freud

To be listened to while I paint

art talks

During this unique five-year project IMMA Collection: Freud Project 2016–2021;  IMMA  present a series of different and exclusive Lucian Freud related exhibitions, with a new programme of events, and resources. Listen back to a diverse range of speakers, that delve deeper into the Freud's distinctive approach to painting, in which to examine the artist's legacy and relevance today.

IMMA Collection Freud Project 2016-2021

Curator Dita Amory, artist Isabelle Frances McGuire

Matisse & Derain, Isabelle Frances McGuire

Lecture Title : Media of Memory in Contemporary Art

Introduced by Lisa Moran (IMMA) and Dr.Karen Till (Maynooth University, Andreas Huyssen (Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York)  discusses transnational art practices involving  the history of European modernism and contemporary artists who deal with difficult pasts, focusing on the work of Doris Salcedo, William Kentridge and Nalini Malani. 

This lecture took place 12.11.15, IMMA, Dublin       

Art | Memory| Place: Keynote Lecture by Andreas Huyssen

To coincide with the launch of IMMA Collection Freud Project 2016-2021 : special guests Sarah Howgate Contemporary Curator, National Portrait Gallery London and David Dawson artist, painter, photographer and Freud’s assistant, offer an insightful reflection on Freud’s studio, archive and last major exhibition held at the NPG, involving the artist during his lifetime. This provides the context to address Freud’s continued relevance for contemporary portraiture and artists today.

This talk took place on 20 October 2016 at IMMA.

Further Information

Sarah Howgate has been Contemporary Curator at the National Portrait Gallery since 2001. One of her key roles is the managing of Gallery commissions, which have included Sam Taylor-Wood’s portrait of David Beckham, Dryden Goodwin’s portrait of Sir Steve Redgrave and Michael Craig-Martin’s portrait of Zaha Hadid. She has curated two major exhibitions for the Gallery: David Hockney Portraits in 2006 and Lucian Freud Portraits in 2012. Her displays have included Alex Katz Portraits, a focus on this important aspect of the artist’s work. Before joining the Gallery Sarah worked for Angela Flowers Gallery first in London and then in Santa Monica, California, where she set up a new space specialising in British figurative art. Sarah judges the annual BP Portrait Award and next year will judge the Nordic Portrait Prize in St Petersburg and at our sister institution in Fredericksborg.  Sarah also sits on the recently formed Royal Society Pictures Working Group. For the past decade she has dedicated her research to contemporary portraiture within this genre of self-portraits. Recent Publications include the catalogues for the David Hockney Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 2006 and Lucian Freud Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 2012.  In 2006, she co-wrote The Portrait Now with Director, Sandy Nairne. She has also worked with Sandy on the 21st Century Portrait, published this year.

David Dawson is artist; painter and photographer. He  studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art and at the Royal College of Art. He met Lucian Freud soon after he had completed his MA and began to work as his studio assistant. In 2000, he began photographing the daily life of Freud's studio, documenting the progress of the artist's work and showing the artist and model together in the studio.  Dawson was Freud’s assistant and model from 1990 until the artist’s death in 2011. He posed regularly for Freud and appears in paintings such as Sunny Morning–Eight Legs 1997 (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago). In a 2004 interview Dawson described how their relationship evolved:

Dawson is also author of A Painter's Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud, 2014, this book features the final images of hanging of Freud’s work in his posthumous London exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Haunting and fascinating, this is a revelatory document about one of our most important and influential painters.

IMMA Collection Freud Project 2016-2021 features a selection of 30 of the artist’s finest paintings, and 20 works on paper. The works, mainly dating from 1970 onwards, explore several of the artist’s key themes such as Portraiture; Self Portraiture; Still-life; Animals and Nature; works that reflect his interest in the people and the natural world.

Image Credit: Freud, Lucian (1922-2011) / Reflection (Self Portrait) / 1985 / (oil on canvas) / Private Collection / © The Lucian Freud Archive / Bridgeman Image

IMMA Collection Freud Project, 2016-2021

IMMA Collection Freud Project: In Conversation/ Sarah Howgate & David Dawson

Figures and Objects
In conjunction with the major IMMA Collection Freud Project, 2016 – 2021, renowned American painter Ellen Altfest responds to a selection of Freud works presented in IMMA’s galleries. Considering a subjective response to human form, Altfest’s discusses her own distinct and devoted approach to figurative and representational painting. In particular Altfest draws on her acclaimed 2006 series of candid male nudes in which to explore diverging approaches to visceral portraiture and the interchanges between still life and life-model, giving Altfest’s paintings a heightened realism that fluctuates between desire and detachment.

Further Information 

This talk is part of a series of talks by contemporary artists in response to Freud, revealing exciting new perspectives on this major artist today. Looking at the return to figuration in contemporary art practice, Altfest is one of several artists invited to respond on the affinities, methodologies and potential influences that contemporary artists continue to share with Freud.

About Artist
Ellen Altfest received a BFA and BA from Cornell University, an MFA from Yale University School of Art, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Altfest has had one person exhibitions at The New Museum, New York, Milton Keynes Gallery, in England, and The Chinati Foundation, in Marfa, Texas. Her work has been included in many national and international group exhibitiions including in the 55th Venice Biennale, The Encyclopedic Palace, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, The Royal Acadamy in London,  KUNSTFORENINGEN GL STRAND in Copenhagen and Dhondt Daenens Museum in Deurle, Belgium. Altfest received a Guggenheim fellowship, a Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Altfest lives and works in New York, NY.

IMMA Collection Freud Project, 2016 – 2021
The IMMA Collection Freud Project, 2016 – 2021,  is a significant five-year loan of 50 works by one of the greatest realist painters of the 20th century, Lucian Freud (1922-2011). Presented in a dedicated Freud Centre in IMMA’s Garden Galleries for five years. During this unique five-year project IMMA will present a programme of special exhibitions, education partnerships, symposia and research that will maximise this important opportunity for schools, third level students, artists and audiences all over Ireland and beyond.

This talk took place on 24.06.017, at IMMA

IMMA Collectiion Lucian Freud Project 2016/21

Artists Talk / Ellen Altfest on the work of Lucian Freud

MARTIN GAYFORD - SITTING FOR FREUD 
To launch the TCD - TRIARC & IMMA: Lucian Freud Lecture Series (2017 – 2018), distinguished art critic Martin Gayford presents a keynote lecture on his experiences of sitting for Lucian Freud as a point of reflection to discuss the methods and psychological processes of this seminal artist. 

Gayford’ talk draws on his acclaimed publication Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud, 2012 which takes the reader into that most private and intriguing place, the artist’s studio. Gayford explores the history of a portrait, seen from the sitter’s point of view. From this emerges an understanding of what a portrait is – a work of art that grows out of the meeting of two individuals, artist and subject.

Introductions by Dr Angela Griffith(TRIARC)followed by Sarah Glennie(Director, IMMA) 

FURTHER INFORMATION
Martin Gayford is an art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo. He previously collaborated with David Hockney RA on A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney. Other works include a volume of travels and conversations co-written with Philippe de Montebello, Rendezvous with Art, and Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud, all published by Thames & Hudson. Art critic for the Spectator/ written prolifically about art and jazz, contributes to Daily Telegraph art magazines and exhibition catalogues. 


About IMMA/ TCD Talk Series / 18 October 2017 - April 2018   
Marking the first year anniversary of the significant loan of 50 works by Lucian Freud (1922-2011),  IMMA, in collaboration with the The Irish Art Research Centre,Trinity College, Dublin (TRIARC) invites leading artists, critics and cultural researchers to offer new perspectives on Freuds work and its critical reception today.

Keynote events rotate on a monthly basis between venues at IMMA and TCD, concluding with a major symposium in April 2018. Each session introduces a distinct topic on this seminal artist’s work.The schedule of speakers include: 18.10.2017 at TCD : Martin Gayford (Art Critic/Author UK) /  01.11.2017 at IMMA:Yvonne Scott (TRIARC TCD) / 06.12.2017 at TCD: Christina Kennedy (IMMA) / 24.01.2018 at IMMA : Noreen Giffney (Ulster University) / 07.02.2018 at TCD: Nathan O’ Donnell (Paper Visual Art-PVA) / 07.03.2018 at IMMA: Isabelle Graw (Städelschule, Frankfurt) / 10.03.2018 at TCD:  Daphne Wright (Artist), Angela Griffith (TRIARC- TCD), Christina Kennedy (IMMA) and others.                          

This talk took place o  Wednesday 18 October 2017, 7.00pm – 8.00pm at Robert Emmett Lecture Hall, Trinity College Dublin.

IMMA Collection Freud Project 2016 -21

IMMA & TCD : LUCIAN FREUD LECTURE SERIES / MARTIN GAYFORD

What is a Portrait?  Lucian Freud and Art History.

Everyone is familiar with the idea of a portrait, but the concept becomes elusive when you attempt to define it. Is it about a recognisable likeness of a person or psychological penetration? Is a portrait ultimately revealing or diversionary? Does it say as much about the artist as the sitter? What clues can one read from the way the subject is depicted? This lecture questions the meaning of portraiture and its role in art history, preliminary to exploring the revelations of Lucien Freud.

Dr Yvonne Scott is Associate Professor in History of Art, and Director of TRIARC, the Irish Art Research Centre, at Trinity College Dublin.

FURTHER INFORMATION

IMMA/ TCD Talk Series / 18 October 2017 - April 2018   
Marking the first year anniversary of the significant loan of 50 works by Lucian Freud (1922-2011), IMMA, in collaboration with the The Irish Art Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin (TRIARC) invites leading artists, critics and cultural researchers to offer new perspectives on Freuds work and its critical reception today.Keynote events rotate on a monthly basis between venues at IMMA and TCD, concluding with a major symposium in April 2018.                              

IMMA COLLECTION FREUD PROJECT (2016 – 21)
IMMA has secured a significant five-year loan of 50 works by one of the greatest realist painters of the 20th century, Lucian Freud (1922-2011). Renowned for his portrayal of the human form, Freud is best known for his intimate, honest, often visceral portraits. Working only from life Freud’s studio was intensely private and he mainly worked with those he was close to, often asking subjects to sit for hundreds of hours over multiple sittings to better capture the essence of their personality.

This talk took place on Wednesday 01 November 2017,  IMMA

IMMA & TCD Freud Lecture Series

IMMA & TCD : LUCIAN FREUD LECTURE SERIES / Yvonne Scott

When the familiar becomes strange: Freud and the Contemporary

Freud treated every sitter, subject and object with the same intense focus. The emphasis the artist placed on the value of the live experience, of paying attention, of extended looking and intensity of time with the subject became the means to take the artist to his inner world. Freud found, 'the harder you concentrate, the more things that are really in your head start coming out.'
  
This lecture explores Freud’s processes, mechanisms and motivations and how they may link to contemporary art and life through the perspectives of a number of contemporary artists. This is an ongoing investigation over the duration of the Freud Project that will involve further contributions from Irish and International artists who work in diverse media, in response to Lucian Freud’s practice and what about it resonates for them. The lecture reflects on affinities, methodologies, potential influences, the return to figuration in contemporary art practice, critique and resistance.

Topics will be explored through the work of Daphne Wright, Ellen Altfest, Marlene Dumas, Jenny Saville, John Lalor, Kathy Prendergast, Diana Copperwhite, Nick Miller, Niamh O’Malley, Mark O’Kelly, Laura Fitzgerald, Bridget O’Gorman & Sue Rainsford, Richard John Jones and others.

FURTHER INFORMATION
Christina Kennedy is Senior Curator: Head of Collections at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) since 2008.  Prior to that she was Head of Exhibitions at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane (DCGHL) for 10 years. She has curated and co-curated many exhibitions, edited publications and contributed texts to numerous catalogues, notably: Beyond the White Cube: A Retrospective of Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland, DCGHL, 2006; The Studio, co-curated with Jens Hoffmann, DCGHL, 2007;  Tacita Dean, DCGHL, 2007;  The Burial of Patrick Ireland, IMMA, 2008;  The Moderns: The Arts in Ireland from 1900s - 1970s, IMMA, 2010-2011, co-curated with Enrique Juncosa, (co-edited publication); Postwar American Art: the Novak/O’Doherty Collection, IMMA 2010; Changing States: Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon’s Studio, Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, co-curator, 2013, Patrick Scott: Image, Space, Light, IMMA 2014; Lucian Freud Project at IMMA 2016-2021, Lead Curator.
  

IMMA/ TCD Talk Series / 18 October 2017 - April 2018   
Marking the first year anniversary of the significant loan of 50 works by Lucian Freud (1922-2011),  IMMA, in collaboration with the The Irish Art Research Centre,Trinity College, Dublin (TRIARC) invites leading artists, critics and cultural researchers to offer new perspectives on Freuds work and its critical reception today. Keynote events rotate on a monthly basis between venues at IMMA and TCD, concluding with a major symposium in April 2018. Each session introduces a distinct topic on this seminal artist’s work.The schedule of speakers include: 18.10.2017 at TCD : Martin Gayford (Art Critic/Author UK) /  01.11.2017 at IMMA:Yvonne Scott (TRIARC TCD) / 06.12.2017 at TCD: Christina Kennedy (IMMA) / 24.01.2018 at IMMA : Noreen Giffney (Ulster University) / 07.02.2018 at TCD: Nathan O’ Donnell (Paper Visual Art-PVA) / 07.03.2018 at IMMA: Isabelle Graw (Städelschule, Frankfurt) / 10.03.2018 at TCD:  Daphne Wright (Artist), Angela Griffith (TRIARC) TCD), Christina Kennedy (IMMA) and others. Booking is essential per talk / booking lines open on a month to month basis.                              

IMMA COLLECTION FREUD PROJECT (2016 – 21)
IMMA has secured a significant five-year loan of 50 works by one of the greatest realist painters of the 20th century, Lucian Freud (1922-2011). Renowned for his portrayal of the human form, Freud is best known for his intimate, honest, often visceral portraits. 

This talk took place on 6 December 2017, Robert Emmett Lecture Hall, Trinity College Dublin.

TCD & IMMA Lecture Series

IMMA & TCD : LUCIAN FREUD LECTURE SERIES / Christina Kennedy

The Freud Affect: Reflecting on Viewers’ Experience of the Lucian Freud Exhibition

When we visit an exhibition, we encounter a series of artworks made by an artist and presented to us by a curator. We are offered an experience. How we engage with that experience can tell us as much, if not more, about ourselvess it might about the artist. What was your experience of visiting the Lucian Freud exhibition? Which room did you visit first? Did you spend more time with certain works? Can you remember any of the thoughts you were having as you moved around the gallery space? This talk explores the ways in which psychoanalysis can help us to reflect on our affective response to the exhibition, particularly how our gut reactions to Freud’s works might tell us something about the otherwise unconscious, inarticulable aspects of our mind.

Further Information
Dr Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and the director of the Psychoanalysis + interdisciplinary initiative. She is also Lecturer in Counselling in the School of Communication & Media at Ulster University. She has published extensively in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and cultural studies.

IMMA COLLECTION FREUD PROJECT (2016 – 21)
IMMA has secured a significant five-year loan of 50 works by one of the greatest realist painters of the 20th century, Lucian Freud (1922-2011). Renowned for his portrayal of the human form, Freud is best known for his intimate, honest, often visceral portraits. Working only from life Freud’s studio was intensely private and he mainly worked with those he was close to, often asking subjects to sit for hundreds of hours over multiple sittings to better capture the essence of their personality. 

The Irish Art Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin, (TRIARC) 
TRIARC was established in 2003 in response to the growing interest in Irish art at home and abroad. Since then, the centre provides postgraduate teaching and supervision and it supports new research and publications. The establishment of the centre was facilitated by the generous support of benefactors, enabling the appointment of dedicated staff, and the restoration of the Provost's House Stables to provide facilities for education and research, including a visual archive and dedicated library on all aspects of Irish art, architecture and design.

This talk took place on Wednesday 24 January 2018, at IMMA.

IMMA & TCD: LUCIAN FREUD LECTURE SERIE

IMMA & TCD: LUCIAN FREUD LECTURE SERIES / Dr Noreen Giffney

The Economy of Painting - Reflections on the specific Value Form of the Painted Canvas (Comments on Freud)

Internationally renowned art historian and professor Isabelle Graw considers what constitutes painting today and looks at current measures of value in painting, from artistic to economic, through the lens of art history and critical theory. This lecture draws on Graw's new book The Love of Painting: Genealogy of a Success Medium, (February 2018) that aims to establish where painting can be seen today. Graw’s talk explores the current popularity of painting from a historical and medium specific perspective in which to address Freud´s work and persona as a model that has both potential and problems when considered from a present vantage point.

This lecture is followed by a closing discussion, moderated by Christina Kennedy, Head of IMMA Collections and Led Curator of the IMMA Collection: Freud Project 2016 – 2021.

FURTHER INFORMATION
Isabelle Graw is a professor of art theory and art history at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste (Städelschule) Frankfurt am Main, where she co-founded the Institute of Art Criticism. She is an art critic and co-founder of Texte zur Kunst in Berlin. She has edited and contributed to many important books on the medium of painting, most notably Painting Beyond Itself: The Medium in the Post-Medium Condition (Sternberg Press, 2016) and Thinking through Painting. Reflexivity and Agency beyond the Canvas (Sternberg Press, 2012). Her forthcoming book The Love of Painting: Genealogy of a Success Medium aims to establish where painting can be seen today and to reconstruct the historical origins of its current popularity. Further details here

IMMA/ TCD Talk Series / 18 October 2017 - April 2018   
Marking the first year anniversary of the significant loan of 50 works by Lucian Freud (1922-2011), IMMA, in collaboration with the The Irish Art Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin (TRIARC) invites leading artists, critics and cultural researchers to offer new perspectives on Freuds work and its critical reception today. Keynote events rotate on a monthly basis between venues at IMMA and TCD, concluding with a major symposium in April 2018. Each session introduces a distinct topic on this seminal artist’s work.The schedule of speakers include: 18.10.2017 at TCD : Martin Gayford (Art Critic/Author UK) /  01.11.2017 at IMMA:Yvonne Scott (TRIARC TCD) / 06.12.2017 at TCD: Christina Kennedy (IMMA) / 24.01.2018 at IMMA : Noreen Giffney (Ulster University) / 07.02.2018 at TCD: Nathan O’ Donnell (Paper Visual Art-PVA) / 07.03.2018 at IMMA: Isabelle Graw (Städelschule, Frankfurt) / 10.03.2018 at TCD:  Daphne Wright (Artist), Angela Griffith (TRIARC) TCD), Christina Kennedy (IMMA) and others.

This talk took place on Wednesday 7 March 2018, at IMMA

IMMA Collection: Lucian Freud Project

IMMA & TCD - TRIARC / LUCIAN FREUD TALK SERIES / Isabelle Graw

Daphne Wright, artist and exhibition curator of The Ethics of Scrutiny joins Angela Griffith,  The Irish Art Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin, in a conversation that explore Wright's role as curator, her response to the work of Lucian Freud and her own artistic practice. The Ethics of Scrutiny, curated by artist Daphne Wright, is the second exhibition to be presented as part of the IMMA Collection: Freud Project - a five-year loan of 52 works by renowned artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011). 

This artist's discussion is introduced by Christina Kennedy, Head of Collections, IMMA. The event coincides with  ‘Shadows and Lights; Women in Irish Visual Culture’ discussion series, now in it's seventh year and is a key feature of the Department of History of Art and Architecture and TRIARC outreach programme. Presented in conjunction with the IMMA & TCD TRIARC Lucian Freud Talk Series October 2017 to April 2018.

FURTHER INFORMATION
IMMA Collection: Freud Project:  The Ethics of Scrutiny, Curated by Daphne Wright                        

The Ethics of Scrutiny places Freud’s paintings alongside the work of writers Emily Dickinson, John Berger and Lydia Davis, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and artists Gwen John, Kathy Prendergast, Wiebke Siem, Marlene Dumas and Thomas Schütte, The Ethics of Scrutiny calls into question how we see ourselves, how our gazes fall onto one another, and importantly how our identities shift over the cycle of time. The exhibition sees the addition of two major works by Freud, Two Brothers from Ulster, 2001, and Man in a Silver Suit, 1998.

About Speakers
Daphne Wright, born 1963, Ireland is represented by Frith Street Gallery, London, and was elected as a member of the Aosdána, in 2011. She lives and works in Dublin and Bristol. Wright has exhibited extensively in England and Ireland since 1994, with solo exhibitions at many venues including, Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2002, Nonsense with Death, Sligo Art Gallery, 2001, and Daphne Wright, Limerick City Art Gallery, 2006, Cornerhouse, Manchester, 1994, The New Art Centre Sculpture Park and Gallery and The Lowry, 2001. She has also participated in various group exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2008, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2000, P.S.1, New York, 1999, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1997, and Tate Liverpool, 1995. Commissions include Ham House, Trust New Art, Hanbury House, Worcester and Carlow County Council, South Tipperary County Council and Cork City Council. Works by the artist are held in the following collections: Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Towner Art Gallery, Sussex and private collections in Ireland and the UK. Further information here.
Dr Angela Griffith is Assistant professor, Department of the History of Art, Trinity College Dublin. Her current research focuses on the history, contexts and theories of the printed image in Britain and Ireland from the beginnings of modernist fine art printmaking to contemporary multidisciplinary print practices. Selected publications include  ‘To-morrow’s artist: Cecil ffrench Salkeld and an Irish modernist periodical’, in P. Coleman, K. Milligan and N. O’Donnell, eds. BLAST at 100, (Leiden: Brill, 2017),  "Extra, Extra, read all about it ..." negotiating printmaking in the Post-Print Age: imPRESS a perspective from Ireland' in imPRESS [noun - the act of marking a mark or leaving an impression] (Cork, 2017) And she is co-editor and contributor with Roisin Kennedy & Marguerite Helmers of Harry Clarke & Artistic Visions of the New Irish State, forthcoming from Irish Academic Press. 

This talk took place on Saturday 10 March 2018, at the Robert Emmet Hall, TCD

Image Credit: Marlene Dumas / Kissing the Floor, 2014 / Watercolour on paper / 27 x 22 cm / Private Collection, London. Courtesy of Frith Street Gallery.

The Ethics of Scrutiny

IMMA & TCD - TRIARC / LUCIAN FREUD TALK SERIES - Daphne Wright & Angela Griffith

IMMA presents a major Freud research symposium that explores the themes, methods, motivations, and multifaceted contexts of Lucian Freud’s work, in particular in relation to his importance to contemporary art practice, research, discourse and curating.     
                                                                                              
Track 1: SESSION I: RETHINKING THE WORK OF LUCIAN FREUD - Opening Address by Dr Angela Griffith, TRIARC – TCD / Introductions by Christina Kennedy, Head of IMMA Collections

About Speakers
Dr Angela Griffith is an Assistant Professor with the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College Dublin. Her research examines the history, contexts and theories of the printed image in Britain and Ireland from the beginnings of modernist fine art printmaking in the 1850s to contemporary multidisciplinary print practices. Select publications include; co-editor and contributor with Roisin Kennedy & Marguerite Helmers, Harry Clarke & Artistic Visions of the New Irish State (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2018); ‘To-morrow’s artist: Cecil french Salkeld and an Irish modernist periodical’, in P. Coleman, K. Milligan and N. O’Donnell, eds. BLAST at 100, (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 

Christina Kennedy is Senior Curator: Head of Collections at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) since 2008.  Prior to that she was Head of Exhibitions at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane (DCGHL) for 10 years. She has curated and co-curated many exhibitions, edited publications and contributed texts to numerous catalogues, notably: Lucian Freud Project at IMMA 2016-2021, Lead Curator. Key early projects include: archaeological team member for the removal of Francis Bacon’s Studio from London to DCGHL, 1998; curatorial coordinator of Francis Bacon in Dublin exhibition, 2000.  

Further Information
In ‘Rethinking Freud & The Contemporary’ the symposium takes its cue from several exhibition themes explored within the exhibition ‘IMMA Collection: Freud Project, The Ethics of Scrutiny, Curated by Daphne Wright’ in which to consider the human condition, the body, materiality, gender, the artist gaze, intimacy versus detachment, as well as the ethics of representation and shifts in meaning and identity over time. The symposium aims to identify key topics of debate that continue to resonant with the thinking and making of art today and considers the potential that the work of Freud brings to prospective art research and audience.

This day long symposium presents contemporary perspectives on the role of painting in art today; the anthropological, psychological and ethnographic content that Freud’s work elicits. Speakers revisit post-war art contexts and Freud’s lesser-known relationship to Ireland; including a creative network of other artists and writers.

Speakers include: Catherine Lampert / Elena Crippa / Brian Dillon / Daphne Wright / Nick Miller / Niamh Campbell / Nathan O’ Donnell / Trisha Brennan / Laura Fitzgerald / Richard John Jones / Sue Rainsford / John Lalor.

Programmed in association with TRIARC – Trinity College Dublin.

This symposium took place on 14 April 2018 at IMMA.

Return to the dedicated playlist IMMA & TRIARC SYMPOSIUM 2018: RETHINKING FREUD & THE CONTEMPORARY, to listen back to other speaker’s responses and presentations.

IMMA & TRIARC: RETHINKING FREUD & THE CONTEMPORARY (1) / Dr Angela Griffith

IMMA presents a major Freud research symposium that explores the themes, methods, motivations, and multifaceted contexts of Lucian Freud’s work, in particular in relation to his importance to contemporary art practice, research, discourse and curating.  

Track 5: SESSION II: NEW RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES - Welcome & Introductions by Christina Kennedy, IMMA. / Writer’s Response & Conversation by Brian Dillon, Writer, Critic in conversation with Daphne Wright, Artist, Curator.

Brian Dillon presents a short response on the relationship between the visual and literary, in the exhibition, The Ethics of Scrutiny, curated by Daphne Wright. A conversation follows with the artist Daphne Wright that draws on affinities between Dillon’s prolific practice of writing fiction, memoir and creative nonfiction in which to look deeper into the psychology, neurological and visceral charge that Freud’s work and that of other writer’s might elicit.

About Speakers
Christina Kennedy is Senior Curator: Head of Collections at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) since 2008.  Prior to that she was Head of Exhibitions at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane (DCGHL) for 10 years.

Brian Dillon is a Writer, Critic, and UK editor of Cabinet magazine. He is the author of several books of criticism, fiction, memoir and creative nonfiction. He contributes regularly to art magazines, newspapers and journals in the UK, USA and Ireland. He taught in the School of English at Kent until 2004, when he became a full-time freelance writer. Brian Dillon’s first book, a memoir entitled In the Dark Room (Penguin, 2005), won the Irish Book Award for non-fiction. His second, Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives (Penguin, 2009) was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize. 

Daphne Wright is represented by Frith Street Gallery, London, and was elected as a member of the Aosdána, in 2011. She lives and works in Dublin and Bristol. Solo exhibitions at many venues including, Prayer Project: The Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 2017, USA, Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2002, Nonsense with Death, Sligo Art Gallery, 2001, and Daphne Wright, Limerick City Art Gallery, 2006. Works by the artist are held in the following collections: Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Arts Council of Ireland, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Rhode Island School of Design Museum,Towner Art Gallery, Sussex and private collections in Ireland and the UK.

Further Information
In ‘Rethinking Freud & The Contemporary’ the symposium takes its cue from several exhibition themes explored within the exhibition ‘IMMA Collection: Freud Project, The Ethics of Scrutiny, Curated by Daphne Wright’ in which to consider the human condition, the body, materiality, gender, the artist gaze, intimacy versus detachment, as well as the ethics of representation and shifts in meaning and identity over time. The symposium aims to identify key topics of debate that continue to resonant with the thinking and making of art today and considers the potential that the work of Freud brings to prospective art research and audience.

Speakers include: Catherine Lampert / Elena Crippa / Nick Miller / Angela Griffith / Niamh Campbell / Nathan O’ Donnell / Trisha Brennan / Laura Fitzgerald / Richard John Jones / Sue Rainsford / John Lalor.

Programmed in association with TRIARC – Trinity College Dublin.

This symposium took place on 14 April 2018 at IMMA.

Return to the dedicated playlist IMMA & TRIARC SYMPOSIUM 2018: RETHINKING FREUD & THE CONTEMPORARY, to listen back to other speaker’s responses and presentations.

IMMA & TRIARC: RETHINKING FREUD & THE CONTEMPORARY (5) / Brian Dillon, Daphne Wright

IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. IMMA TALKS is an activated live programme of talks and events that opens up conversations around the core themes of our exhibition programme, and permanent IMMA Collection, bringing you deeper into the thinking and making of contemporary art.

For further information on IMMA TALKS please contact Sophie Byrne, Assistant Curator, Talks & Public Programmes, IMMA. Email sophie.byrne@imma.ie

IMMA & TCD - TRIARC / LUCIAN FREUD TALK SERIES / Isabelle Graw

IMMA Ireland