This summer, twenty years after his survey of Irish Modernism, S B Kennedy takes a fresh look at the movement through the artworks on view at the AVA Gallery, Bangor, Co Down
The recent exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), The Moderns, has stimulated interest in an area of Irish art. Twenty years ago, in 1991, I curated an exhibition for the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, entitled Irish Art and Modernism, surveying developments in Irish art in the period 1880–1950. The IMMA exhibition brought the story up-to-date. But whereas the Irish Art and Modernism exhibition was based on academic research and dealt specifically with works that had been notable in their time, The Moderns was based largely on IMMA’s own collections. Now James Adams, at their gallery in Clandeboye, Co Down, are recalling the 1991 exhibition with a new show entitled A Celebration of Irish Art and Modernism.
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