Divisions,
Crossroads, Turns of Mind: Some New Irish Art,
Williams College
Museum of Art
Saturday November 9
through December 29,1985
© Victor
Sloan
The Ireland
American Arts Exchange and the Williams College Museum of Art will
present an exhibition demonstrating the recent upsurge of creativity
in Ireland’s contemporary visual art.
Titled Divisions,
Crossroads, Turns of Mind: Some New Irish Art, the exhibition was
selected by the American art critic and author Lucy R. Lippard and
consists of 112 works by 29 artists from throughout Ireland. It will
run from Saturday, Nov. 9, through Dec. 29.
The exhibition
will be opened by Thomas Krens, Museum Director at 10 a.m. on
Tuesday November 5 with brief talks and lectures throughout the day
by Irish artists and critics. Paula McCarthy- Panczenko, director of
the Ireland America Arts Exchange, will speak at 10.30 a.m. At noon
Lucy R. Lippard will speak on “The influences of Politics on Irish
Art.” There will be a reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The artists
selected are: Robert Ballagh, Anne Carlisle, John Carson, Vernon
Carter, Helen Comerford, Barrie Cooke, Tony Corey, David Crone,
Michael Cullen, Mickey Donnelly, Tom Grace, Maurice Henderson, Julie
Kelleher, John Kindness, Donncha MacGabhann, Aileen MacKeogh, Brian
Maguire, Danny McCarthy, Angela Lawless Morrissey, Noreen O’ Hare,
Alanna O’Kelly, Michael O’Kelly, Anna O’Sullivan, Nigel Rolfe,
Dermot Seymour, Victor Sloan, Julie Stephenson, Donald Teskey,
Joe Walls.
To inaugurate
the exhibition, a daylong program of lectures and performances by
four Irish artists and Lippard will take place Nov. 9 from 10 to 6.
A public opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m.
Divisions,
Crossroads, Turns of Mind: Some New Irish Art
is the first
major exhibition of contemporary Irish art to tour North America in
the last 15 years. Lippard, who travelled to Ireland to meet with
artists and to select works for the exhibition, writes that she
expected to find an art that dealt more directly with the political
upheaval and violence that have become associated with Ireland.
Yet she says the
Irish artists have internalised the ‘troubles,’ much as the rest of
the world has done with the fear of nuclear war; the art produced
there is “… ‘political’ simply because it is made in Ireland today.
Lippard also writes, however, “There is a certain sense of
excitement and possibility about current Irish art that is visible
in the exhibition.”
The show is
sponsored by the Irish Arts Council, the Cultural Relations
Committee of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Arts
Council of Northern Ireland, the Irish American Art Foundation and
the board of directors of the Ireland America Arts Exchange. Aer
Lingus is providing international transport of the exhibition, and
“Some New Irish Art” lectures and performances are made possible, in
part, by the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities.
After its
Williams debut, the exhibition will travel to York University Art
Museum, Toronto, Canada, where it will open in February 1986.
The Williams
Museum is open, free to the public, Monday through Saturday from 10
to 5.
15 Lawrence Hall
Drive, Ste 2
Williamstown, MA 01267
t: 413.597.2429
f: 413.458.9017
w.
www.wcma.org |
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