IMMA, today announced highlights of its 2023 programme, opening with a major retrospective by one of Ireland’s most accomplished and respected artists, Patricia Hurl. Developed over the course of 40 years, the primary subject of Hurl’s work is the lived experiences of women and sets the scene for a strong female-led exhibition programme taking place at IMMA this year.
Alongside Hurl, other solo exhibitions by women artists include Sarah Pierce, Howardena Pindell, Jo Baer and Anne Madden. Other significant highlights during the year will include a major photography exhibition exploring portraiture from the Bank of America Collection; a museum-wide exhibition Self-Determination, the culmination of a three-year project as part of Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries Programme; the design and creation of a new community space in partnership with Matheson, and the return of the Museum’s popular summer programme IMMA Outdoors and IMMA’s Eco Art Festival, Earth Rising.
IMMA is proud to open the year with Irish Gothic, a major retrospective exhibition by one of Ireland’s most accomplished and respected artists, Patricia Hurl. Greatly admired by fellow artists, but overlooked for decades by the prevailing art system, this is Hurl’s first comprehensive exhibition, presenting work spanning over 40 years of the artist’s career.
In March IMMA presents another important large-scale solo exhibition by Sarah Pierce, Scene of the Myth, guest curated by Rike Frank and the European Kunsthalle. The exhibition features 12 major works, spanning 20 years, to highlight patterns of making and thinking that define Pierce’s art practice. Borne out of sticky relationships between the narratives we reproduce and those we wish to leave behind, Scene of the Myth asks what it means to protest, reflect, and act in community.
A key moment in the spring is the launch of a new community space in the heart of the Museum, in partnership with Matheson Law Firm—The Matheson Creativity Hub in Memory of Tim Scanlon. Tim Scanlon, former Chairman of Matheson and Board Member of IMMA, was an important influence on IMMA’s thinking, who encouraged progressive programming and conversations that placed community engagement at the heart of the Museum’s activities. Following an invited design competition, the Creativity Hub winning design will be announced in March.
This summer IMMA will proudly present, Influence and Identity: Twentieth Century Portrait Photography from the Bank of America Collection, in partnership with the Bank of America. This is a major exhibition featuring the works of international photographers from the early through the mid-twentieth century, a period often called the ‘golden age of portrait photography’. The exhibition includes works by master portraitists such as Antony Armstrong-Jones, Richard Avedon, Yousuf Karsh, Gisèle Freund and Chuck Stewart, as well as renowned photographers Berenice Abbott, Imogen Cunningham, Garry Winogrand and Brassaï. This exhibition has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program.
IMMA Outdoors returns once again in 2023 with a vibrant programme of artist commissions, performances, music, talks, workshops, and tours taking place across the site. And after a successful first year, 2023 sees the return of Earth Rising, IMMA’s Eco Art Festival celebrating people, place and planet, taking place over three days in September. In addition, IMMA’s much loved Summer Party will take place once again this July.
In the autumn, IMMA presents a major museum wide exhibition, Self-Determination, as part of the Decade of Centenaries Programme that marks a century since the partition of Ireland and the subsequent formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The exhibition focuses on the role of art and artists in shaping the island’s jurisdictions in the international context and aftermath of the First World War. This exhibition is part of a three-year initiative supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023.
Other key exhibitions in 2023 include Championing Irish Art: The Mary and Alan Hobart Collection, opening in April, that explores the role the Hobart’s and the Pyms Gallery played in establishing a new canon of Irish art. Unseen Traces also opens in April—an exhibition presented with New Communities Partnership (NCP), Ireland's largest independent migrant-led national network. A solo exhibition by American artist Howardena Pindell opens in June comprising works from the 1970s to the present, and in August a series of works by two prominent painters will be exhibited—Irish artist Anne Madden and American artist Jo Baer. To conclude the year, IMMA is delighted to host the most important platform for visual art graduates in Ireland, The RDS Visual Art Awards in December.
For further details on IMMA's 2023 programme please visit imma.ie.
