Programme
Brian O’Doherty
Ormston House is delighted to host renowned Irish artist Brian O’Doherty for our very first artist’s talk during Heritage Week 2011. O’Doherty is one of the exhibiting artists in Convergence: Literary Art Exhibitions at Ormston House and Istabraq Hall as part of the Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA) off-site programme. The artist will discuss his work with Marian Lovett, Curatorial Advisor at LCGA on Sunday 28 August at 3pm.
About Brian O’Doherty:
Described in the New Yorker as one of New York’s most treasured artist intellectuals, Brian O’Doherty emerged as a highly influential figure of the 1960s art scene. In addition to his work as a visual artist, he is a renowned writer and critic and a significant cultural figure on both sides of the Atlantic. The author of a number of books, including Studio and Cube (2007) and American Masters: The Voice and the Myth (1974), O’Doherty’s seminal essay Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space first appeared in 1976 in Artforum. His novel, The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. (1992) received a prize from the British Society of Authors, while The Deposition of Father McGreevy (2000) was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize.
O’Doherty has long explored the multiple nature of identity and, over the course of his work, has adopted various personae, the most notable being Patrick Ireland. He adopted this identity in a public performance at the Project Arts Centre in 1972 as a protest lodged at the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry. He exhibited under this name for thirty-six years in numerous exhibitions, including Documenta, the Venice Biennale, and ROSC. O’Doherty has had retrospectives at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Elvehjem Museum, and P.S.1. In 2006, the new wing of the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane was inaugurated with Beyond the White Cube: A Retrospective of Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland (later to travel to New York University’s Grey Gallery). With the establishment of an all-party government in Northern Ireland, the identity of Patrick Ireland was waked and buried in coffined effigy at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2008.
Born in 1934 in Roscommon, O’Doherty now lives and works in the US. In early September for his presentation in Dublin Contemporary, he will present a major new project in the National Gallery of Ireland. Limerick City Gallery of Art has recently acquired a piece of work, The Siege of Limerick (1970) by Brian O’ Doherty for its Permanent Collection. The talk will reflect on O’Doherty’s achievements in the worlds of art and literature, and reference his work in the exhibition.
Admission is free and all are welcome.
