Artist Biography IMMA would like to thank our valuable Members, Patrons and Partners, all of whom have IMMA Doris Salcedo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1958, where she continues to live and made this exhibition possible. work. Selected solo exhibitions include Fragmentos, Bogotá; White Cube London (2018); MAIN GALLERIES, EAST WING Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2017); Harvard Doris Salcedo, Acts of Mourning is co-curated by Rachel Thomas, Senior Curator: Head 26 APRIL – 21 JULY 2019 Art Museums, Massachusetts; Nasher Sculpture Centre, Dallas, Texas (2016); Museum of Exhibitions, and Claire Power, Temporary Head of Exhibitions, and assisted by Karen of Contemporary Art Chicago, touring to Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Sweeney, Assistant Curator: Exhibitions, Curatorial and Partnerships and Georgie Thompson, Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2015-16); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan Assistant Curator: Exhibitions, Curatorial and Artist Liaison. (2014); Museum Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico, touring to Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Museo Nazionale delle Arti de XXI Have a question about an artwork? Want to know more? Ask any member of our Visitor Doris Salcedo secolo, Rome; White Cube, London and Pinacoteca do Estado de Aso Paulo (2011-2013); Engagement Team, easily identifiable through their blue lanyards. Tate Modern, London (2007); Camden Arts Centre, London (2001); Tate Britain, London (1999) and New Museum, New York (1998). Acts Of Mourning Recent group exhibitions include Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2014); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013); Hayward Gallery, London (2010); MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York (2008); 8th International Istanbul Biennial (2003); Untitled Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002) and 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998). (Furniture Works) Disremembered Associated Events For details of talks and events programmed in association with this exhibition, and to book tickets visit www.imma.ie. Events include a Curator’s Lunchtime Talk by IMMA A Flor de Piel ll Atrabiliarios Tabula Rasa curator Karen Sweeney, 22 May 2019 and a Lecture and Response by Tim Marlow, broadcaster, art historian and Artistic Director, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 10 July 2019. IMMA Summer School: Art and Politics 10–14 June 2019 IMMA's Summer School 2019, which takes place in the context of the exhibition Acts of Mourning, invites students from colleges throughout Ireland to participate in a week of talks and workshops by a range of national and international artists, theorists and Plegaria Muda critics who will focus on the connections between art and politics. For details visit www.imma.ie FIRST FLOOR, EAST WING Entrance Front cover: Doris Salcedo, Plegaria Muda, 2008-2010, Wood, mineral compound, cement and grass, dimensions variable, © the artist. Courtesy White Cube. IMMA presents a major exhibition by person intact, untouched. And from there, space between two buildings, to address of Salcedo’s research into the story of a internationally acclaimed artist Doris as soon as I begin working, everything Plegaria Muda the history of migration and displacement Atrabiliarios nurse in Colombia who, after overcoming Salcedo (b. 1958, Bogotá). Salcedo is enters into the paradoxical terrain of art”. in Turkey. great obstacles in her life, was kidnapped one of the world’s leading sculptors and The large installation in the corridor, In Atrabiliarios (1996), worn shoes, mostly and tortured to death in the Colombian her work is deeply rooted in her native The work is produced in her native Plegaria Muda (2008-2010), comprises 28 women’s, are encased in niches embedded war. Described by the artist as a ‘shroud’, Colombia. Colombia but the themes Salcedo wooden sculptures that are part of a larger Tabula Rasa into the gallery wall which are covered by the rose petals have been treated and addresses have a universal relevance manifestation. The wood is from demolished a layer of stretched and preserved animal preserved, in effect suspending them Using domestic materials already charged and stem from lived experiences of houses in Bogotá. Each unit consists of Tabula Rasa (2018), meaning ‘clean fibre and affixed to the surface with medical between life and death, in a process that with significance and saturated with political oppression and civil war and are two tables of different shapes and sizes slate’, is a new body of work inspired by sutures. In the early 1990s, Salcedo’s defies their nature by keeping them soft, meaning accumulated from years of applicable to any context where extreme and a middle section made from cement Salcedo’s conversations with survivors extensive Colombia-based research into the pliable and flexible for a long period of use in daily life, Salcedo’s sculptures violence exists. Salcedo’s work poses and earth through which thin blades of of sexual violence at the hands of armed lasting effects of violence highlighted that time. The title of the work is derived from and installations transform ordinary, questions about how we remember and grass grow over time. The inspiration for men and the fractured sense of self female victims were treated with distinct a Spanish saying used to describe an household items into poignant and acknowledge the personal histories of this work is drawn from many sources. often experienced as a consequence. cruelty and that shoes were often used to overt display of emotion, similar to the commanding testimonies of loss and vulnerable and anonymous survivors of It speaks to recent events in Colombia Consisting of five worn, domestic wooden identify human remains. This is particularly English expression of ‘wearing one’s heart remembrance. Salcedo takes acts of violence, and how we can mourn those where members of the army killed innocent tables subjected to a sequence of forced true in relation to ‘los desaparecidos’ on one’s sleeve’. The artist explains that socio-political violence and the claimed by it. citizens in order to retrieve Government destruction followed by reconstruction, (the disappeared). The semi-translucent “A Flor de Piel II started with a simple experiences of those directly affected bounties payable for the delivery of the these sculptures suggest how, after surfaces of the niches partially obscure intention of making a flower offering to a as the starting point to make works that In order to articulate such loss, in the bodies of guerrilla fighters. Each table, the experiencing sexual violence, one is their contents and perhaps allude to the victim of torture, in an attempt to perform are an examination of mourning and process of making the work Salcedo approximate size of a human coffin, echoes left permanently changed. After being ambiguous relationship between memory the funerary ritual that was denied to her”. materiality. performs an act of remembrance for the anonymity of the victims of violence smashed, each table is painstakingly and time. Salcedo worked previously with roses in her the forgotten victims. In doing so, she and the mass graves of Colombia. Salcedo glued back together, fragment by fragment. public intervention, Untitled (1999-2000), which was one of three public installations Salcedo extends the boundaries of the carves out a space for mourning that is has worked closely with the victims’ families Although at first glance appearing whole, with flowers in the streets of Bogotá to materials she uses. Since 2008, Salcedo both poignant and insistent. As Salcedo and in Plegaria Muda the individual is given the tables remain a fragile composite of Untitled (Furniture Works) commemorate the murder of political satirist has incorporated organic materials into reflects “My work is about the memory of a unique memorial which is reflected in the tiny parts, rebuilt as faithfully as possible title that loosely translates into English Jaime Garzon in 1999. her work, such as grass, silk, soil or rose experience, which is always vanishing, in an impossible act of recreation. Spanning nearly three decades, Salcedo’s meaning as ‘silent prayer’. The grass acts petals in A Flor de Piel ll, which is blurring not about experiences taken from life and series of monumental cement and wood as a symbol of optimism, “I hope that, Acts of Mourning pays tribute to victims lost the lines between what is permanent and is intended to honour the individuality of furniture sculptures, Untitled (furniture in spite of everything, life might prevail, and otherwise forgotten. Each work in the ephemeral. each victim’s experience”. Disremembered works), (1990-2016), forms one of her even in difficult conditions. as it does in exhibition performs a gesture of mourning. largest bodies of work to date. Based Acts of Mourning focuses on key aspects Plegaria Muda”, echoes Salcedo. Bearing witness to individual testimonies, In recent years, Salcedo has also created In Disremembered (1998-2016), four on her extensive research conducted of the artist’s career since the 1990s Salcedo memorialises and commemorates large-scale, site-specific installations delicate sculptures, based on the form of with victims of political violence, Salcedo and the challenges her work poses to the Salcedo is widely known for her large-scale otherwise voiceless victims in a striking, in various locations around the world a blouse belonging to the artist, present transforms their experiences into sculptures powerful and emblematic way. The traditions of sculpture. The exhibition public