The first solo exhibition in Ireland by one of Germany’s most innovative contemporary artists, Ulla von Brandenburg, presents new and recent works that explore recurring themes and new subject matter through a wide range of media including film, drawing, installation and performance. Brandenburg’s practice reflects her training in set design and the visual arts and is inspired by a wide range of historical elements, many reverting back to the late 19th-centruy, sourced from literature, the visual arts, expressionist theatre, Hollywood films, photography, chess and magic, as well as pre-Freudian psychoanalysis. Brandenburg has created a new specially designed wall installation for IMMA and has produced a magazine based on a Danish photo-book which will be available to visitors throughout the show.

The title of the exhibition, Whose beginning is not, nor end cannot be, is taken from the work Angel-talks by Magus John Dee (1527 – 1609), a noted mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, occultists and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. As the title suggests, many of Brandenburg’s installations present uncertainty. It is never clear whether the show is over, or whether the performance has just begun. The exhibition is structured into four different chapters. Moving through the exhibition space each chapter explores recurring themes and images which relates to one another.

Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1974, Ulla von Brandenburg currently lives and works in Hamburg and Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, 2008; Project PS1, New York; Art: Concept, Paris, 2007; Produzentengalerie, Hamburg, 2007; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006, and Kunsthalle, Zürich, 2006. Group exhibitions in 2008 include Biennale’s in Jerusalem, Bucharest and Sydney; in 2007 group exhibitions include Performa 07, New York; The World as a Stage, Tate Modern, London; Against Time, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; 3rd Prague Biennial, Prague, and Pale Carnage, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.

An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition which includes an interview with the artist by Rachael Thomas, texts by curator and critic Beatrix Ruf and writer Declan Long, and a foreword by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA. To buy the catalogue click here

The exhibition is supported by the Goethe Institut.

Related Links

 Press Release

A Limited Edition print by Ulla von Brandenburg is available to buy, please follow the link to IMMA Edition: Ulla von Brandenburg

To buy the catalogue for this exhibition click here