott, John Luke, Colin Middleton and other leading artists such as Jack B. Yeats, Sean Keating, Gerda Fromel and Elizabeth Rivers. Also on show are an early tapestry by Louis le Brocquy and bronze sculptures by F E McWilliam.

Commenting on the significance of the collection to the Museum, Catherine Marshall, Head of IMMA’s Collection, said : “The McClelland Collection offers a thorough introduction to Irish art for the first three quarters of the 20th century, an introduction which is full of delights for the casual visitor. As a source for the history of art in this country, its importance cannot be overstated, because the period it charts was very inadequately collected by Irish public bodies. We all have good reason to be grateful to the McClellands for giving us the opportunity to put that history on show and to offer a context for the current blossoming of visual art in Ireland.”

George McClelland is a native of Omagh, Co Tyrone, and bought his first drawing, which he still owns, at the age of 12. He and his wife Maura (from Anascaul, Co Kerry) settled in Belfast where in 1965 they opened an antique and art gallery in May Street. In 1972 they re-organized their gallery and set up McClelland Galleries International on the Lisburn Road. In 1969 they established the McClelland Fine Art Award for final year Diploma students at the Ulster College of Art and Design which was later continued by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The McClelland Galleries showed a wide variety of historic and contemporary art, including Islamic and African art, Russian icons and the first exhibition in Ireland of Eskimo sculpture, as well as contemporary Irish art. Contemporary artists from Northern Ireland were especially encouraged and George McClelland became the agent and friend of such artists as Dan O’Neill, Gerard Dillon, F E McWilliam, Colin Middleton and many others.

The McClellands moved to Dublin in 1975 following the loss of their Lisburn Road gallery during the continued political unrest. At this time George McClelland took the opportunity to fulfil a dream from his youth. He attended the National College of Art and subsequently exhibited his own work in several of the Irish Living Art Exhibitions. His Healing Screen (1978 I.E.L.A.) was purchased by the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland and is now in the Collection of the Ulster Museum.

George and Maura McClelland retired to the Isle of Man in 1986, but remain regular visitors to Ireland.

Selected Works from the McClelland Collection continues until January 2001.

Admission is free.

An exhibition of Surrealist paintings and drawings by Colin Middleton, from the same collection, will be shown at IMMA from January to March 2001.

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00am – 5.30pm
Sun & Bank Holidays 12 noon – 5.30pm
Closed Mondays
23 – 26 December

For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Philomena Byrne or Onagh Carolan at Tel : +353 1 612 9900,
Fax : +353 1 612 9999

4th September 2000