Photo: Niamh O’Malley, ‘Gather’. Installation view, Pavilion of Ireland, 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photography by Ros Kavanagh

The Venice Biennale has for 120 years been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. The Biennale was established in 1895, when the first International Art Exhibition was organised. In the 1930s new festivals were born: Music, Cinema, and Theatre and the Biennale  took on the multidisciplinary character that it has to this day. The Biennale has an annual attendance of over 500,000 visitors.

The Venice Biennale remains the most important international showcase for contemporary arts. The biennial International Art Exhibition offers a unique opportunity for Ireland to showcase Irish contemporary art on a global stage. The Biennale is a vital platform for Irish artists, curators and commissioners to gain international profile and to generate opportunities. The Venice Biennale serves as a global showcase for artists and offers a prominent platform for Irish artists to engage with international audiences, curators and gallerists.

Since 2005, national representation at the Venice Biennale has been a Government initiative led by Culture Ireland in partnership with The Arts Council.  Both partners consider the Venice Biennale to be an important opportunity for artists' development and for Irish curators to work in an international context. 

Following their presentation at Venice, the Ireland at Venice exhibition subsequently returns to Ireland for a National Tour. The Arts Council is delighted to be in a position to continue to support the Irish presentation of the Ireland at Venice National Tour, as part of the commitment to our ten-year strategy: 'Making Great Art Work' which aims to support artists to create ambitious, innovative work and to engage audiences across the country.

The Curatorial Team, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios will present Niamh O’Malley’s Gather, at the Irish Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia 2022. To view the artists and commissioners that have represented Ireland at Venice Biennale from 2005-2019, please visit the Ireland at Venice Archive.

An open call is issued biennially to invite expressions of interest for the appointment of the Curator and Commissioner of Ireland’s National representation at Venice. The selection of the team to represent Ireland is made following an open, competitive process with international jury members, in partnership with Culture Ireland and The Arts Council.

Irish representation at 59th Venice Art Biennale in 2022

Photo: Centre: Niamh O’Malley, artist; Left: Clíodhna Shaffrey, TBG+S Director; Right: Michael Hill, TBG+S Programme Curator. Photograph: Dragana Jurišić. Courtesy Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.

The Ireland at Venice 2022 Curatorial Team, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios presented Niamh O’Malley’s Gather, at the Irish Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia 2022.

Gather began in Niamh O’Malley’s workspace in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (TBG+S), Dublin, where stone, steel, wood and glass are shaped, composed and assembled. To do so, to make solid and visible is a particular compulsion of O’Malley’s, a silent but physical response to a precarious time. She is interested in negotiating between the surfaces of the world, how objects and spaces can speak, and how an exhibition can somehow anchor, contain and describe distance. There is comfort in touch, in knowing the edges of things and, during a period of time when we are so much in our heads, O’Malley reminds us that we are also, acutely and collectively, in the world.

A series of conversations between O’Malley and other artists were recorded in her TBG+S studio, produced by Ian Maleney, founder of Fallow Media and TBG+S Commissioned Writer 2020. A documentary film presenting a portrait of O’Malley, by award-winning filmmaker and TBG+S studio artist Jenny Brady, was released in early 2022. These collaborations serve to further articulate the process from research and reflection to the tangibility of the studio and workshop production as the work materialises and travels towards Venice. The conversations and interview can be viewed on the Ireland at Venice website. 

An artist’s book published by TBG+S coincided with the opening of the Venice Biennale in April 2022. Designed by Alex Synge / The First 47, this visual document and object augments O’Malley’s exhibition with new images and writings including commissioned responsive texts by Brian Dillon, Lizzie Lloyd and Eimear McBride.

Ireland at Venice 2022 continues as an Irish Tour curated as a multi-venue exhibition and public engagement programme during 2023. Niamh O’Malley’s Gather will be presented at The Model, Sligo; Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin; and Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. The National Tour will be accompanied by an online and in-person public engagement programme presented by Mayo Arts Service and Mayo County Council.

Niamh O’Malley was born in Co. Mayo, and lives in Dublin, Ireland. She has made numerous major exhibitions in recent years including The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Bluecoat, Liverpool; RHA, Dublin; Lismore Castle Arts; Grazer Kunstverein. O’Malley will hold a solo exhibition at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton in November 2021.

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios supports the development of artists and creation of art. The TBG+S Curatorial Team comprises Clíodhna Shaffrey, Director, and Michael Hill, Programme Curator.

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Irish Tour of Ireland’s presentation at 59th Venice Art Biennale

Niamh O’Malley and Kevin Rafter, Irish Tour of ‘Gather’ at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Photograph by Julien Behal

The Irish Tour of Ireland at Venice will take place in three venues throughout Ireland in Spring 2023. The exhibitions and events programme will present an expanded view of Niamh O'Malley's Gather exhibition, including existing works, new commissioned sculpture and moving image, and special guest speakers.

The Irish tour of Ireland at Venice is supported by the Arts Council as part of its commitment to promote the visual arts to Irish audiences.

The Model, Sligo
February 3 - April 9, 2023

Gather, Sligo, unfolds in a new form over 5 beautiful rooms in The Model, Sligo. Works from Ireland at Venice are brought into an expanded dialogue with a larger selection of O’Malley’s recent artworks. This substantial exhibition also reveals and considers the influence of the west of Ireland on her work.

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin
March 2 - April 30, 2023

Gather, Dublin, foregrounds O’Malley’s studio practice, encapsulating both the conception and making of the work in her studio in TBG+S and its ultimate realisation in the Irish Pavilion and now in the gallery in Dublin. This exhibition, which includes several new works, is both lure and demand, for touch, encounter, and occupancy. It asks what it means to engage in the material practice of making art at this time and in this room.

Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo
March 11, 2023

Gather, Mayo brings together parallel creative voices, in language and film, who produced work alongside Niamh O’Malley’s exhibition Gather which represented Ireland at the 59th La Biennale Arte di Venezia, 2022.

The event will feature readings by acclaimed writers Eimear McBride and Brian Dillon who contributed texts to the book Gather as well as in-conversations with Niamh O’Malley and the curatorial team of Clíodhna Shaffrey and Michael Hill. Conversations mediated by Kate Strain of Kunstverein Aughrim (a curatorial office and production agency).

Accompanying film screenings include those by artist, Jenny Brady whose film Gather follows O’Malley’s through the making of her Venice exhibition and Ross Kavanagh’s film, which documents Gather at Venice.

This is an occasion to meet the artist in her home county and consider an artists’ expanded practice as an opportunity for collaborative creativity across disciplines of literature and film.

Associated exhibitions in Dublin and Belfast to be announced.

Niamh O’Malley was born in Co. Mayo, and lives in Dublin, Ireland. She has made numerous major exhibitions in recent years including The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Bluecoat, Liverpool; RHA, Dublin; Lismore Castle Arts; Grazer Kunstverein. O’Malley will hold a solo exhibition at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton in November 2021.

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios supports the development of artists and creation of art. The Ireland at Venice Curatorial Team comprises Clíodhna Shaffrey, Director, and Michael Hill, Programme Curator.

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