IMMA presents Sunset, Sunrise; a rare opportunity to see a major exhibition of work by prominent Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Opening on 10 August 2018, IMMA is delighted to present Sunset, Sunrise, a major retrospective of the work of prominent Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (b.1924, Qazvin, Iran). Now in her mid-nineties, this exhibition marks the first solo exhibition of Farmanfarmaian’s work in Ireland. Sunset, Sunrise offers a rare opportunity to rediscover the breathtakingly kaleidoscopic nature of Farmanfarmaian’s 1970s sculpture and to encounter drawings, jewellery and previous unseen embroidery and collages from the 1980s, alongside new pen and ink drawings, fresh from the artist’s studio in Iran. Over 70 works are on display, encompassing a multitude of artistic genres which inform the artist’s practice

Sunset Sunrise will be opened on the evening of Thursday 9 August by noted international curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London, a friend and long-time supporter of Farmanfarmaian.

On showing her work in Ireland Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian said “The Irish and the Iranians share a love of poetry in their cultures. My poetry is in my art, and I am honoured to share it in this IMMA exhibition”.

Born in Qazvin, Iran in 1924, Farmanfarmaian’s distinguished career has spanned more than six decades. The artist attended the Fine Arts College of Tehran before becoming one of the first Iranian students to study in the United States after World War II. Between 1945 and 1957 she was engulfed in this epicentre of the modern art world, and it was here that she worked alongside many iconic contemporary American artists including Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella, Louise Nevelson and Andy Warhol, all of whom had an influence on her work. In 1957 she returned to Iran. She was abroad when the Islamic, or Iranian Revolution of 1979 broke out, effectively making her an exile until 1992. Returning to Iran in 2004 she is now firmly re-established in her native country and is considered one of the most important Iranian artists working today with the opening of The Monir Museum in 2017 – the first Museum in Iran dedicated to a female artist.

Rachel Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions at IMMA first discovered Farmanfarmaian’s work when she was researching for the popular IMMA exhibition As Above, So Below and goes on to say; “Monir’s pioneering approach as an Iranian artist, fuses traditional skills with contemporary sensibilities to create a truly global and timeless practice, and one that deserved a significant international retrospective. I am particularly pleased that IMMA was able to originate this new framing of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian here in Dublin, and that we will tour the exhibition to our partners in Sharjah next year”.

Encapsulating histories of both East and West, Sunset, Sunrise reflects a life lived between two cultures, as the artist’s early involvement with graphic design and experimental modern abstraction in New York City gave way to a period of intense research into traditional craftsmanship and folk art in Iran’s more remote regions. Western avant-garde principles were maintained by the artist while she delved into Persian mysticism and simultaneously evoked the socio-political Islamic landscape as well as the easily recognisable geometry of Iran’s artistic and architectural heritage. Embedded in this collision of cultures, Farmanfarmaian navigated a path to her own distinct form of rich geometric abstraction.

While Farmanfarmaian’s practice has historically been overlooked in certain contemporary art discourses, her work has proven prescient and influential for many artists working today. The exhibition at IMMA establishes Farmanfarmaian as one of the great pioneering female artists, set alongside such 20th-century innovators such as Etel Adnan, Carol Rama and Hilma af Klint, all of whom have been rediscovered for their vital contributions to the development of contemporary art, and who have been represented within group and solo exhibitions at IMMA over the last three years.

Sunset, Sunrise investigates the abundance and mystery of nature, the universe and our place within it. Presenting over 70 works the exhibition includes key works Sunrise (2015) and Sunset (2015), both created using mirror and reverse-glass painting on plaster and wood. These pieces, from which the exhibition takes its title, exemplify Farmanfarmaian’s ability to merge traditional Persian techniques with contemporary abstraction. Other works, such as Untitled (2012) and Untitled 4 (2016), are shown here for the first time. These works incorporate highly reflective materials such as mirror and glitter on paper which are in line with the artist’s use of luxurious textures such as pearls, crystals, beads and gold leaf within her wider practice. Also showing is the intimate documentary film, Monir, 2015, chronicling the life and work of the artist, directed by Bahman Kiarostami and produced by Leyla Fakhr.

Sunset, Sunrise is co-curated by Rachel Thomas (Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA) and Hoor Al Qasimi (Director, Sharjah Art Foundation). The exhibition is organised by IMMA in collaboration with Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates. The exhibition will travel to Sharjah Art Foundation in 2019.

A fully illustrated publication accompanies the exhibition, focusing on architecture, poetry and a fresh re-evaluation of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s practice. Included in the publication are Farmanfarmaian’s favourite poems joined by newly commissioned texts by Rahel Aima, Dr Tina Kinsella, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Murtaza Vali, Rachel Thomas and Hoor Al Qasimi, as well as extracts from Hans Ulrich Obrist’s previously published interviews. The publication is co-published by IMMA and Sharjah Art Foundation.

A new Limited Edition print of the work of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, titled Sunrise, will be available to purchase at the IMMA Shop.

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For more information and images please contact Monica Cullinane e: [email protected] t: + 353 1 612 9922.

 

Editors Notes

About the Artist
Born in Qazvin, Iran in 1924, Monir’s distinguished career has spanned more than five six decades. The artist attended the Fine Arts College of Tehran before becoming one of the first Iranian students to study in the United States after World War II. She graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1949 and then became a Member of the New York Art Students’ League (1950-53). Engulfed in the epicentre of the modern art world, it was here that she worked alongside many iconic contemporary American artists including Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella, Louise Nevelson and Andy Warhol, all who had an influence on her work.

Monir has exhibited extensively in international institutions in Iran, North America and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include a traveling retrospective, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibilities at the Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2014), and to Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY,2015; Lineages, Savannah College of Art and Design Museum (2017); Monir Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Geometry, The Third Line, Dubai (2016); Jef Geys/Monir Farmanfarmaian, WIELS, Brussels (2013); Convertibles and Polygons, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA (2012); Geometry of Hope, Leighton House Museum, London, UK (2008); Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Mirror Mosaics, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK (2007). Her work has been included in several prominent group exhibitions including DECOR, Villa Empain, Boghossian Foundation, Brussels, Belgium (2016); Sharjah Biennial 11 (2015); Seeing Through Light, The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Collection Opening exhibition, Manarat al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2015); Iran Modern at Asia Art Society, New York, USA (2013); Trade Routes, Hauser & Wirth, London, UK (2013); Contemporary Iranian Art from the Permanent Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); The Future of Tradition, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2010).

She has participated in four editions of the Venice Biennale, where she was awarded the Gold Medal in 1958, 1964 and 1966. She also participated in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery, Australia, and at Liquid City, the 2nd Brugge Triennial in Brugge, Belgium (2018). Monir’s work is housed in several major public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Jameel Collection, London; The Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran; Swisscorp Bank, Geneva, Switzerland; The Sharjah Art Foundation; and the School of Law at Columbia University, America. Monir lives and works in Tehran.

Associated Talks and Events

Talk & Exhibition Preview / Aziz Isham – Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Sunset, Sunrise
Thursday 9 August / 6.30pm / Lecture Room / Booking advised
In conjunction with the exhibition preview of Sunset, Sunrise producer, journalist and activist Aziz Isham, grandson of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, presents an introduction to the rich cultural and artistic diversity of Farmanfarmaian’s practice over a period of 40 years. Isham’s lecture provides a personal perspective on some of the most defining movements that have shaped and influenced his grandmother’s life and work. This talk is followed by the official launch.

Curators Lunchtime Talk Series
Friday 21 September / 1.15pm – 2.00pm / Drop In
Meeting Point – IMMA Main Reception
Rachael Gilbourne, Exhibitions, IMMA, presents an insightful walkthrough of the exhibition Sunset, Sunrise.

Artist Response / Roxana Manouchehri / Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Friday 5 October / 1.00pm / Main Galleries, West Wing / Booking advised
Artist Roxana Manouchehri reflects on the craft, skills and artistic traditions of her native country Iran, in the context of the exhibition Sunset, Sunrise. Manouchehri’s response explores the merging of traditional Persian techniques with contemporary abstraction that Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian not only pioneered but continues to influence on a subsequent generation of artists. Taking the form of an exhibition walk-through, this talk looks at geometrical patterns and its roots in mathematics, repetition and spirituality, derived from 15th century Persian architecture and decorative mirror work.

Tickets will be available from the IMMA Talks section of our website. All talks are free but ticketed unless otherwise stated.

IMMA presents first exhibition in Ireland by German-American artist Andrea Geyer

Opening on 1 June 2018, IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in Ireland by German-American artist Andrea Geyer. When We features several recent works by Geyer as well as the new immersive work Collective Weave (Ireland), 2018, commissioned by IMMA for this exhibition.
Geyer’s work provokes a radical re-thinking of time. She studies our present by charting histories through a de-familiarizing, transgressive, feminist lens. The resulting works invite a viewer to re-think, re-enact and re-imagine their relationship to past time and how it informs the way they experience the present. As the artist recognises, “Art is not dead… [it] is constantly, through our living, in the making” (Insistence, 2013). In this way, Geyer creates a nuanced space of potential, a vital tool for empowerment and action amidst today’s cultural, social and political systems. The title When We suggests this potentiality; that we can do something, that something may have happened, or indeed can still happen. When We is therefore both a suggestion and an affirmation.
The exhibition at IMMA focuses on Andrea Geyer’s current body of work – an ambitious investigation into the formation of modern art, its institutions and their histories. Featuring performance, text, photography, installation, sculpture and video, the exhibition unfolds as a series of salons, each with its own mood, or as the artist describes, each creating its own particular “universe”. These are spaces made for lingering, to give time for collective thought where critical reflection can otherwise be diluted by the drone of contemporary culture. Combining fictional and documentary strategies, the works within these salons, such as Constellations (2018), Manifest (2017), and Revolt, They Said (2012 – ongoing), honour and celebrate ideas that have been and continue to be marginalized or obscured.
The newly commissioned work Collective Weave (Ireland), 2018, is an expansive floor-to-ceiling installation of white linen featuring iridescent silver patterns of drawings. The drawings are derived from Irish queer magazines, posters and flyers dating from 1970 to the early 1990s. Raising questions around identity, community, representation, and visibility within museums, with this body of work Geyer seeks to champion art as a fundamental necessity and propose alternative possibilities within our contemporary lives.
Notably a key influence for Andrea Geyer is the American dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and writer, Yvonne Rainer, whose seminal early dance works have recently been shown at IMMA in May 2018. Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, Rachael Thomas states, “…IMMA is honoured to be working with the pioneering and influential artist Yvonne Rainer. Rainer continuously explores the body as a metaphor itself, as a site inspiration, courageously challenging political and social structures. Extending this oeuvre, we are also delighted to be exhibiting new work by Andrea Geyer, who focuses on themes of gender and memory; and how they are constantly reinterpreted against a backdrop of history and current culture. These two artists, Rainer and Geyer, reveal new pathways of understanding feminism, and are rewriting the rules of art practice.”
Andrea Geyer, When We continues in the Courtyard Galleries at IMMA until 21 October 2018. Admission is free.
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For more information and images please contact Patrice Molloy e: [email protected] t: + 353 1 612 9920
Editors Notes 
About the Artist
Andrea Geyer (b. Freiburg, Germany, 1971) is an artist living and working in NYC. Her work has been exhibited widely at institutions including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California; The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Artists Space and White Columns, in New York City; Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Houston, Texas; A Space Gallery, Toronto, Canada; KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Red Cat and LACE, in Los Angeles; Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery, London; Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Switzerland; Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden; Generali Foundation and Secession, Vienna; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand; the Turin Biennale; the São Paulo Biennial; and dOCUMENTA (12), Kassel, Germany. International public collections with Geyer’s work include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California, Neue Galerie, MHK, Kassel, the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg and the Federal Collection of Germany.
Andrea Geyer worked with the Irish Queer Archive at The National Library of Ireland and the Cork LGBT Digital Archive and was supported by Orla Egan, Dr. Katherine O’Donnell, Tonie Walsh, Jennie Taylor and Emma Haugh for her research towards the new commission Collective Weave (Ireland), 2018.
Associated Talks and Events
Artist Talk & Preview / Andrea Geyer, When We 
Thursday 31 May, 6pm, Lecture Room 
Artist Andrea Geyer discusses the exhibition When We, exploring the construction and politics of specific events, sites or biographies that informs a selection of works comprising this solo exhibition by the artist at IMMA. Followed by the exhibition Preview at 6.30pm. This talk is free and ticketed. Book online /en/page_237336.htm
Curators Lunchtime Talk Series 
Wed 4 July, 1.15pm, Meeting Point, Main Reception 
IMMA curator Rachael Gilbourne presents an insightful gallery walk through of the exhibition.
Drop In / No booking required.
Expanded project: Witness by Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor
1 – 22 September 2018, Courtyard Galleries & Residency Spaces
IMMA has invited the Berlin-based American artist, film-maker and archivist Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor to present Witness, a three-week project taking place across exhibition and residency spaces at IMMA. Witness focuses on creating a space for discussions on race and race relations, and features a screening of Taylor’s film Muttererde (2017), and a series of salons and workshops.
Exhibition supported by:

Hennessy Reveals Four Artists Selected for Art Fund for IMMA Collection 2018

Thursday May 10th 2018, Hennessy and IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) revealed the names of the four contemporary artists whose works have been purchased by the Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection 2018. Barbara Knezevic, Susan MacWilliam, Mary McIntyre and Helen O’Leary were joined by Elaine Cullen of Hennessy Ireland, IMMA’s Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator, Head of Collections and invited curator Hugh Mulholland, Senior Curator at The MAC, Belfast, as the works went on display. The Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection exhibition is free to view and runs from May 10th to September 16th.

Each of the artists selected have well-established practices, making work of quality and rigor which has received considerable critical acknowledgment and are not yet represented in the IMMA National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. From thought-provoking sculptures to a haunting video to a photographic installation, each of the chosen works engages with contemporary culture, reflecting the artist’s looking at and thinking about life today.

Barbara Knezevic’s sculptural arrangement ‘The Last Thing On Earth’ (2016) is framed by the proposition: What if this is the last thing, the final material to be pulled out of the ground, the final piece of stuff that has not already been purposed by humans. The ‘thing’ referred to here is a multi-sided marble object at the centre of the work, around which a constellation of other objects including a photographic backdrop, tripods and archaeological tools, mirrors, and an iPad are arranged.

‘Pull Down’ (2016) by Susan MacWilliam is a black and white silent video which uses reconstruction and detailed editing to explore forms of portraiture and the mechanics of looking and recording. ‘Pull Down’ continues the artist’s exploration of the phenomena of spiritualism and conjures up the dark spaces of the séance room. It intimately observes the repeated collapsing and slumping of a girl through the viewing lens of a camera and draws attention to the role of the camera as observer of the spirit medium within historical psychical research studies (the study of paranormal, especially parapsychological, phenomena).

Mary McIntyre’s ‘The Path to the Distribution Point of Light’ (2015) seeks to explore the audience’s relationship with photography. McIntyre has constructed a low platform, in the form of a vaguely disquieting shallow ramp that spills out from the corner of the gallery space. It invites greater spatial interaction with the work, which, calls into question the possibility of ‘passive’ viewing. The stage-like structure also introduces a sense of heightened theatricality, something that has always been an important aspect of McIntyre’s practice, as you are invited to walk across it to view the photograph on the wall. Each step taken towards the photographic work therefore becomes self-conscious, as your footfall is acoustically registered upon a wooden incline.

Helen O’Leary’s work ‘Refusal’ (2014) uses oil and wood while ‘The Problem with Adjectives’ (2017) uses egg tempera and oil emulsion on constructed wood. O’Leary’s work has been described as an un-writeable novel, and she describes the frame-like structures she produces as paintings that can stand by themselves, that have their own architecture. Her paintings hold a history of their past lives, with panels fashioned from pieces of previous paintings, cloth and materials at hand in the studio. The materials become woven together to create non-representational three-dimensional pieces that hold a story beyond what is immediately visible. She has described her process as “knitting” with wood, “cobbling together paintings out of the ruin of their own making.”

Hennessy Ireland formed a unique partnership with IMMA in 2016 to help fund the purchase of important works by Irish and Ireland based artists for the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. Funding cuts during the recession resulted in the museum lacking resources to purchase works meaning the practices of younger and mid-career artists from 2011 onwards were glaringly absent from the IMMA Collection story. Works are sought which show excellence and innovation within contemporary art developments, and which represent a signal moment of achievement with the artist’s practice. They must also have been made within the previous five years.

Speaking about the announcement of this year’s artists Elaine Cullen, Market Development Manager for Moet Hennessy Ireland said: “Hennessy is long dedicated to discovering and nurturing gifted Irish talent, be it in literature and poetry through the Hennessy Literary Awards, contemporary music and culture at the Hennessy Lost Fridays immersive multi-media events, and through the Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA to purchase important works by Irish and Irish based artists for the IMMA National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. It is a privilege for us to enable the acquisition of these deserving pieces and welcome Barbara, Susan, Mary, and Helen to the Hennessy family.”

In looking back at the 12 works purchased over the last three years, IMMA Senior Curator, Head of Collections, Christina Kennedy, remarked; “As 12 works that stand as a distinct grouping within the IMMA National Collection, the Hennessy Art Fund to date reflects something that is on the pulse of what is observed by artists today, often ahead of other indicators, and which is contributing to thinking about the human condition in a technological age.”

Artists are nominated by a selection panel, including IMMA Head of Collections, Christina Kennedy and invited curators, Senior Curator at The MAC Belfast, Hugh Mulholland, and Director of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, Clíodhna Shaffrey. Final recommendations are approved by the IMMA Collection Acquisitions Committee, in line with IMMA’s Collection policy. The 2016 Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection saw works by artists Kevin Atherton, David Beattie, Rhona Byrne and Dennis McNulty selected. Artist chosen for the 2017 collection were Ciarán Murphy, Maireád McClean, Mark Garry and Yuri Pattison.

IMMA welcomed close to half a million visitors in 2017, and was recognised as the second most popular free visitor attraction in Ireland in 2016. In addition to the Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection, other highlights of the Hennessy cultural calendar include and Hennessy Lost Fridays with RHA and the Hennessy Literary Awards.

For further information visit www.imma.ie and www.hennessy.com, log onto the Hennessy Cognac Ireland’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/HennessyCognacIreland, or follow Hennessy on Twitter @HennessyIRL and Instagram @HennessyIRL.

About the Artists

Barbara Knezevic
Barbara Knezevic lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. She attended the Sydney College of the Arts where she received a Bachelor of Visual Arts and completed her Masters in Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Recent exhibitions include ‘The Last Thing on Earth’, a solo exhibition at the MAC, Belfast (2016), ‘Exquisite tempo sector’, a solo exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (2017), ‘City Agents’, curated by Jussi Koitela, at EKKM, Estonia (2016), and ‘With Leftover Agencies’, Gallery Augusta, Helsinki (2016).

Susan MacWilliam
Born in Belfast, Susan MacWilliam represented Northern Ireland at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009, with her solo exhibition, REMOTE VIEWING. Her first film, The Last Person (1998) was shortlisted for the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Glen Dimplex Artists Award in 1999. She was artist in residence on the PS1 International Studio Program, New York in 1999/00, and has had residencies in Ireland, France, Slovenia, Trinidad, the USA and Canada. MacWilliam has exhibited extensively internationally, and has had solo exhibitions in Ireland, the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada. She is represented by CONNERSMITH, Washington, DC.

Mary McIntyre
Mary McIntyre was born in Northern Ireland where she lives and works. She graduated Master of Fine Art at the University of Ulster in 1990, where she is now a Reader in Fine Art. She has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include: An Interior Landscape, Visual, Carlow, (2014); A Contemporary Sublime, The MAC, Belfast (2013); and Silent, Empry, Waiting for the Day, Belfast exposed Gallery (2011). Group exhibitions include: The Untold Want, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2015); Helsinki Photography Biennial, Helsinki (2014); and Imagining Islands: Artist and Escape, The Courtauld Institute, London (2013).

Helen O’Leary
Helen O’ Leary was born in Wexford. She attended NCAD and earned a BFA and MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been honoured with the la Prix de Rome, American Academy in Rome, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; two Pollock-Krasner awards; the Joan Mitchell Award for painting and sculpture; and several grants from the Arts Council of Ireland. Exhibitions include the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; The MAC Belfast, Ireland; National Gallery of Art, Limerick; and the Glasgow Museum of Art, Scotland.

Guest Panellists
Hugh Mulholland, Senior Curator at The MAC, Belfast is this year’s invited curator to the selection panel. He was previously Director, the third space gallery, Belfast (2006-2012); Director of Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (1997-2006); and founding Director of Context Gallery Derry, (now CCA) (1992-1997).

Clíodhna Shaffrey is director of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin. Previous to this she has worked as independent curator and was Visual Arts Advisor to the Arts Council Ireland from 2011 – 2014. Shaffrey sat on this year’s selection panel as a member of the IMMA Acquisitions Committee.

About Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection
Hennessy Ireland formed a unique partnership with IMMA in 2016 to help fund the purchase of important works by Irish and Ireland based artists for the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. Funding cuts during the recession resulted in the museum lacking resources to purchase works meaning the practices of younger and mid-career artists from 2011 onwards were glaringly absent from the IMMA Collection story. Works are sought which show excellence and innovation within contemporary art developments, and which represent a signal moment of achievement with the artist’s practice. They must also have been made within the previous five years.

Read more about the 2017 selection here>

Read more about the 2016 selection here>

About Hennessy
Immersed in Irish heritage, Hennessy has evolved to become one of Ireland’s most well-known and cherished brands. Founded in Cognac, France in 1765 by Corkonian Richard Hennessy, the brand’s distinctly Irish heritage has stood the test of time and today draws on over 250 years of knowledge, talent, expertise and passion. It is a brand that is intrinsically linked to the Irish way of life and is complemented by Hennessy’s commitment to Ireland’s unique sociability and skill in creating unforgettable experiences. Hennessy’s Savoir-Faire is evident from its unique heritage, tradition and exceptional craftsmanship which create Hennessy Cognac. Though the Hennessy brand has evolved throughout the years, the true art form of its traditions and methods remains timeless.

About IMMA
IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland’s leading national institution of Contemporary and Modern art. Based in its home at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, IMMA is celebrated for its vibrant and dynamic exhibition and education programmes.

IMMA is the home of the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary art. Now numbering over 3,500 works, IMMA ensures that this collection is accessible to visitors to IMMA and beyond, through exhibitions, collaborations, loans, touring partnerships and digital programmes.

Visited by over 489,000 people in 2017, IMMA is one of Ireland’s leading cultural institutions and a key source of creativity and inspiration for visitors of all walks of life. One out of every eight IMMA visitors experiences visual art for the first time through their IMMA visit. The museum is driven to inspire a curiosity and appreciation of Irish contemporary art amongst their audience and the wider Irish public.

Rare, live performances of Yvonne Rainer, pioneering dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and writer, at IMMA this May

IMMA is delighted to present the work of world-class dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and writer Yvonne Rainer—one of the most influential artistic figures of the last 50 years – later this month. Rainer’s work has been foundational across multiple disciplines and movements including dance, cinema, feminism, minimalism, conceptual art, and postmodernism. IMMA will present a selection of Rainer’s iconic early dance and film works and will bring the legendary artist to Dublin for a historic conversation about her career.

One of Rainer’s most renowned dance pieces, Trio A with Flag (1966), will be performed live at IMMA with her works Talking Solo from Terrain (1963) and Chair/Pillow (1969). A series of talks and conversations will accompany this programme featuring, amongst others; Yvonne Rainer, Irish Choreographer and dancer Liz Roche (Liz Roche Company) and Former Director of Tate Modern and Volksbühne, Berlin – Chris Dercon  who will talk about dance and performance invading the space of the museum. A talk takes place alongside each performance with Dercon’s keynote happening a week later.

A series of screenings will also be shown at IMMA from June 2018, featuring the acclaimed film-works Lives of Performers (1972), Privilege (1990) and MURDER and Murder (1996).

In 1962, as a founding member of Judson Dance Theater, Rainer revolutionized modern dance by introducing everyday movements like walking and running into the dance lexicon. Evoking responses that are at once theoretical, political and deeply personal, Rainer’s work continues to resonate with today’s shifting world. In the words of the artist Robert Rauschenberg, “Yvonne’s multi-media expertise and her dynamic exposure has shaken the world for years. I have known her through the years of the development. To assist in the continuation is a gift to culture.”  Now in her eighties and returned to choreography, she continues to create vibrant, courageous, unpredictable dances that invite audiences to question basic assumptions about art and performance.

Endeavouring to reflect the many facets of Yvonne Rainer’s practice, IMMA presents the work of Yvonne Rainer using a cross-disciplinary approach working in association with Dublin Dance Festival; the leading dance event on the Irish arts calendar. Each year in May, the Festival brings together dance artists and choreographers from across the world to share vibrant contemporary dance with audiences in Ireland.

All of the early dance works will be taught by choreographer Pat Catterson, Yvonne Rainer’s long-time assistant, performer, and transmitter of her dance-work. The performances will feature a cast of four dancers who travelled from all over the world to avail of the opportunity to dance for Yvonne Rainer, they are Stav Bar-Nahum Frank, Ty Boomershine, Dimitrios Mytilinaios and Mary Kate Sheehan.

Performance details:
Saturday 12 May, 19:30pm – includes a pre-performance lecture by Yvonne Rainer. SOLD OUT
Sunday 13 May, 15:30pm – includes a pre-performance talk by Rachael Gilbourne (Curator, IMMA).
Sunday 13 May, 19.30pm – includes a post-performance conversation between Liz Roche (Liz Roche Company) and Rachael Thomas (Senior Curator, IMMA).

Ticket prices: €15 full price / €12.50 conc, which include complimentary O’Hara’s Irish Craft Beer after the event.
Venue: Great Hall, IMMA.

Associated Keynote Lecture on Yvonne Rainer / Chris Dercon
Friday 18 May / 1pm – 2pm / Johnston Suite / IMMA
Chris Dercon, Former Director, Tate Modern and Volksbühne Berlin, will present a keynote lecture on pioneering dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and writer Yvonne Rainer. Drawing on Rainer’s incredible 50 years practice, and her influence on a subsequent generation of practitioners, Dercon’s talk examines the various ways dance and performance is used to intervene and invade the space of the museum, exploring historic and contemporary examples that defy categorisation.

This talk offers the rare chance to hear from one of the most prolific figures working and programming contemporary art, theatre, dance and performance, today.

IMMA presents Yvonne Rainer in association with Dublin Dance Festival with the support of Project Arts Centre and Dance Ireland.
See www.imma.ie for booking all performances and talks.

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For more information, images and access to rehearsals please contact Monica Cullinane e: [email protected]  t: + 353 1 612 9922

Additional Information

About the Artist / Yvonne Rainer (b. 1934, San Francisco)
Moving from San Francisco to New York in 1956, Yvonne Rainer studied dance at the Martha Graham School, while learning ballet at Ballet Arts. By the early 1960s, she had participated in Anna Halprin’s workshops, become a protégé of John Cage and Merce Cunningham, and was fully immersed in the New York performance scene. As a founding member of the legendary Judson Dance Theater, she collaborated with many ground-breaking artists of her generation: Robert Rauschenberg, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Lucinda Childs, Robert Morris, and Carolee Schneemann. Rainer pursued a minimalist aesthetic, using everyday, spare pedestrian movements as seen in her masterwork Trio A (1966). Revolutionary at the time, her approach radically altered the vocabulary of dance and continues to inform contemporary artists working across disciplines today.

In the mid-1960s, Rainer began incorporating short film pieces and narrative into her dances. Her work became increasingly personal and political, and in the early 1970s she began to focus entirely on filmmaking. She went on to direct seven feature-films, each as experimental as her dance pieces, and explored themes such as political power, social exclusion, terrorism, sexuality, and illness. In 1997, retrospectives of her cinematic works were organised by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York.

In 2000, after 25 years of filmmaking, Rainer returned to dance with a newly commissioned work After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, which was recognized with a Bessie Award. Since then, she has choreographed several new dance pieces such as The Concept of Dust, or How do you look when there’s nothing left to move? at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2015. Rainer also developed her writing, releasing her memoir Feelings Are Facts: A Life, published by MIT Press in 2006, and a book of her poetry, Poems, released by Badlands Unlimited in 2012. Currently, she is a contributing writer to Triple Canopy. In 2014, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles presented a major retrospective of Rainer’s dances and films. Rainer is the recipient of numerous awards, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, three Rockefeller Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, a Wexner Prize, and in 2015, the Merce Cunningham Award. She currently lives and works in New York.

IMMA presents a new exhibition by renowned Irish artist Brian O’Doherty and hosts a ceremony at which the artist is awarded the Freedom of County Roscommon

Opening on 26 April 2018, IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is pleased to present Brian O’Doherty Language and Space, in association with fine art print studio Stoney Road Press, Dublin. Presented in the context of our Collections exhibition Coast-Lines, this solo exhibition includes a number of works by Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland from IMMA’s National Collection, in addition to drawings from the 1960s, Structural Plays and new works recently published by Stoney Road Press as limited editioned prints. 
Brian O’Doherty Language and Space marks the artist’s lifelong commitment to exploring line, language and location, and is a timely celebration of the ten-year anniversary of his performance The Burial of Patrick Ireland at IMMA in 2008. 
All of the works on display evoke the discourse between mind and body that has absorbed Brian O’Doherty throughout his career. Many are inspired by Ogham script – an ancient Celtic translation of the Roman alphabet into a writing system of 20 linear characters. No Irish artist has placed Ogham so centrally to their work as O’Doherty/Ireland. In the mid-1960s, the artist brought this 1,500 year old language into New York’s avant-garde dialogue. Ogham allowed O’Doherty/Ireland to combine his interests in minimal-conceptual systems of expression, the senses and language – concerns right at the centre of critical thinking among the 1960s avant-garde, of whom he was a pioneering figure.  He has focused extensively on Ogham’s vowels: A O U E I, which in their linear appearance and sound, have informed a vast range of his work ever since. 
Commenting on the exhibition Christina Kennedy, Head of Collections at IMMA said; “On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of The Burial of Patrick Ireland at IMMA, we are delighted to again work with artist Brian O’Doherty. This exhibition reflects the artist’s lifelong commitment to exploring line, language, identity and the senses and in this, his 90th year, acknowledges the extraordinarily prescient nature of this artist’s ideas and expression, which continue to push boundaries and provoke new thinking in art today.”
Commenting on working with Brian O’Doherty, James O’Nolan, Co-Director of his long time collaborators Stoney Road Press said; “We figured out how to register the complex web of coloured hatching he favoured, using separate etching plates, and I began to understand that these were not just drawings, they also possessed a voice. An Ogham voice. Later, working on the Structural Plays, I appreciated that not only had they had a voice, but many could be performed as well.  I suppose it could be said that these were the first prints I worked on that were all singing and all dancing.”
Brian O’Doherty is a figurehead of Irish and international contemporary art and his work holds notable legacy in Ireland. Over the past 60 years, he has invoked various identities in pursuit of his art. In 1972, as a patriotic gesture in response to Bloody Sunday and the political and civic unrest in Northern Ireland, O’Doherty performed Name Change at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, as part of the annual Irish Exhibition of Living Art. After a performance of the Ogham vowels, the artist changed his name from Brian O’Doherty to Patrick Ireland in the presence of a Notary Public. The masked, reclining artist was painted orange and green by fellow artists Robert Ballagh and Brian King, giving him the appearance of an atrocity victim. 
For the next 36 years, Brian O’Doherty published writing as an art critic, whilst Patrick Ireland continued to work as an artist. On 20 May 2008, following the establishment of a power-sharing government and peace in Northern Ireland, the effigy of Patrick Ireland was placed in a coffin and his identity was waked and buried in the formal gardens of IMMA. During this performance called The Burial of Patrick Ireland the artist reassumed his birth name Brian O’Doherty. 
Brian O’Doherty Language and Space is in the East Wing of the Main Galleries at IMMA from 26 April – 16 September 2018. Admission is free. 
Freedom of County Roscommon
On 26 April 2018, in a ceremony taking place at IMMA, Brian O’ Doherty will be awarded The Honorary Freedom of the Administrative Area of County Roscommon. For further details on this award please contact Patricia Bohan, Roscommon Co Co e: [email protected] t: +353 90 6637172
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For more information and images please contact Patrice Molloy e: [email protected] t: + 353 1 612 9920

Editor’s Notes

Artist Biography
Brian O’Doherty was born in Ireland in 1928, is now based in New York. When he left Dublin in 1957, O’Doherty was a qualified medical doctor and emerging artist, and is now renowned as an artist, writer, critic, television host, filmmaker and educator. One of the pioneering generation of conceptual art, O’Doherty produced many seminal works including Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (1966-’67) and an early ‘exhibition in a box’, Aspen 5+6 (1967), which features in our concurrent IMMA Collection exhibition Coast-Lines. When he left Dublin in 1957, O’Doherty was a qualified medical doctor and emerging artist, and is now renowned as an artist, writer, critic, television host, filmmaker and educator.
Major retrospectives of O’Doherty/Ireland’s work were held at the National Museum of American Art (1986), The Elvehjem Museum of Art (1993), The Butler Institute of American Art (1994), and Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane (2006) which travelled to the Grey Art Gallery, New York (2007).
O’Doherty/Ireland’s art is held in numerous private and public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, Dublin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Associated Talks and Events 

For details of upcoming Talks and Events related to this exhibition please visit www.imma.ie 

IMMA Welcomes ‘Investing in our Culture, Language and Heritage 2018 – 2027’ announced today by Minister Josepha Madigan

10 April 2018

Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan T.D. today announced a €1.2 billion investment in the culture, heritage and language infrastructure of Ireland as part of the Government’s Project Ireland 2040. Over the period 2018 to 2027, the Government intends to invest €460m in a significant number of capital projects in our National Cultural Institutions, including IMMA.

Commenting on today’s announcement IMMA Chairman David Harvey said; “We welcome the announcement by An Taoiseach Leo Varadakar and Minsiter Madigan that a capital budget of €36 million will be made available to IMMA as part of Investing in our Culture, Language and Heritage 2018 – 2027, published yesterday by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht as part of Project Ireland 2040. High quality infrastructure is crucial for a vibrant culture sector and we look forward to actively contributing to the vision of Ireland as a creative, innovative and culturally attended society through the delivery of a world class art experience at IMMA.

Our current strategy outlines a vision for the 26 acres of IMMA as an open campus of ideas and shared knowledge, deeply embedded in its home in the historic Royal Hospital Kilmainham. A key part of this strategy is the building of a new, innovative Collections Centre at IMMA. This would not only allow IMMA to create the conditions necessary to keep the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art safe for future generations, but would also create new ways for the public to encounter this national treasure. A Collection is not just a series of physical objects but also a series of histories and relationships that represent a rich resource of knowledge for the nation. IMMA therefore defines its Collection as art works, archive and over twenty five years of programme content including talks, texts and correspondence from some of Ireland’s most important contemporary artists. If made accessible this combined knowledge holds great potential for a wide range of audiences.”

Interim Director Moling Ryan further noted; “A key capital objective of IMMA’s current strategy is the development of a new Collections Centre that will create new forms of physical and digital access to IMMA’s Collection, the Collection Archive and IMMA’s Programme Archive. Envisioned as both a new building and new online space, the Collections Centre will create a home for the Collection on IMMA’s grounds where it will provide access to the public through visible storage, media banks of digital works, accessible photographic and print collections and flexible learning spaces that will facilitate the Collection as a learning tool for all ages. This building will also house IMMA’s complete Collection and Programme Archives, creating a reflective reading and research space for the general public, students, artists and national and international researchers.

The new Collections Centre will create an extensive point of access for the IMMA Collection that will extend beyond the galleries. This access will be enhanced through a parallel programme of digitisation of IMMA’s resources that finds new ways to bring the context of art works to the public. This will be delivered through a dynamic web platform that shares art works – and the rich stories and knowledge behind those works and their artists – through innovative digital applications.

Delivering on this ambition will create a truly significant archive and history of contemporary Irish Art practice for Irish citizens, and to further the story of Irish art, and Irish artists, internationally.”

Investing in Our Culture, Language and Heritage 2018 – 2027 is a ten year plan setting out the Government’s commitment for capital investment of almost €1.2 billion in Ireland’s culture, language and heritage.  Minister Madigan was joined at a special forum to launch the plan by An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, Minister for Finance & Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, and Government Chief Whip and Minister of State for the Irish Language, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, Joe McHugh. 

Speaking at the launch Minister Madigan said:“I am delighted to launch this historic capital investment plan in our culture, language and heritage. This level of investment will transform our cultural and heritage infrastructure right across the country.  It is also an important statement for this and future generations: our culture, language and heritage are fundamental to all of our lives.  They affect our education, our public buildings and public spaces.  They impact the relationship between the citizen and the State, and the relationship of citizens to each other.  They are about our identity and our values. Cultural infrastructure provides a home for all of us, a space for all us to meet, to exchange ideas, to create the new, to imagine what could be. With this announcement, I am delighted that we have delivered on an important pillar of the Creative Ireland Programme. ”

Read more details in the plan here>

New paintings by Lucian Freud join work by Emily Dickinson, Sigmund Freud and John Berger in a new exhibition at IMMA curated by Irish artist Daphne Wright

Tuesday, 13 February, 2018: Minister for Culture, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan T.D., was in IMMA to preview The Ethics of Scrutiny, curated by Daphne Wright, the second exhibition to be presented as part of the ground-breaking IMMA Collection: Freud Project – a five-year loan of 52 works by renowned artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011); one of the greatest painters of the 20th-century.

The Ethics of Scrutiny will be opened by Minister Madigan on the evening of Wednesday 14 February 2018 and will open to the public on Thursday 15 February at 11.30am.

In 2016 IMMA secured the loan of 50 works on a five-year loan to the IMMA Collection from a number of private lenders. The IMMA Collection: Freud Project 2016 – 2021 presented all 50 works in the first year, 30 of the artist’s finest paintings alongside 20 works on paper, in a dedicated Freud Centre in IMMA’s Garden Galleries. For the second exhibition in this unique project IMMA invited visual artist Daphne Wright to curate an exhibition in response to Lucian Freud’s works. The Ethics of Scrutiny takes aspects of Freud’s intimate studio practice as a starting point to explore themes of vulnerability, longing and loss that permeate the painter’s work. Two new paintings by Lucian Freud will be exhibited at IMMA for the first time, alongside work by other artists including Emily Dickinson, Sigmund Freud, Marlene Dumas and John Berger.

The establishment of the Freud Centre in IMMA’s Garden Galleries was made possible through capital support from the Department for Culture, Heritage & the Gaeltacht to carry out essential improvement works at the Garden Galleries in 2016.

Minister Madigan, speaking at the preview said: “The IMMA Collection: Freud Project is an outstanding resource for Ireland. Not only does it give us the opportunity to see up close the work of this incredible, world-class artist through exhibitions such as this one, but IMMA is also building a body of knowledge and interpretation of his work that will be globally relevant for the future. It is fitting that IMMA, as a National Institution for contemporary culture, are approaching this great artist’s work by inviting living artists to offer a fresh perspective on Lucian Freud. The first exhibition was visited by tens of thousands of visitors, including thousands of school-children and students around Ireland, and I am sure they will find much to inspire them again in this latest exhibition, curated by Irish artist Daphne Wright.”

The ambitious Freud Project includes exhibitions, artist residencies research partnerships, talks, lectures and other events that offer a host of ways to connect with this celebrated artist. The project has been made possible by the generosity of the lenders and the support of the Department in conjunction with support from the visionary members of the Freud Circle; BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse who have each committed to the project for a period of three years. This commitment will ensure free access for audiences every Tuesday, in addition to the customary free access for full time students and those under 18.

Over the five-years of the loan the display in the Freud Centre will change at least once a year, bringing in new works by Freud and by other artists to offer new ways of looking at, and thinking about, Lucian Freud’s work. Artist Daphne Wright describes what drew her to curating this particular exhibition: “When I was approached by IMMA to curate this show I was fascinated and pleased, but also very aware of the challenging complexities of Freud’s work. I knew I would be consumed by dealing with these, and I have been both resentful and captivated by wrestling through issues he brings related to the psychology of looking. It has been an incredibly engrossing and deeply interesting experience, particularly when I have explored the links between Freud’s practice and that of contemporary artists, writers and scientists who have influenced my own.”

Lucian Freud chose his subjects from people who entered his life through various means from the acquaintances he encountered regularly during his gambling days, to the members of his own family and inner circle of friends who all modelled within the tight constrains of his studio. In his portraits, some painted over many months or even years, we see a body of work that examines the complex relationships between an artist and their sitter or, more broadly, we see paintings that deal with the psychology of looking.

Taking these specific aspects of Freud’s intimate and insular studio practice as a starting point, The Ethics of Scrutiny explores themes of vulnerability, longing and loss that permeate the painter’s work, while also looking to the works of other artists who address on a wider scale the complexities of representation. Placing Freud’s paintings alongside the work of writers Emily Dickinson, John Berger and Lydia Davis, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and artists Gwen John, Kathy Prendergast, Wiebke Siem, Marlene Dumas and Thomas Schütte, The Ethics of Scrutiny calls into question how we see ourselves, how our gazes fall onto one another, and importantly how our identities shift over the cycle of time. The exhibition also sees the addition of two major works by Freud, Two Brothers from Ulster, 2001, and Man in a Silver Suit, 1998.

IMMA’s Head of Collections Christina Kennedy said: “The intention of the five year IMMA Collection: Freud Project is to explore Lucian Freud’s processes and motivations and how they link to contemporary life, both within and beyond the art context. We are delighted that Daphne Wright accepted our invitation to curate this exhibition. Daphne’s own work is renowned for the manner in which it excavates the emotional archaeology that lies beneath the surface of everyday life and relationships; the tension between the appearance of things and what they reveal on closer inspection. With The Ethics of Scrutiny Wright has selected material by artists, writers, scientists and others which she has interwoven among Freud’s paintings to great effect, exploring the human psyche and the challenges of its representation. Throughout the exhibition she probes Lucian Freud the artist, the times he lived in, the impact of his own life story on his work and what drove him to paint as he did.”

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For further information and installation images please contact
Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T:+353 (0)1 612 9922

For Freud images please contact John Moelwyn-Hughes, Bridgeman Images, London
E: [email protected] T: +44 (0)20 7727 4065

Additional Notes for Editors
The exhibition will be formally opened by Minister Josepha Madigan T.D. on Wednesday 14 February at 6.00pm (invitation only event). The exhibition opens to the public on Thursday 15 February at 11.30am.

Admission for this exhibition is €8/5 (concession) with free admission for IMMA Members, full-time students and under 18’s. There will be free admission for all every Tuesday. Monies raised through admission charges will directly contribute to the care and development of the IMMA Collection. Due to the number and delicate nature of the works and the limited circulation space of the historic Garden Galleries, admission will be by timed entry. To avoid disappointment please pre-book your preferred time-slot online in advance of visiting. Online booking will be available from Wednesday 14 February.

The exhibition made possible by the Freud Circle – BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse – and those donors who wish to remain anonymous.

About the curator
Daphne Wright, born 1963, Ireland, is represented by Frith Street Gallery, London, and was elected as a member of the Aosdána, in 2011. She lives and works in Dublin and Bristol. Wright’s work manoeuvres things into well-wrought but delicate doubt – shifting between taughtness and mess, it sets imagery, materials and language in constant metaphorical motion. Using a wide range of materials – plaster, tinfoil, video, printmaking, found objects and performance – she creates worlds that are beautiful and rather eerie which feel like the threshold to somewhere new.

Wright has exhibited extensively in England and Ireland since 1994, with solo exhibitions at many venues including, Emotional Archaeology, R.H.A Gallery, Dublin, 2017 and The Arnolfini, Bristol, 2016, Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2002, Nonsense with Death, Sligo Art Gallery, 2001, and Daphne Wright, Limerick City Art Gallery, 2006, Cornerhouse, Manchester, 1994, The New Art Centre Sculpture Park and Gallery and The Lowry, 2001. She has also participated in various group exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2008, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2000, P.S.1, New York, 1999, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1997, and Tate Liverpool, 1995. Commissions include Ham House, Trust New Art, Hanbury House, Worcester and Carlow County Council, South Tipperary County Council and Cork City Council.

Works by the artist are held in the following collections: Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Towner Art Gallery, Sussex and private collections in Ireland and the UK.

About Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud was born in Berlin to Ernst, the architect son of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his wife Lucie Brasch. In 1933, age ten, Freud fled with his family to England, ahead of the rise of Nazism. The family settled in London where Freud lived for the rest of his life.

Freud studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London and Cedric Morris’s East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham. His first solo exhibition, at the Lefevre Gallery received critical acclaim in 1944, followed by a number of hallucinatory, finely-painted portraits that marked him as an artist to watch.  Freud’s adherence to realism and focus on the human figure, when abstraction and other progressive forms of practice were more prolific, moved him in and out of the spotlight until the 1980’s when renewed international interest in painting and figuration gave his work a new significance. Since then Freud has become one of the best-known and most highly-regarded British artists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Companion of Honour and the Order of Merit. Major retrospectives of his work were held in Tate Britain, 2002, IMMA 2007, MOMA, 2008 and the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2012.

Freud visited Dublin and Connemara in Ireland in the late 1940s, partly on a pilgrimage to Jack B. Yeats whom he considered the greatest living painter and later when married to Caroline Blackwood of the Guinness family. From the 1950s he connected with Irish artists such as Patrick Swift whose Dublin studio he used and Edward McGuire whose tutor he was at the Slade Art School, as well as the literary circle of Patrick Kavanagh, John Montague, Brendan Behan, Anthony Cronin and their Soho milieu.  An in depth account of Freud and Ireland will be explored through the Freud Project, including his close links with the other great figurative painter of the 20th century, Irish-born and London-based, Francis Bacon – his friend, mentor and great rival of thirty years and whose studio you can visit in Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane.

Associated Talks and Events

Lucian Freud Lecture Series
IMMA is presenting a Lucian Freud Lecture Series in collaboration with The Irish Art Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin (TRIARC). IMMA and TRIARC have invited leading artists, critics and cultural researchers to offer new perspectives on Freud’s work from October 2017 to April 2018, concluding with a major symposium in April 2018. The next lecture in the series is a keynote lecture by Isabelle Graw, Professor, Städelschule, Frankfurt on 7 March 2018.

International Symposium
Rethinking Freud: Contemporary Perspectives
13 and 14 April 2018
IMMA builds on longstanding partnerships and develop new ones with colleges and universities, this symposium explores the themes, methods, motivations, milieu and multifaceted contexts of this important artist’s work in terms of contemporary art practice. The symposium takes its cue from several exhibitions themes comprising IMMA Collection: Freud Project, The Ethics of Scrutiny,

Speakers will present their research on the role of painting in art today; the anthropological and ethnographic content that Freud’s work elicits and revisit the critique of Freud’s art, in the context of his relationship with Ireland and Irish Modernism. Amongst the speakers taking part are: Catherine Lampert, Curator and Leading Specialist advisor on Freud’s work and former Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Elena Crippa, Curator, Modern and Contemporary British Art, Tate Britain; Brian Dillon,  writer, critic, and UK editor of Cabinet magazine and Head of Programme, Critical Writing in Art & Design, Royal College London; Daphne Wright, Artist and curator of The Ethics of Scrutiny; Angela Griffith, (TRIARC) TCD; as well as contemporary artists taking part on the IMMA Freud Residency.

Programmed in association with (TRIARC) TCD. Tickets are €8 and will be available to purchase at www.imma.ie

Curator Lunchtime Talk
Friday 20 April / 1.15 – 2pm / Drop-in / Meeting Point – IMMA Main Reception
Join curator Johanne Mullan for an insightful walkthrough of The Ethics of Scrutiny to hear more about the key themes and artworks featured. Each tour is free of charge. No need to book in advance, just come to the Meeting Point in IMMA Reception

Additional talks and events will be announced throughout the Freud Project. See www.imma.ie for the most up to date events and for booking.

IMMA Collection: Freud Project is made possible through the visionary support of the Freud Circle listed below, and those donors that wish to remain anonymous.



The exhibition is supported by

 

IMMA presents War Changes Its Address: The Aleppo Paintings, a new series of work by Irish artist Brian Maguire

 A new series of paintings from Brian Maguire at IMMA
depicts the destruction of Aleppo, Syria and the global effect of war.


Brian Maguire / Aleppo 4 / 2017 / Acrylic on linen / 200x400cm / Photo: Guy Hassert / Courtesy of the artist and Fergus McCaffrey Gallery

Opening on 26 January 2017, IMMA presents War Changes Its Address: The Aleppo Paintings, a new series of work by Irish artist Brian Maguire. The paintings are a result of Maguire’s observations and photographs of the destruction caused by the struggle for control of the eastern and central areas of Aleppo, Syria.

An earlier exhibition, Over Our Heads the Hollow Seas Closed Up, (Kerlin, 2016), examined the refugee crisis then hitting Europe’s shores. As reflected in the both exhibitions, Maguire sees the war in Syria and the refugee crisis as being intricately linked. Taken collectively then, these exhibitions bear stark witness to the destruction of a city, and the human displacement caused by such destruction; manifested in the waves of Syrian refugees crossing into Europe.

As with all Maguire’s work, this exhibition emerges from a considered engagement with the political and social complexities of place and people. In 2016 Maguire travelled with Paris based artist John Lawler though France Italy, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Austria. Visiting many of the cities across the overland journey from Greece to Germany; a route familiar to so many Syrian refugees. In March 2017 he then travelled to the Syrian cities of Damascus and Aleppo with Colm Laighneach. While in Aleppo Maguire engaged with the remaining local population and was struck by the fact that life there had persevered throughout the war, and in its aftermath was beginning to re-emerge. The research done by Maguire involves more than photography; he also undertook workshops with children affected by the conflict and talked to people living and working there about their experiences of living at war and under siege.

The resulting exhibition includes new, previously unexhibited works. All sharing the title Aleppo, these new paintings are made in a washed-out palette of browns, greys and blues, with the occasional small burst of colour. The uniformity of colour reflects the wiping out of detail and design caused by widespread destruction of the city’s architecture, and the seeming total removal of life from these streets. Rather than a vibrant colourful city, one of the oldest in the world, the viewer is left looking at a place that has been stripped of identity, as well as physically destroyed. The paintings call to mind a stage set, empty after the spectacle of war. The occasional small burst of colour speaks to the unquenchable urge for life to continue, even among the most unpromising of settings.

The exhibition title – War Changes Its Address – speaks to the never-ending cycle of war, constantly ongoing somewhere in the world, perpetuated for profit and power, at the expense of communities, countries and human lives. Maguire works partly in Paris, which plays host to a global armament fair in which heavy-duty weapons are presented in the manner of luxury goods; clean, well-designed, desirable. Maguire’s concern is that war is perpetuated by the global arms trade, indifferent to the suffering caused by their commerce and industry, the constant victim being the global poor, unrepresented in the media, and unseen by the majority of people in the West.  Fuelled by a desire to see beyond the news coverage to gain a personal insight into the reality of the situation, Maguire’s Aleppo paintings document the ruined buildings of the city, offering a visceral and stark insight into the physical consequences of war.

A full programme of talks and associated events will accompany this exhibition and explore the inherent themes in more detail, with contributions from Brian Maguire, Sarah Glennie, Ghiat Ibraheem, Paddy Woodsworth, Colm Laighneach, Ben Stafford, Lara Marlowe, Elisa Perriguer, Ed Vulliamy and many others.

Brian Maguire, War Changes Its Address: The Aleppo Paintings is presented in the Courtyard Galleries at IMMA from 26 January – 6 May 2018. The exhibition is co-curated by Sarah Glennie, Director, NCAD and Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA. Admission is free.

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For more information and images please contact [email protected] + 353 1 612 9920

Associated Events

Artist Conversation / Brian Maguire & Sarah Glennie
Thurs 25 Jan 2018 / 6pm / Johnston Room
Artist Brian Maguire discusses his current IMMA exhibition with Sarah Glennie, Director, NCAD. This talk explores Maguire’s research and recent visits to Syria, as it relates to the artist’s ongoing interests in social and political situations and approaches painting as a gesture of solidarity. This talk will be followed by the exhibition opening. Tickets are free but limited.  Advance Booking required. Book online here
Thursday 1 March 2018, 6.30pm, Lecture Room, IMMA, FREE
Seminar / Civil War – Historical & Contemporary Perspectives
Speakers include Giath Taha (Photojournalist, Syria); Paddy Woodworth (Author, Journalist, Irish Times); Colm Laighneach (Member of Hidden Voices, An International Conflict Resolution Body based in Ireland) and others.

Friday 16 March 2018, 1.15pm, Meeting Point – IMMA Main Reception, FREE
Curators Lunchtime Talk Series
Ben Stafford, Exhibitions, IMMA presents a gallery walk through of the exhibition War Changes its Address: The Aleppo Paintings.

Friday 27 April 2018, 2.30pm, Johnston Suite, IMMA, FREE
Seminar / Bearing Witness – Creative & Critical Practice on the Frontline
Speakers include Brian Maguire (Artist); Lara Marlowe (Author, France Correspondent, Journalist, and Irish Times); Elisa Perrigueur (Film maker and Activist, Paris) Ed Vulliamy (Writer, The Guardian & The Observer, UK) and others.

Visit the IMMA Talks section of our website for a detailed public programme of talks, seminars, curatorial responses and blogs that offer a cross discipline of perspectives in association with the exhibition.

About the Artist

Brian Maguire has shown extensively in Europe and the US, participating in shows in Korea, China and Japan. Recent solo exhibitions include Over Our Heads the Hollow Seas Closed Up, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (2016); J’accuse, The Void, Derry (2015–2016); The Absence of Justice Demands This Act, Fergus McCaffrey, New York (2015); Seed Corn is Not for Harvesting and Other Works, X Espacio de Arte, Mexico City (2013); Femicide/Juarez: paintings by Brian Maguire, European Parliament, Brussels (2012) and Brian Maguire Paintings: 2002–2012, Cultuurcentrum de Werft, Geel, Belgium (2012). In 2000, Inside Out, a major retrospective, toured from Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane to Crawford Art Gallery, Cork and the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston.
Group exhibitions and biennales include : Rhona Hoffman 40 Years, Part 3: Political, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, USA (2017); Collection – The Artist as Witness,  Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin (2016); Ram Foundation, Rotterdam (2016); Conversations, IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) (2014); Return to Sender, WIELS, Brussels (2014);  Remembering Them, Victoria Gallery and Museum, Liverpool University (2013); Changing States : Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon’s Studio, BOZAR Palais des Beaux Arts / Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels (2013); Panchaea: In Search of an Equal Utopia & a Willing Suspension of Disbelief, VISUAL, Carlow (2013);  An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom, Visual, Carlow (2012); Dublin Contemporary (2011); the 3rd Beijing Biennale (2008); Race-Face, National Gallery of Contemporary Art, Korea (2002); the 24th Sâo Paolo Biennale (1998); A Century of Modern Painting, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Japan (1997).
Maguire’s work is held in numerous public collections including the Museum of Fine Art Houston, USA; Irish Museum of Modern Art; Museo de Art de Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; Trinity College Dublin; Gemeentemuseum, Den Hague, Netherlands;  Juvasklya Taidemuseum , Finland; Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK; and Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Maguire is represented by the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin and the Fergus McCaffrey Gallery, New York and Tokyo.

Supported By

IMMA 2018 programme – New work from Wolfgang Tillmans, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian and Brian Maguire

IMMA are pleased to announce highlights of the 2018 exhibition programme, including two major new exhibitions for the museum fromWolfgang Tillmans and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian. Tillmans has shown his work in previous group exhibitions at IMMA but this will be his first solo exhibition at the museum, and his first solo project in Ireland.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is one of the most prominent contemporary Iranian artists and was a key figure of the New York art scene during the 1960s and 70s. This new exhibition of her work draws on the diversity of Monir’s practice over a period of 40 years, focusing on her large-scale mirrored sculptures, colourful collages, and works on paper. Entitled Sunset, Sunrise it draws attention to this under-recognised female artist, now in her early 90s, who has been a pioneer in merging traditional Persian techniques with contemporary abstraction. This exhibition marks the first time Monir’s work will be shown in Ireland.

IMMA will also present the first major Irish exhibition of the work of Frank Bowling which comes to Dublin this Spring from Haus der Kunst, Munich. A comprehensive survey of the work of the Guyana born British artist, Mappa Mundi covers five decades of Bowling’s artistic achievement with a focus on his monumental and large-scale paintings.

We are particularly pleased to open the year with an exhibition of new paintings from Irish artist Brian Maguire entitled War Changes Its Address: The Aleppo Paintings, resulting from a visit to Syria in 2017. The Aleppo Paintings document the ruined buildings of the city, offering a visceral and stark insight into the physical consequences of war and the international arms trade that fuels all conflict.

A key moment in the spring is a re-examination of the work of Lucian Freud through the lens of Irish artist Daphne Wright in a new exhibition entitled The Ethics of Scrutiny. Drawing from the IMMA Collection: Freud Project, Wright will place a number of Freud’s paintings alongside the work of writers Emily Dickinson, John Berger, Lydia Davis, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, singer Johnny Cash, and artists Gwen John, Alice Neel, Kathy Prendergast, Wiebke Siem, Marlene Dumas and Thomas Schütte.

Continuing our Modern Irish Masters series we will bring a renewed focus to the work of modernist painter Mary Swanzy this Autumn. Despite being one of the most iconic and recognisable of modern Irish artists, there has not been a substantial retrospective of Swanzy’s work since 1968, and this new exhibition aims to make a definitive study of her work.

Continuing our commitment to performance, IMMA has invited pioneering dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and writer Yvonne Rainer to Dublin. One of the most influential artistic figures of the last 50 years, Rainer’s work has been foundational across multiple disciplines and movements including dance, cinema, feminism, minimalism, conceptual art, and postmodernism. One of Rainer’s most influential dance pieces, Trio A with Flags (1966), will be performed live together with her works Talking Solofrom Terrain (1963) and Chair/Pillow (1969), and Rainer herself will be in Dublin for an historic conversation about her career.

Click on the exhibition names below to read more about the individual exhibitions, which will be accompanied by a dynamic programme of talks, events, screenings, displays, artist residencies, symposia, and artist commissions to be announced throughout the year.

IMMA exhibition highlights 2018

Brian Maguire, War Changes Its Address: The Aleppo Paintings
26 January – 6 May

IMMA Collection: Freud Project, Ethics of Scrutiny, curated by Daphne Wright
15 February – 2 September 2

Frank Bowling, Mappa Mundi
24 March – 8 July

Yvonne Rainer
Live Performance, 4, 5 May

Brian O’Doherty, Language and Space: Rotating Vowels, Structural Plays and other Works24
April 26–September 16

Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection 2018
11 May – 16 September

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Sunset, Sunrise
10 August – 2 December

Wolfgang Tillmans
26 October – 17 February

Mary Swanzy
26 October – 17 February
 

Interim Director Announced

The Chairman and Board of IMMA are pleased to announce that Dr. Moling Ryan has been appointed Interim Director of the Museum, effective Monday 4 December 2017.

A career public servant until his retirement in 2014, Dr. Ryan is a former Chief Executive of the Legal Aid Board, a position he held for 10 years. He was previously Director of Human Resources and Strategy in the early years of the Courts Service. Prior to that, he was head of Heritage Policy in the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. He also spent 6 years on management training and strategy initiatives with the Civil Service Training Centre. Since his retirement, Moling has been engaged with a significant project on the reform of the Public Service in Cyprus and on a justice reform project in Vietnam. He has also undertaken a number of projects in different areas of the public service. He is currently a member of the Policing Authority.
 
He served as Chairperson of the Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies and is the co-author of the Guide for Chief Executives.  Moling was called to the Bar in 1979 and has primary and Masters’ degrees in management. He also has a Doctorate in Governance from Queen’s University, Belfast.

Welcoming Dr. Ryan, David Harvey, IMMA Chairman, said – “Moling is a highly experienced manager and administrator and we have every confidence in his ability to guide the organisation through this period of transition. I believe he will be a great assistance in supporting management and staff in delivering the 2018 programme and planning for the developmental and strategic objectives, which are already underway. We will be working closely with him and wish him every success”.

Dr Ryan will remain in post until the Board has recruited a new Director.