DUBLIN, IRELAND.- The first large-scale exhibitions in Ireland by such leading international artists as Francesco Clemente, Martin Puryear and Sophie Calle, a special show to mark the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday and the staging of two exhibitions of Irish art in China are all part of a wide-ranging programme for 2004 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, announced today by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr John O’Donoghue, TD. Plans for the coming year also include an exhibition from the Museum’s Collection featuring artists’ responses to the landscape, a show to highlight the work of IMMA’s National Programme, and the first in a series of international curators’ seminars with leading directors and curators from Europe, the USA and Japan.
Speaking at the announcement, the Minister said he was greatly impressed by the quality and scope of the Museum’s programme. “ I am particularly pleased by IMMA’s enthusiastic response to the Irish/Chinese Cultural Exchange. This, the largest international project undertaken by the Museum to date, will bring the work of 23 leading Irish artists to the prestigious Millennium Monument Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Gallery of Modern Art. A reciprocal exhibition of works by Chinese artists will be shown at IMMA from October. In addition, two artists from China are taking part in the Museum’s Artists’ Work Programme, providing Irish artists and Museum visitors with an opportunity to learn more about the forces driving the burgeoning artistic creativity in that fascinating country.”
Commenting on the overall programme for 2004, IMMA’s Director, Enrique Juncosa said: “We are all very pleased with the diverse programme being presented in 2004. This includes exhibitions of well established artists like Martin Puryear, Francesco Clemente, Sophie Calle and Juan Uslé, from the USA, Italy, France and Spain, plus other shows dedicated to cutting-edge artists, such as Vik Muniz, Margherita Manzelli and Marc Quinn, from Brazil, Italy and Britain. Works being shown range from painting to installation, passing through sculpture, photography, video and performance. There will also be two important group shows by Chinese and Irish artists. The first will include some 15 artists, again in a great variety of media, which will show an amazingly active new scene. The second will be a large exhibition dedicated to young Irish artists, featuring many works recently acquired for
IMMA’s Collection. This will be on view during our first International Curators’ Seminar in the Autumn. There are also three other Irish shows: one in memory of the art critic and founding IMMA Board member, Dorothy Walker, which will include many of the artists she supported, another group show of works related to James Joyce, and an exhibition of models from the National Theatre, to mark Abbeyonehundred. IMMA is also organising, for the first time, an exhibition on the work of its National Programme. Lastly, I am happy to announce that a catalogue of the Collection will be published this year and that we are touring a large exhibition of Irish art in the Collection to Beijing and Shanghai.”
Exhibitions
Following the success of the Gary Hume, Cristina Iglesias and Louise Bourgeois shows last year, the new programme for 2004 gets under way with the first exhibition in this country by one of America’s leading contemporary artists, Martin Puryear (21 January - 9 May). Fifteen striking, semi-abstract sculptures, based on traditional craft techniques, are being shown alongside a selection of recent prints.
Starting on 4 February, IMMA is presenting the first major exhibition in Ireland by the internationally-renowned Italian painter Francesco Clemente, whose work has enjoyed popular and critical acclaim in museums and galleries around the world. More than 60 of the artist’s wonderfully rich, complex and highly-individual works, all created in the last three years, will be shown.
Further shows by international artists – many of them also new to Irish gallery-goers – include an exhibition of photographs by the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz (2 April - 13 June), who fashions images from such unlikely materials as sugar, chocolate syrup and soil; a mid-career retrospective of the French artist Sophie Calle (18 June - 15 August), in conjunction with the Centre de Georges Pompidou in Paris; recent sculptures by the much-sought-after British artist Marc Quinn (1 July - 12 September) and a major exhibition by the leading Spanish abstract painter Juan Uslé (8 September - end December)
A Vision of Modern Art, (25 February - 27 June) being presented in memory of Dorothy Walker, art critic, writer and long-serving Board member of IMMA, will comprise some 50 works by artists whose practice she particularly admired.
The Collection
The Museum is presenting the first event in the ReJoyce celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday in the form of High Falutin Stuff, (8 April - 1 August) featuring responses to Joyce’s writings and life by artists ranging from Matisse to Sean Scully. The show is drawn almost entirely from the Museum’s Collection. Another exhibition from the same source will explore the associations between art and the landscape (22 April - 17 October).
In addition, the Collection is presenting Tír na nÓg, (3 November – February 2005), a selection of works by Irish artists who have come to prominence in the last 20 years to coincide with the exhibitions by artists of the same generation in China.
Recent works purchased by or donated to the Museum, including two sizeable donations of historic works from the middle of the last century by artists such as Colin Middleton, William Scott and Tony O’Malley, will be shown in rotating displays.
Education and Community
The Museum’s Education and Community Programme has been an integral part of its work from the start. A major new initiative in this area for 2004 is an International Curators’ Seminar, scheduled for November, at which leading directors and curators from Europe, Japan and the USA will discuss practices and policies with regard to exhibition, collection and education and community programmes in both a national and international context.
In February IMMA will launch a new programme for older people, entitled intriguingly Charcoal and Chocolate. Facilitated by professional artists, this will involve a combination of gallery visits and workshops providing older people with an opportunity to explore aspects of modern and contemporary art through drawing.
In addition to the annual schools programme on site at IMMA, this year’s grant-in-aid from the Department of Education and Science will enable an additional 40 primary school groups to become involved in the Museum’s National Programme throughout the country.
National Programme
The Museum’s National Programme has since its launch in 1997 created 130 exhibitions in a wide variety of locations and situations from West Belfast to Dingle and from public libraries to car showrooms. Over the last year alone, with the generous support of National Irish Bank, over 70 workshops, involving some 700 people – of which 400 were students – took place, while 150 older people became involved in two other specially designed projects. An exhibition, entitled Branching Out, documenting these projects alongside works from IMMA’s Collection opens to the public today.
The 16 projects planned for 2004 vary greatly in content and location. For example, the exhibition of works from the Collection at Siamsa Tire Theatre, Tralee, Co Kerry, Do you see what eye see? (16 January - 7 February) is a collaborative initiative between Tralee Presentation School, Siamsa Tire Theatre and the National Programme. The project was designed to develop the student’s individual abilities, while at the same time encouraging them to collaborate with their classmates in a constructive and productive way.
The National Programme is also committed to working with venues normally outside the scope of the contemporary art world, thereby encouraging people to view and enjoy what is, in fact, their collection in their own locality and on their own terms. Through the National Programme, many spaces are opened up to house works, such as Siopa na Bhfíordóirí in Dingle, Co Kerry, and St Caimin’s Church in Mountshannon, Co Clare.
Artists’ Work Programme
The Artists’ Work Programme, which is the Museum’s studio/residency programme, has hosted some 170 artists since opening its studios in 1994. Artists who participate in the Work Programme live and work in eight studio spaces, three self-contained apartments and five spacious bedrooms, all of which are situated in the renovated coach houses beside the main Museum building.
The programme is open to artists working in all disciplines and of all nationalities. Artists participating in the Work Programme are asked to make themselves available to meet with visitors to the Museum, providing access to the process of making art and giving the public an additional layer of experience to that available in the Museum’s galleries.
There are slide talks, studio visits, panel discussions and open days organised around the residencies, all of which are free and open to the public.
The Work Programme is programmed on the basis of applications selected from submissions by artists to twice-yearly deadlines – the 31 March and 30 September each year. During 2004, 23 artists from Ireland, the UK, Spain, Holland, Germany, Russia, the USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia, China and Ethopia will take part.
