From his drawings of skulls at the wrote the seminal essay “Media: The IMMA would like to thank Nick Miller for his Exhibition Team Horiman Natural History Museum, UK Bio-Tech Rehearsal for Leaving the dedication and commitment to the project Christina Kennedy Senior Curator: Head of IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART in 2003-04, the artist made skulls in Body”. and resulting exhibition, Nick Miller and the Collections ceramic from memory in the studio: Studio of Edward McGuire, and for his time Johanne Mullan National Programmer: GARDEN GALLERIES “hybrids which are not finished In contrast to Nick Miller and the spent meeting and interacting; not only the Collections 18 NOVEMBER – 3 APRIL 2016 sculptures...just components...they just studio of Edward McGuire in the upper sitters but the Edward McGuire studio. We Nuria Carballeira Registrar: Collections sit there waiting for something which gallery, Levine does not see himself as would also like to extend our thanks to the Janice Hough Artist Residency Programmer: might happen...” a studio artist in the traditional sense sitters: Tresa Browne, , Paul Education and Community IMMA Collection: stating, “Most of what happens in my Durcan; Garech de Brún and Wanda Ryan- Lindsey Clemons Collections assistant Also on loan are some of the drawings so-called studio is thinking. As I am a Smolin, the lenders to the exhibition including the National Gallery of Ireland and Crawford Technical Team which the artist did for a set of prints media sculptor I work in a similar way Nick Miller and the Studio of Art Gallery. We thank IADT especially lecturer Cillian Hayes Technical Supervisor called Pond Life (2004) in which as an advertising company, which is Sinead Hogan and former students for David Trunk Lead Technician Edward McGuire skulls are somewhere hidden. Eye to say I think of the ideas or issues photographing the entire studio contents and Technicians, Gillian Fitzpatrick; Brian Hegarty; to Eye, 2012 which is cast bronze that I’m concerned with and then I Shane McCormack for producing the resulting Antoinette Emoe; Jason Murphy, Edmond was inspired by a pair of binoculars go to various manufacturers to have documentary. Kiely and Rob Dunne Approaches to paper which “suddenly just looked like two them realized, i.e. billboard printers, figures...and became this Adam and photo printing houses and media Special thanks to Tresa Browne for her www.immacollection.com Eve (with snake)...I wanted to make it buying agencies”. Levine refers to his time and knowledge and to the memory of for behind the scenes insights, follow our Les Levine: Using the Camera very crudely in terms of ‘this is just a ‘studio’ as the urban environment as her mother Sally McGuire who donated the IMMA blog lump of clay’, yet shamanistic in a very the majority of his work is made to be Edward McGuire studio contents to IMMA. as a Club - Media Projects and rough way”. displayed in the centre of cities, such Irish Museum of Modern Art Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann as Win the Race in Aalst, Belgium and IMMA would like to thank Les Levine and Royal Hospital Archive Basement We Are Not Afraid which was displayed the artists included in Approaches to paper: Military Road premium advertising squares in the Edward Allington, Andrew Folan, Antony Kilmainham New York Subway System. Gormley, Alice Maher, Hughie O’Donoghue, Kiki 8 Les Levine: Using the Camera as a Smith, Kara Walker, Hermione Wiltshire and Ireland Club - Media Projects and Archive In 2004, Les Levine edited/curated Bill Woodrow. Special thanks to Alice Maher, Printed Project 04 in an issue called Les Levine and Bill Woodrow for the loan of telephone: + 353 1 612 9900 supporting artwork and archival material for This exhibition includes suites of The Self Express. This presented a email: [email protected] works from the 1970s by the New York multi-faceted portrait of the artist the exhibitions. based Irish artist Les Levine (born conducted by 15 different interviewers. 1935) entitled The Troubles: An Artist’s The title comes from the idea that Curated by Johanne Mullan and Christina Document of Ulster (1972 & 1979) and all art is a form of self-expression. Kennedy Using the Camera as a Club (1979). One could think of The Self Express Together they comprise a generous interviews as mental portraits of the donation by the artist to the IMMA interviewers. Since the age of media, it Collection. In donating these works, is unclear whether realities or illusion the artist has stated, “I have always are the primary driving force of self believed this work should belong to image. The interviews can be viewed in the people of Ireland and I am happy the stairwell. that they are now in the collection of IMMA.”

A selection of archival material on loan from Levine for the purpose of this exhibition is presented alongside a number of works, recently donated by Barbara and Donald Seligman, which illustrate Levine’s media campaigns. He is regarded as the founder of Media Art and is responsible for the terminology Software Art, Disposable Art and Camera Art. In 1974, Levine On this occasion, the selection of Commenting on the project Nick Miller relaxed pose of the sitter. In the upper an image Mahers draws and draws, own fingerprints. The photographs are is one of a series of works by Edward works presented from the IMMA stated, “I want to step briefly into the stairwell are preparatory sketches by erasing each layer as she goes. printed in a saturated red tone. Over Allington (born 1951) where sculptures Collection has taken its cue from Studio of Edward McGuire, into his McGuire of Collins showing the graphic The original paper The Music of things each photograph is a globule of clear are concealed within books. Allington’s the studio of Edward McGuire which shoes. Not into the way he painted, as approach that characterised the (Sleep) has been borrowed from glass from which projects a delicate work addresses questions about the was donated to IMMA in 2009. Works our methods are so clearly different, former’s initial process. Maher’s archive for the purpose of the but very sharp spike, pulled from the setting for modern sculpture. Three have been curated in three exhibition but by addressing some of his exhibition, there is no ‘actual’ drawing, glass while in a semi-molten state. The Steps Towards the Sea can potentially displays, floor by floor, for the Garden subjects, both human and otherwise, In reception, two documentaries can just the record of its many stages. work is accompanied by a preparatory exist in different modes of display or Galleries. They are: Nick Miller and that interest me on my own terms”. be viewed: The Edward McGuire studio sketchbook. of non-display - a hidden state. When the Studio of Edward McGuire; contents, co-produced by IMMA/IADT Also in Room 1 is Peacock by Kiki asked how he chose these shell-like Approaches to Paper; Les Levine: Rooms 1 to 3 and the 1977 documentary on McGuire Smith (born 1954), a work which British artist Antony Gormley (born forms to use in this bookwork, the Using the Camera as a Club Media which can also be viewed on the RTE combines print and sculpture. 1950) is known for his sculptures in artist replied “It’s a sort of case within Projects and Archive. Player. Peacock is a papier mâché sculpture elemental materials such as lead, iron, a case ... shells or containers are like These rooms present a number of a crouched female, hugging her clay or steel which frequently use a garments, they are like clothes, there First Floor of McGuire’s portraits, including Ground Floor knees in a self-protective pose. The cast of his own body as the starting is a certain amount of poignancy to those of poets Paul Durcan, Pearce woman’s head is slightly cocked as point for a phenomenological or them.” Hutchinson and Anthony Cronin, she inquisitively and contemplatively ‘psycho-spatial’ experience. Nick Miller and the studio of Edward examples of still lifes and a favourite Approaches to paper ponders the prints of female genitalia, Room 3 McGuire motif, the white barn owl, as well as which are fanned out on the wall like Gormley’s Hold (1988) and the works Miller’s own painted responses to Approaches to Paper presents a a peacock’s tail. Numbering 28 in all, by Edward Allington and Hermione Edward McGuire (1932-1986) is some of the same sitters and studio selection of completed works and the prints are physically linked to Wiltshire in Room 2, along with the In Case of, (1988) is a key work by best known for his minutely detailed props. For instance, Room 1 includes support material referencing the her body by umbilical-like threads of central work by Bill Woodrow in the Bill Woodrow (born 1948), who became portraits of writers and poets, many of McGuire’s first commissioned portrait significance of preparatory work in paper; a direct reference to the female adjacent room, are all part of the renowned for subverting traditional which have a surreal quality derived of Wanda Ryan as a child in 1968. studio practice. reproductive cycle. Weltkunst Collection on longterm loan sculptural materials by his use of from McGuire’s love of unusual studio During his residency at IMMA Miller to IMMA. consumer goods such as fridges, props such as stuffed birds and highly invited a number of sitters to his The exhibition offers a snapshot of the Room 1a scrap yard metal and various material stylised leaf decoration. This feeling is studio including Wanda Ryan-Smolin, scope of artistic attitudes towards the Hughie O’Donoghue’s 24 part work, found in dumps. Along with other strengthened by the often remote and who’s portrait is displayed alongside subject of drawing and working on/ Anabasis, made during his studio British sculptors Tony Cragg, Richard static pose of the sitter defying the contents from the 1968 portrait with paper. The works on display range African-American artist Kara Walker residency at IMMA in 1995 shortly Deacon, Avis Newman and others, he realist precision with which they are including her doll and one of the from preparatory works on paper for (born 1969) studied painting and after his father’s death, resonates challenged accepted ideas of what executed. books she listened to while sitting existing sculptures to the book as printmaking at the Atlanta College of today in the light of Ireland’s ‘Decade sculpture could be. for McGuire. Similarly, the portraits of object and motif, animation film and Art. Since the 1990s, Walker has used of Centenaries’ and related themes of In 2009 Sally McGuire, wife of the late Anthony Cronin are accompanied by papier mâché. black cut paper silhouettes to explore memory and place explored in IMMA’s In Case of was made when the artist Edward McGuire formally donated the the props used in the McGuire portrait. challenging issues of race, gender, and programme. The ancient Greek title is worked in residency at the glass contents of the artist’s Dublin studio to Nearby is Miller portrait of the poet Room 1 sexuality. Here, the pop-up book on adapted to the notion of a spiritual factory in Pilchuck, US while working the National Collection at IMMA. painted in September 2015. Other display, illustrates the themes of her journey of self-discovery and the towards a show in Seattle in 1988. It The artist Nick Miller was invited by sitters include Garech de Brún whose work. work arises from the artist’s response comprises a glass turtle submerged in IMMA to respond to the contents portrait established McGuire’s critical Drawing has always formed a large to his father’s photographs which a tank on top of clear plastic cutlery, of the McGuire studio and the reputation and Tresa Browne, McGuire’s part of Alice Maher’s practice (born Room 2 documented the latter’s journey against which leans a glass axe. exhibition is the culmination of this step-daughter, as a child. 1956). While on on residency at IMMA through Italy on active service during process. Miller’s response provides in 1996 her drawings “grew and grew World War II. In Case of is accompanied by a a timely focus on Edward McGuire’s Room 4 until I finished up with three giant Combining photography and sculpture selection of works borrowed from the preoccupations and processes and Ombre drawings”, one of which is in the in her visual art practice, Hermione Exploring the cross over between his artist’s studio that show his sustained opens up the opportunity to reflect on IMMA Collection. Also in the collection Wiltshire (born 1963) references work as a printmaker and sculptor, exploration of natural systems. the concept of the artist’s studio in all This room presents a profuse selection and projected in Room 1 is The Music the history of art and contemporary Imago (1999) by Andrew Folan (born Always interested in the animal world, its interpretations. of objects, accoutrements and of things (Sleep), a film work by Maher. culture to consider questions of the 1956) is an elegant construction throughout his work he has used the materials from the older artist’s studio While the field of animated film is a representation of women and self- consisting of a stack of 90 etchings sculptural forms of animals as abstract Nick Miller moved from London to accompanied by a short film by Miller relatively new departure for Maher, she image from a feminist perspective. on 640 g paper sheets. The fragility shapes. Ireland in 1984, and has been based that examines McGuire’s extraordinary feels the medium as a very natural of the layered work is symbolic of the The skull as a container has been a in Co. Sligo since 1992. His work, Colour Dictionary and love of jazz. development, with the methodology My Touch consists of ten final stages (imago) of the insect. predominant motif and “an interesting whatever his subject: a person, an of animation mirroring her own way of photographs, each between 30 and way of making a connection between object, or landscape, is concerned with In the stairwell hangs the portrait drawing. Beginning with a sheet of A4 40 cms in diameter. These images are Three Steps Towards the Sea (1985) the animal and the human world”. portraiture and with how we experience of the artist Patrick Collins from the Hahnemühle paper, in order to ‘find’ enlargements of the of the artist’s and meet the world. IMMA Collection. It is unusual in the