Irish Arts Review

Alexander Calder &Joan MiróIrish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 2007), p. 142Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20493252 .

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nCATALOGUES

Treasures from the North - Irish Paintings from the Ulster Museum Eileen Black and Anne Stuart

National Gallery of Ireland/National Museums

Northem Ireland, Dublin, 2007

pp 80 small quarto p/b col ills 64

E9.95 ISBN 978-1-904288-22-0

Readability: *****

Reference: *****

Design & Durability: *****

Quality of Plates: * ** *

As the Ulster Museum has closed for

refurbishment, some of the collection

has, sensibly, been toured. In this case

we have a selection of highlights, rang

ing from 18th- and 19th-century artists

8 like William Ashford, George Barrett and Nathaniel Hone, to 20th-century

figures like Lavery, Orpen, Yeats, Scott and company. One might wonder about

the selection, as the National Gallery

has rather better examples of most of

these artists. However, the catalogue,

which is by Eileen Black and Anne

Stewart, is pitched at the general audi

ence, consisting of colour images with,

on each facing page, a couple of para

graphs on the painter and the work.

Contains a list of artists, and a fairly

rudimentary bibliography.

Alexander Calder & Joan Mir6 Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2007

pp 80 oblong p/b ills 81 col 56 b/w 25

_E16.00 ISBN: 1-903811-72-4

oOKd Readability: ***** Reference:

Design & Durability: *****

Quality of Plates: *****

This is a small, attractive catalogue, doc

umenting an exhibition in the IMMA

courtyard of the later work of Calder and

Miro who, previously, had frequently exhibited together. Eleven works were shown and the heart of the catalogue is

Denis Mortell's installation shots of same. There are three informative and very

readable essays by experts in the field, a

rather brief chronology and a List of

Works which is actually six pages contain

ing images of the work with attendant

details. A simple but lucid introduction: worth buying.

Out of the Darkness: 40 years of Northern Ireland Press Photography Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2007

pp 70 square format p/b bAw & col ills 121

E10.00 ISBN: 978-0-9549633-6-1

Readability: *****

Reference: *****

Design & Durability: *****

Quality of Plates: *****

Catalogue of an enormously successful exhibition chronicling the Northern Ireland Press Photographers' Association during the Troubles, and after. It contains

two brief but useful essays on the back

ground. Good to see an exhibition and

catalogue like this as previously, the

emphasis has been on incoming photogra

phers, rather than the locals who knew

what they were doing. Hopefully, this is only the start of a series. Contains a list of

the images, and of the photographers.

Thomas Demand: L'Esprit d'Escalier IMMA/erlag der Buchhandlung Walther

Konig, Dublin/Cologne, 2007

pp 160 small oblong h/b fully illustrated

E42.00 ISBN: 978-3-86560-210-7

Readability: *****

Reference: ***t* r

Design & Durability: *****

Quality of Plates: *****

Demand is a very well-known, Munich

born, photographic artist who started out as a sculptor and whose usual work

ing method is to build a model based on

a pre-existing image, and then photo

graph the model, the photograph being exhibited as the Art. In theory, the

IMMA show explores the 'nature of

media as architecture, through a presen

tation of photography and installation',

and consists of twenty-three large-scale

photos and a sculpture. The catalogue is

a true oddity. It is very elegantly

designed, being leather bound, having

photographic endpapers, and even hav ing a 'staircase' punched through the

leaves of the book. The photographic

images (Demand's work tending to strip away all detail from the original image),

being small scale, have limited impact.

But the real oddity is that most of the

texts have little to do with the artist.

One is a previously published short story.

All of the interleavings are from pre

existing Antonioni texts. Dave Eggers contributes fictional biographic episodes. Paul Oliver's text is a rumination of

staircases (though not Demand's) while the other essays resort to Heidegger,

Kafka and notions of translation - any

thing in fact as opposed to a serious dis

cussion of the artist's work. Even the

bibliography and CV, for some reason,

only start at the year 2000, as if the pre

vious decade didn't exist. It does howev

er contain a list of illustrations.

Georgia O'Keefe: Nature and Abstraction

Irish Museum of Modern Art/Vancouver Art

Gallery/Skira, Dublin/Nancouver, 2007

pp 190 tall quarto p/b col ills 77

E27.00 ISBN: 10: 88-6130-127-4

Readability: *****

Reference: *****

Design & Durability: *****

Quality of Plates: *****

This exhibition represents the first show ing in Ireland of O'Keefe and is based on

the 'natural' origins of the artist's more

abstract work. There are three short, use

ful essays by Richard D Marshall (a spe

cialist on O'Keefe), Yvonne Scott and

Achille Bonito Oliva, but the heart of the

book consists of the full-page colour illus

trations. It's worth buying for those alone.

However there is no list of illustrations

and the chronology and bibliography are a

mere one page each ... e

BRIAN McAVERA is an art critic.

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