News

Merlin James

In the Gallery

03 February 2012 - 28 March 2012

Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin

Merlin James is a painter of small pictures in the 'easel' tradition. He is very much aware of the history of the medium, and the weight of the past is evident in everything he paints: it is both burden and ballast in a world of postmodern relativity. But James doesn't produce nostalgia or pastiche; nor does he opt for distance or irony. There is stubbornness in his approach to painting, and determination not to be daunted by the difficulties of engaging both with the past and the present.

As a consequence, perhaps, James' paintings are not conventionally beautiful; they are unapologetically individualistic and, in many respects, difficult. The nonconformist quality of his work (which should not be confused with occasional elements of an 'outsider' sensibility) is reflected by his enthusiasm, as a writer and sometimes curator, for painters such as Jean Helion, William Nicholson, Giorgio Morandi and Serge Charchoune—artists often overshadowed by the reputations of better-known peers.

Merlin James is sometimes regarded as a formalist, but this epithet is in many ways misleading. He is undoubtedly and unusually concerned with the process of painting and the 'objecthood' of pictures, but his images are too odd to be considered simply as visual or intellectual exercises in picture-making. There is awkwardness in them, as well as something gloomy that makes the viewer feel a little ill-at-ease. These qualities, in conjunction with James's studied ambivalence and sense of humour, bring to mind the tone and melancholia of the Dada artist and painter Francis Picabia, who once said 'Good taste is as tiring as good company'.

The works in this exhibition, which span his career, were selected by Merlin James. A new catalogue, with notes on the paintings by the artist and a poem by Dannie Abse, will be published to accompany the show.

Artist's Talk

On the day of the opening, Merlin James will give a talk on the exhibition and his practice. Thursday, February 2, at 5pm. All are welcome, admission free.

douglashydegallery.com/exhibition.php?intProjectID=159

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Marine

Phil Collins

Revolution vs Revolution

03 February 2012 - 30 March 2012

Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon

Beirut Art Center is pleased to present Revolution vs Revolution, a collective thematic exhibition.

Since 2010, countries from the Arab world have been going through a period of rapid and radical change. Events from the Atlantic to the Arabian Gulf promise new previously unforeseeable trajectories. A new narrative is unfolding.

It is in this context and in the light of these historical events that Beirut Art Center is organizing an exhibition and series of events exploring other junctures from the last fifty years that have led to radical changes, such as revolutions, the rise and fall of regimes and ideologies, as well as social and political movements whose effects were felt around the world and to this day. This includes important movements like the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and fall of Communism in Europe, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the end of Apartheid, the student riots in the 60s, as well as Nasserism and the rise of Arab Nationalism.

Participating Artists:
Abbas • Vyacheslav Akhunov • Francis Alÿs • Hai Bo • Steven Cohen • Phil Collins • Tacita Dean • Fadi El Abdallah • David Goldblatt • Alfredo Jaar • William Kentridge • Marysia Lewandowska & Neil Cummings • Susan Meiselas • Boris Mikhailov

beirutartcenter.org/exhibitions.php?exhibid=233&statusid=1

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marxism today (prologue) [still]

Phil Collins

Hors Piste 2012

28 January 2012 - 12 February 2012

Centre Pompidou, Paris

For this Focus Phil Collins feature at the Pompidou Centre, the artist will present his highly acclaimed video works, marxism today (prologue), Soy mi madre and The meaning of Style.

Phil Collins is a well-known visual artist, nominated for the Turner Prize in 2006. His work also features in the collections of some of the most famous museums. His works, investigate the subtle differences inherent in artwork regarding social relations within a community or in a precise location. Linked to a conceptual approach to the image, he constantly experiments with the diversity of form (fantasy fiction works, low-budget documentaries, parodies of TV series, etc.) to highlight the role of the camera (an instrument of truth) and the unpredictable relationships that form around it, between the producer, the participant and the spectator.

www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/0/A633E31295146D37C12579650049FCC7?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.4.2&L=1&view=

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marxism today (prologue) [still]

Dorothy Cross

Under the Sea

25 January 2012 - 10 June 2012

Millenium Gallery, Sheffield Museum, UK

This atmospheric exhibition, created by Sheffield Museum, aims to transport visitors into an alien realm under the ocean waves. Like many people, artists and designers are fascinated by the shapes and forms found in ocean plants and animals. The works on display here are all inspired by giants of the deep, jewel-like fishes and other weird and wonderful marine life.

Under the Sea includes natural history specimens and historic art from Sheffield’s collections alongside contemporary works of art, craft and design.

Under the Sea explores the beauty and importance of the oceans, their significance for our planet and what we as individuals can do to help protect them for the future.

www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/millennium-gallery/exhibitions/current/under-the-sea

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Hildegaard (still)

Sean Scully

Change and Horizontals

13 January 2012 - 11 February 2012

Timothy Taylor Gallery, London

The Drawing Center presents Sean Scully: Change and Horizontals, which begins its transcontinental tour at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, from January 13–February 11, 2012, then travels to the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK, from March 2–July 15, 2012, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome from March 14 to June 9, 2013, and The Drawing Center, New York, from September 26–November 10, 2013.

This intensely focused survey is comprised of acrylic, ink, graphite, and masking-tape drawings from 1974–75—presented together for the first time in over 30 years—as well as two large-scale paintings from the same period and the artist’s personal notebooks. Selected from two distinct series, the Change and Horizontals drawings—executed in London and New York respectively—highlight the importance of color and form within Scully’s abstractions. Color is always rooted in a particular place, and form manifests the self.

Impressions of each city are fundamental to these drawings, as location plays a key role in the artist’s life and oeuvre; as the artist stated in 2006, “People tend to think of abstraction as abstract. But nothing is abstract: it’s a self-portrait. A portrait of one’s condition.” Scully’s move from London to New York City in 1975 marked a stylistic breakthrough to a period during which he became more engaged with the tones and textures of the metropolis that surrounded him.

Sean Scully: Change and Horizontals is co-curated by Joanna Kleinberg and Brett Littman of The Drawing Center.

www.drawingcenter.org/exh_current.cfm

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Change #7 (detail)

Paul Winstanley

The Deer

21 December 2011 - 11 March 2012

Le Consortium, Dijon

The Deer is an exhibition by Eric Troncy, which offers a decidedly intimate way of relating with art on the one hand, and the time of exposure on the other. No theme, no text, only visual (and apprehensible by all), it looks like a confusing journey in the art of our time.

The collected works, presented in unconventional rooms, are essentially figurative, abstract or informal. United, they offer much inspired moment of surrealism.

List of Artists exhibiting:
John Currin, Trisha Donnelly, Rachel Feinstein, Katharina Fritsch, Gloria Friedmann, Corentin Grossmann, Pierre Huyghe, Alex Katz, Karen Kilimnik, M/M, Richard Phillips, Loïc Raguénès,Ugo Rondinone, Alain Séchas, Juergen Teller, Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille, Xavier Veilhan, Paul Winstanley, Rémy Zaugg

leconsortium.fr/expositions-exhibitions/the-deer

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Birchwood 1

Liliane Tomasko

Luminous matter

11 December 2011 - 05 February 2012

Herforder Kunstverein, Herford, Deutschland

Preview: Saturday 10 December 2011

In her paintings, Liliane Tomasko examines the transient light and shade on arrangements of forms and objects which are observed in our everyday life but appear marginal, such as pockets and paper bags, window frames, folds of clothes and parts of walls, etc. With her use of light and colour the pictures take on a mystical air, in spite of their everyday appearance.

www2.herforder-kunstverein.de/index.php/ausstellung/liliane_tomasko_luminous_matter

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Falling Fold

Isabel Nolan

A hole into the future

10 December 2011 - 12 February 2012

The Model, Sligo

This exhibition features Irish artist Isabel Nolan in a major solo exhibition. Produced in collaboration with Le Musée d’art moderne de Saint-Etienne.

The exhibition will feature sculpture, paintings and drawings, and as part of this project The Model has also commissioned a new work by Isabel Nolan, which will be erected outside The Model building. This steel sculpture will be on long term display in the grounds of The Model and will be unveiled at the opening.

This is Nolan’s first solo museum exhibition. Alongside the outdoor sculpture and the show is a new publication on the artist’s work from 2005 to the present. This book, Intimately Unrelated, was produced in collaboration with Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole in France and includes essays on Nolan’s work with contributions from philosopher Graham Harman, critic, writer and academic Declan Long, Séamus Kealy and Isabel Nolan.

themodel.ie/exhibitions/isabel-nolan

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A better life (detail)

Willie Doherty

Wolverhampton Art Gallery

19 November 2011 - 28 January 2012

Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK

Irish artist Willie Doherty is known for his video, film and photographic works, which relate directly to the complexities of living in a divided society and address more universal themes of landscape, memory and identity.

This exhibition presents two single-screen installations, Ghost Story (2007) and Buried (2009), which refer to the events of Bloody Sunday and question the relationship between time, place and memory.

These are shown alongside photographic works selected with the artist. Buried was commissioned by The Fruitmarket Gallery and purchased jointly with the Imperial War Museum assistance from the Art Fund.

www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/wolves/exhibitions/004698.html

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Ghost Story

De l'emergence du Phénix

25 November 2011 - 20 January 2012

Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris

With works by Rhona Byrne,

Dorothy Cross, Mark Garry, Jaki Irvine, William McKeown, Dennis McNulty

Exhibition curated by Caroline Hancock

The phoenix has auspicious attributes as a symbol of peace and prosperity: as the celtic tiger runs out of steam, is it possible to evoke the fabulous bird in a not so distant future? In video, painting, photography, sculpture and installation, six contemporary artists question ideas of migration and displacement, of freedom and imprisonment, of abstraction, reinvention and resurrection.

www.centreculturelirlandais.com/modules/movie/scenes/home/index.php?fuseAction=art

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Gannet

Barrie Cooke

Crawford Art Gallery

18 November 2011 - 14 January 2012

Crawford Art Gallery, Cork

This exhibition will celebrate the work of Barrie Cooke’s immense career as he reaches his 80th Birthday this year.

Curated by Karen Sweeney, Assistant Curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition opened at IMMA in June. A selected group of works have been chosen to tour to the Crawford Art Gallery in November and then to the Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris in February 2012.

The Barrie Cooke exhibition will showcase works spanning his entire career as an abstract expressionist painter from both private and institutional collections. The exhibition will explore Cooke’s continuous reference of the natural world; from the breathtaking paintings of an ancient Irish elk found in a bog and the bone boxes of the 1970s to the energetic paintings of rural Irish landscape and the famous nude portraits.

This exhibition will recognise the prodigious achievements of Barrie Cooke’s career and an extensive catalogue is available with a foreword by the Irish Museum of Modern Art Director Enrique Juncosa; and essays by poet Seamus Heaney, Karen Sweeney, Brian Dillion and an interview by Dorothy Cross.

www.crawfordartgallery.ie/exhibitionsupcomingBarrieCooke.html

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Double Knot

Sean Scully

Paintings and Watercolours

22 October 2011 - 15 January 2012

Chazen Museum of Art, Wisconsin

Sean Scully is one of the most significant and influential abstract painters working today. He was born in Dublin and raised in a working-class Irish Catholic community in London. On a trip to Morocco he was moved by the beauty of djelleba robes, kilim rugs, and tents made of strips of wool and canvas. Scully has since become best known for his paintings of lines, stripes, and blocks of color.

The exhibition of new work painted for this exhibition and a selection of never-exhibited watercolors from the artist’s personal collection will inaugurate the Pleasant T. Rowland Galleries on the expansion’s main floor. An exhibition of Scully’s oil paintings has not been shown in Wisconsin, and because of the large scale of this work the Chazen was never able to show it in the past. The high walls of the large temporary exhibition space make such an installation possible for the first time in the museum’s history.

www.chazen.wisc.edu/visit/events-calendar/event/sean-scully-paintings-and-watercolors/