IMMA announces landmark solo exhibitions in 2019 by Derek Jarman, Doris Salcedo, Walker and Walker, Kim Gordon, a major exhibition that places Lucian Freud and Jack B. Yeats side-by-side for the first time in 70 years and an international group exhibition examining desire in art, co-curated by Yuko Hasegawa with IMMA’s Rachel Thomas. Doris Salcedo is one of the world’s leading sculptors whose work is deeply rooted in her native Columbia. IMMA will present recent works by Salcedo in her first solo exhibition in Ireland. A major retrospective of the work of British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942-1994) will mark 25 years since the death of the artist. Jarman has been the subject of many important exhibitions but this is the first time that the diverse strands of his practice will be brought together.
With a career spanning more than three decades, Kim Gordon is one of the most prolific and ground-breaking female creatives working today. Gordon, synonymous with Sonic Youth, is an artist who crosses boundaries between visual art, music, fashion, film, writing and performance. This exhibition will re-frame and contextualise her work as an artist.The year opens with a focus on leading Irish artists, including a new exhibition from duo Walker and Walker, and three solo IMMA Collection displays from leading Irish artists Les Levine, Fergus Martin and Janet Mullarney. Later in the spring a group exhibition of emerging Irish and international artists addresses some of the broader concerns of Gen Y. Entitled A Vague Anxiety artists include Marie Farrington, Saidhbhín Gibson, Helio Léon, Brian Teeling and Susanne Wawra amongst others. Also opening in February is A Fiction Close to Reality, presenting artworks that explore cycles of life and death, migration, materialisation and the erosion of materiality. The exhibition includes works by Bassam Al-Sabah, Geta Brătescu, Nalini Malani, Caroline McCarthy, Dennis Oppenheim, Mary Farl Powers, Betsabeé Romero and Richard Wentworth.
A major new exhibition this summer will examine the interconnections between Lucian Freud (1922-2011) and one of the most important figures in Irish Art—Jack B. Yeats (1871–1957). Freud thought Yeats a great painter of his time, and Freud’s first visit to Ireland in 1948 has been described in part as a “pilgrimage” to the site of Yeats’ work. This exhibition, part of the IMMA Collection: Freud Project (2016-2021), will draw into dialogue the work of these stubbornly individual painters, placing them side-by-side for the first time in 70 years. In the autumn a large-scale international group exhibition Desire in Art from the 20th Century to the Digital Age. will explore the evolving role of desire in art and life and its relationship to structures of power, individualism, and new collective subjectivities. Spanning over 100 years, the exhibition explores the development of desire through the lens of the eurocentric male gaze and its influence in shaping artistic depictions of desire in contemporary culture. Explore the individual exhibitions below, which will be accompanied by talks, events, screenings, displays, artist residencies, symposia, and artist commissions to be announced throughout the year.