Cristina Iglesias brings together some 20 works, created over the past 20 years, which combine traditions and techniques from sculpture, architecture, theatre, printmaking, and photography and video. Iglesias choreographs all these elements to present sensual and evocative environments featuring soaring canopies, intricate Moorish labyrinths and walls masquerading as forests.
Cristina Iglesias at the Irish Museum of Modern Art
The first exhibition in Ireland of the work of the Spanish sculptor and
installation artist Cristina Iglesias opens to the public at the Irish Museum of
Modern Art on Thursday 17 July.
Cristina Iglesias brings together some 20
works, created over the past 20 years, which combine traditions and techniques
from sculpture, architecture, theatre, printmaking, and photography and video.
Iglesias choreographs all these elements to present sensual and evocative
environments featuring soaring canopies, intricate Moorish labyrinths and walls
masquerading as forests.
Cristina Iglesias is an international travelling exhibition organised by
Fundacao de Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporanea Porto, Portugal. It is
curated by Michael Tarantino and co-produced by Whitechapel, London, and the
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. It is supported by Ministerio de Asuntos
Exteriores, Spain, ESB International and Culture 2000.
The exhibition will be officially opened by HE Mr Enrique Pastor, Ambassador of Spain on Wednesday 16 July at 6.00pm.
Cristina Iglesias is one of a generation of artists, which in the 1980s expanded
the object of sculpture into the new realm of installation while, at the same
time, re-engaging with the art of representation. In contrast to their
Modernist predecessors, their work is primarily figurative, evoking the body,
either directly or as an 'absent presence', and referring to everyday
objects such as furniture, rooms and buildings.
Although part of this general movement, Iglesias employs her own very
distinctive vocabularly, which draws on architectual, literary and decorative
traditions that span the history of Western civilization. Using elaborate
casts, curving walls and flying canopies, she creates zones of experience or
rises en scÃx{00A8}ne which, crucially, are activated by the viewer and interact with
the spaces they occupy. As Iglesias explains: 'I am interested in making
pieces that are sensitive to the space they occupy, working with it to create
meaning. For this reason there are motifs that tend to appear time and again
because they change when you change the container.'
In Vegetation Rooms we are drawn into a strange, Alice-in-Wonderland-like world
of blind corridors, whose walls are variously decorated with casts of bamboo and
eucalyptus, decaying leaves and octopus tentacles. The objects on the surface
may look functional or natural, but on closer inspection, show themselves to be
artificial. In Jealousies large mesh screens, composed of small squares and
diagonals reminescent of Moorish architecture, are used to form intimate
chambers (in Spanish the word 'celosia' means a slanted shutter or a
vertical blind or the emotion jealousy). The screens are further decorated with
extracts from the works of modernist visionary writers like Raymond Roussel and
Joris Karl Huysmans.
On Thursday 17 July at 11.30am Cristina Iglesias will discuss her work with the
critic Adrian Searle, in the exhibition space. Booking is essential as space is
limited (tel: 01-612 9948)
A catalogue with essays by Iwona Blazwick, Director, Whitechapel, London, and
Michael Tarantino and an interview with the artist accompanies the exhibition
(price euro 35.00).
Cristina Iglesias continues until 5 October.
Admission is free.
Opening hours: Tue - Sat 10.00am
- 5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon - 5.30pm
Mondays Closed
For further information and colour and black and white images please contact
Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999
Irish Museum of Modern Art
Royal Hospital
Military Road
Kilmainham
Dublin 8
Ireland