An intimate performance work by Berlin-based, Irish artist Eoghan Ryan, that runs over the course of an evening, The Modern Dance (In Light of Today’s Questions) addresses what constitutes the sacred and divine within secular western culture, specifically within an institutional setting. It looks at ideas that are inherited from previous generations and how this forms our personal identities through both physical and mental processes of ingestion, cohabitation and refusal.
The work features the artist together with his father and a choir. Incorporating moving image, sound, movement, text, song and sculpture, the performance takes centre-stage among the galleries at IMMA.
This event is the live element of Eoghan Ryan’s new sculptural and audio work of the same title, which was commissioned as part of the exhibition As Above, So Below: Portals, Visions, Spirits & Mystics, a major group show which explores how the spiritual endures in our everyday lives. Ryan’s sculptural work can be viewed in the exhibition currently, alongside that of artist Patrick Pye.
Irish craft beer and cider will be provided by O’Hara’s Irish Craft Beers, our official 2017 events partner.
This exhibition is presented as part of an exciting on-going initiative, New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson, which allows IMMA to continue to support artists’ vital work in a strand of programming that recognises and nurtures new and emerging talents, new thinking and new forms of exhibition-making. “Nurturing new talent and thinking is central to what we do at Matheson. Our involvement in New Art at IMMA is an exciting way for us to support and connect with IMMA and with the artists who are involved in this element of its programme.” Tim Scanlon, Partner and Head of Corporate, Matheson.
With special thanks to Mel Ryan School, Dublin.
Artist Biography
Eoghan Ryan (b. Dublin, 1987) is an Irish artist currently based in Berlin. His work incorporates moving image, installation, text, sculpture and performance. It looks to biological inheritances, personal anxieties, afflictions and affiliations as proposals for alternate forms of intimacy, renewal and collapse within the pre-ordained hierarchies that we occupy. Recent performances include Kem Warsaw, BDP Press, Berlin and the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto in collaboration with Jassem Hindi.
Upcoming exhibitions include Catalyst Arts, Belfast; ROOM E-10 27 at Center, Berlin; and a solo show at Rowing, London in September 2017. He has been awarded The Nina Stuart Artist in Residence at South London Gallery/Space studios 2013; the Artists International Development Fund 2014; the Critical Forum award at the Plastik Moving Image Festival 2015; and is supported by the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary in 2017.
Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday 9 August 2017 at 12noon.
This event takes place in the IMMA galleries themselves so capacity will be very limited. This is a free event