Beyond the White Cube: A Retrospective of Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland

Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland is one of the most complex and controversial figures to emanate from the American Art scene of the 1960s. A qualified medical doctor and emerging artist when he left Dublin, O’Doherty moved to New York in 1957 where he became a pioneering figure of Conceptualism. Renowned as an artist, writer, critic, filmmaker and educator, over the past fifty years he has invoked variously gendered identities in pursuit of his art, most notably the name of Patrick Ireland, as a patriotic and artistic protest against the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972 and under which all subsequent work has been made. A mind/body discourse informs all of Ireland’s art, explored through recurring themes; it challenges conventional perceptions of experiencing art by locating the viewer in the heart of the matter, nowhere more potently than in his Labyrinths, Ogham sculptures and Rope Drawings.

Published on occasion of the exhibition Beyond the White Cube: A Retrospective of Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and the Grey Art Gallery, this comprehensive catalogue reflects on the artist’s work over the past fifty years, and includes over one hundred color illustrations of works and past installations and essays from leading writers and curators.