Grace Weir
3 Different Nights, recurring
November 7, 2015–March 6, 2016
IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art
Military Road, Kilmainham
Dublin 8
Ireland
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Saturday 10am–5:30pm, Sunday and public holidays 12–5:30pm
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Opening today, IMMA presents the first museum exhibition by Grace Weir, one of Ireland’s most compelling and respected artists. 3 Different Nights, recurring is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work to date, comprising some 30 works. Working primarily in the moving image and installation, Weir is concerned with aligning conceptual knowledge and theory with a lived experience of the world. Probing the concept of a fixed identity, her unique approach to research is based on a series of open conversations and experiments with scientists, philosophers and practitioners from other disciplines.
With a focus on the moment before definition occurs, Weir’s works in this exhibition explore the dynamic of practice and representation and the levels on which identity and time coincide. For Weir, meaning becomes tangible through activity, and the works refer to both the act of making and the medium in which they are made, including where time itself forms the work. The exhibition’s title, 3 different nights, recurring, references a drawing of the Whirlpool Galaxy made in the mid–1840s by William Parsons. Pre-dating photography, the drawing was repeated over three nights as a form of proof of his discovery of the spiral nature of galaxies.
3 Different Nights, recurring premieres three major new film commissions, A Reflection on Light, Black Square and Darkroom, and two new series of paper works, The history of light (Betelgeuse) and Future Perfect. These new pieces are presented with complementary works that together span over 20 years of Weir’s creative output.
Presented as an activated project, 3 Different Nights, recurring will develop while at IMMA. The research informing the new work will be developed and made evident with a series of performative lectures and experiments, connecting the audience with the scientific and philosophical explorations and collaborations that underpin Weir’s work (details below).
The exhibition is presented as part of an exciting new initiative, New Art at IMMA, proudly supported by Matheson, which allows IMMA to continue to support this vital work in a strand of programing that recognises and nurtures new and emerging talents, new thinking and new forms of exhibition-making.
Publications
Accompanying this exhibition will be an exclusive IMMA Edition by the artist, as well as an extensive catalogue with essays by Sam Thorne, Peter Brooke and Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, among others. Visit the IMMA SHOP for more details.
Associated talks and events series
Artists discussion: 3 different nights, recurring—Grace Weir
Saturday 7 November, 1–2pm, Lecture Room
Grace Weir and Sam Thorne (Artistic Director, Tate St. Ives) discuss key works featured in the exhibition. Discussion moderated by Rachael Thomas (Senior Curator: Exhibitions, IMMA).
IMMA + TCD Lecture-performance: A past still to come
Wednesday 2 December, 6–7pm, The Schrödinger Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Dublin
Grace Weir, Prof. Shane Bergin (School of Physics, TCD) and Dr. Sean Enda Power (Researcher, Philosophy, UCC) explore concepts of time and recurrence, the paradoxical nature of light, and the making of a photograph in a lecture-performance. This will be presented in the same theatre where, in 1943, Erwin Schrödinger gave a public series of lectures called “What is Life?” and is held in collaboration with the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin.
Critical response: Frances McKee
Wednesday 2 March, 6–7pm, Johnston Suite
Frances McKee (Director of the Centre of Contemporary Art, Glasgow) draws on his interdisciplinary interests in philosophy, science fiction, cinema and the archive to address some of the compelling narratives that underline Weir’s exhibition.
Booking is essential. Free tickets are available at www.imma.ie.
