Retrospectives seek to ask and answer specific questions, writes Gerry Walker, in his preview of Barrie Cooke’s exhibition at IMMA this summer.
Barrie Cooke is in his eightieth year and has been a prolific artist for over fifty years. Most of his working life has been spent in this country. The work on view at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) comprises almost seventy pieces which embrace the full gamut of what has by now become iconic Cooke. From the early 1960s we experience his working of the Sheela-na-gig images. These were controversial for their time, especially among those viewers who were unencumbered by any great understanding of their cultural significance. In the 1970s he broke ostensibly with painting and gave us the perspex bone boxes. Landscape/seascape featured prominently in the 1980s. Nudes and portraits make their appearance in the 1990s and thereafter to the present day. This exhibition attempts to give a representative insight into an inspiring body of work. It also raises pertinent questions as to the nature and purpose of retrospective displays.
Ahead of Dragana Jurisic’s solo show at the RHA in September we republish Stephanie McBride’s examination of the photographer’s 2011 show at the Droichead Arts Centre, studies of urban survival taken during the Celtic Tiger years, revealing Ireland’s struggling society.
Paul Larmour visits the new theatre, which he describes as a boon for the dramatic arts and the most exciting building in Belfast