Rose Finn-Kelcey: Bureau de Change 3 April – 2 June 2003

John the Painter 12 February – 8 June 2003

Gary Hume 3 April - 22 June 2003

Lorna Simpson: Photoworks and Films 1986 - 2002 27 February – 20 July 2003

Recent Acquisitions to the IMMA Collection 12 March – 27 October 2003

Rose Finn-Kelcey: Bureau de Change 3 April – 2 June 2003

In 'Bureau de Change' British artist Rose Finn-Kelcey uses some 12,400 coins to create an image of Van Gogh’s 'Sunflowers', which famously exceeded all previous records, when sold in 1987 for £24.5 million. The work is on long-term loan to the Museum as part of the Weltkunst Collection of British Art.

For this updated version of the installation, Finn-Kelcey uses euro and Irish punt coinage to comment on recent changes in the Irish economy and currency, as well as on the ephemeral nature of fame and the vagaries of the world art market. Describing some of her reasons for initally making Bureau de Change in 1987 Finn Kelcey said: “I couldn’t understand what that amount of money even looked like. Here I was, making artworks for many years and not getting properly paid, likewise Van Gogh tried but didn’t manage to sell his Sunflowers. There is something absurd about the fact that this painting fetched that kind of money when most artists never make money from their work.” Since then the art market of the 1990s has changed all that.

'Bureau de Change' will be installed on the landing at IMMA. A closed circuit TV system directed at the image will have a specially designated uniformed guard in attendance – recreating the conditions of a bank vault. The entire installation can be seen by visitors from a special raised viewing platform.

Rose Finn-Kelcey is an artist who refuses to be categorised. Her practice revolves around the desire to engage viewer and artwork in an experimental dialogue. Whether working with steam that rises and envelopes the viewer or a sub-zero ice box which can only be endured for a challenging and claustrophobic moment, or more recently on her interactive LED vending machines and wearable electronic message signs, she challenges her audiences to take responsibility for their own actions in relation to the artwork and the wider world of which it is a part.

A short guide with an essay by critic and writer Medb Ruane will be published to accompany the installation.

Please note that this exhibition will be open from Tuesday to Sunday 12noon - 5.30pm.

John the Painter 12 February – 8 June 2003

This exhibition, a collaboration between the Collection and Education & Community Departments, will show a recently donated work by this important but little-known Irish painter along with a selection of other paintings, drawings and photographs. In these works John the Painter, who has been confined to hospital for over 30 years, presents a unique and vivid sequence of memories of Cork prior to his illness. A self-taught artist, his practice has not been shaped or influenced by conventional art education. The liveliness and freshness of his paintings and his unerring sense of form give his artistic vision a strength that may well be envied by many more experienced artists.

The exhibition is presented in association with Our Lady’s Hospital, Cork, and Cork Community Artlink. An exhibition guide accompanies the exhibition.

This exhibition, the first by Gary Hume in Ireland, presents a comprehensive overview of his work to date. Best known as a leading member of the yBas (young British artists), Hume’s work is distinguished by a bright palette, reduced singular imagery and flat areas of colour, using gloss paint on aluminium panels. Hume has continually returned to particular subjects such as the nude, the portrait and the garden, as well as the pictorial idioms of childhood with images of polar bears, snowmen, rabbits and large close-up faces. The feelings evoked by these works are often dreamlike, suggesting recollections from childhood.
Hume's paintings have always appeared to be about surface qualities - shiny and reflective in gloss paint. Recent works are more inward-looking and secretive, generating a sense that things are being withheld. These paintings create an atmosphere of muted celebration with their intricate and ornate swags, bouquets and garlands of flowers, infused with a melancholic beauty. In several of the paintings a fragment or detail appears to be pulled out in relief, serving to push the rest of the image back, which in turn generates a feeling of loss. New paintings are included in the exhibition.

Hume has exhibited widely internationally, including representing Britain at the 1999 Venice Biennale. He has had solo exhibitions at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and the Whitechapel, London.

A publication with an essay by Jonathan Jones, who is an art critic and also writes for The Guardian, accompanies the exhibition (price €15.00).

Lorna Simpson: Photoworks and Films 1986 - 2002 27 February – 20 July 2003

This is the first solo exhibition in Ireland of the African-American artist Lorna Simpson, who is considered to be one of the principal contemporary representatives of black American visual culture. Simpson is well known for her provocative photographic works that address racial and sexual identity, notions of the body, interpersonal communication and relationships. Interested in exploring the way a photograph can be read, she creates conceptual compositions pairing Minimalist black-and-white images with short texts. In the mid-1990s she began creating editions in which photographic imagery and language were printed on panels of dense felt and hung in groupings to create large-scale images. Simpson’s concentration on the figure evolved into an interest in physical space and narrative storytelling, a shift which led her to explore the moving image and the medium of film. Her work examines the tensions between visibility and invisibility, challenging the spectator to re-evaluate their own ways of seeing and perceiving. This exhibition includes a range of film and photo-works from 1986 to 2002.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Simpson has exhibited worldwide and has works in the collections of many prominent museums. Recent solo exhibitions include the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Salamanca, Spain, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Documenta 11, Kassel, 2002.

A major new monograph, published by Phaidon, with an essay by Chrissie lles, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, accompanies the exhibition (price €39.95).

This exhibition of recent acquisitions to the IMMA Collection is selected from artworks which have been acquired by direct purchase and donation and through long-term loans. The purchasing process is represented by such works as 'Filament' by Ann Hamilton, 'Take me to the other side of the Ocean by Rebecca Horn', and new works by artists such as Deborah Brown, Patrick Hall, Tom Molloy, Isabel Nolan and Paul Winstanley. 'The Luncheon' by Caroline McCarthy, winner of the AIB Art Prize 2001, is shown alongside other recent donations, including a painting by Paul Doran given by the Contemporary Irish Art Society and an important sketch by Micheal Farrell, 'Madonna Irlanda', from the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland. Loans to the Collection, shown here for the first time, include the paintings 'Confidence' and 'Closing Time, Saint Stephen’s Green' by Jack B. Yeats, a landscape by Peter Doig, a Matisse drawing and an important early painting 'The Picnic' by Louis le Brocquy.
An exhibition guide accompanies this exhibition.