DESIRE: A Revision From The 20th Century To The Digital Age

Opening the 2019 Autumn season at IMMA is a large-scale international group exhibition DESIRE: A Revision from the 20th Century to the Digital Age co-curated by Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, and Rachel Thomas, Senior Curator; Head of Exhibitions, IMMA.

This exhibition will explore the evolving role of desire in art and life and its relationship to structures of power. New commissions of contemporary works alongside a succinct selection of master works of the 20th-century will offer a unique examination of the relationship between desire, technological advancements, and its impact on social structures.

Featuring an exciting selection of modern masterworks and landmark contemporary art works by Matthew Barney, Frank Bowling, Lee Bul, Oisín Byrne, Helen Chadwick, Dorothy Cross, David Douard, Marcel Duchamp, Justine Emard, Tracey Emin, Awol Erizku, Max Ernst, Cao Fei, Genieve Figgis, Ann Maria Healy, Elaine Hoey, Juliana Huxtable, James Joyce, Bharti Kher, Jonah King, Seiha Kurosawa, Yayoi Kusama, René Magritte, Koji Nakazono, David O’Reilly, Eddie Peake, Tschabalala Self, Patrick Staff, Mickalene Thomas and VALIE EXPORT.

Spanning over 100 years, the exhibition explores the development of desire through the lens of the eurocentric male gaze and its influence in shaping artistic depictions of desire in contemporary culture.

The exhibition will include collaborations and talks across the museum campus. Audiences are encouraged to consider how the primal and nostalgic nature of desire has been refashioned into a deeply complex and often alien element of one’s own identity in both physical and digital realities, and to question whether desire is the fundamental motivation of all action.

A significant publication accompanies the exhibition, featuring contributions from the exhibiting artists, co-curators and key contemporary thinkers from a variety of fields, ranging from poetry and philosophy to architecture and performance, including Sasha Bonét, Vaari Claffey, Pádraic E. Moore, Yuko Hasegawa, Johanna Hedva, Jonah King, Aidan Mathews, Eddie Peake, Mario Perniola, Jennie Taylor and Nathalie Weadick. Look out for the signature pink and gold dots of the Desire exhibition on the facades and in the windows of boutiques sprinkled throughout the Village.

A series of Limited Artist Editions by artists, including Dorothy Cross, Tracey Emin and Genieve Figgis, are available for this exhibition. These works are for sale in the IMMA Shop and also will be in the IMMA Pop Up Shop.