Ulla Von Brandenburg at IMMA

The Irish Museum of Modern Art presents:

Ulla von Brandenburg: Whose beginning is not, nor end cannot be

This exhibition focuses on the work of the innovative young German artist Ulla von Brandenburg. Working in a wide variety of media including drawing, painting, video, film, installation and performance, Brandenburg’s practice reflects her training in set design and visual art, existing in a world between reality and artifice. Her work is based on historical elements of varied origins and significance, sourced from literature, the visual arts, expressionist theatre, Hollywood films, photography, magic and pre-Freudian psychoanalysis. She is best known for her series of tableaux vivants, or ‘living pictures’, shot on Super-8 film, in which a seemingly motionless arrangement of people hold their frozen staged positions for the entire duration of one reel of film.

The exhibition is divided into four chapters and includes new and recent works that explore existing themes as well as new subject matter. A new film work, 8, which focuses on loops and repeats of recurring themes in her practice, is shown at IMMA for the first time. The narrative is constructed through a single shot that gently pans and flows through a French castle inhabited by all the tableau vivants from her past, threading together numerous theatrical scenes and layering historical characters such as chess players, ghosts and a sleeping man. Brandenburg will also create a new specially designed wall installation for IMMA, and produce a magazine, Zeitung No. 4, based on a Danish photo-book, which will be distributed to visitors throughout the duration of the show. The title of the exhibition, Whose beginning is not, nor end cannot be, is taken from the work Angel-talks by John Dee (1527 - 1609), mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultists and consult to Elizabeth I.

Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1974, Ulla von Brandenburg currently lives and works in Hamburg. Recent solo exhibitions include Art: Concept, Paris, 2007; Produzentengalerie Hamburg, Hamburg, 2007; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006, and Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, 2006.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition with texts by Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA, and selected writers.

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday: 10.00am - 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am - 5.30pm
Sundays, Bank Holidays: 12 noon - 5.30pm
Mondays, Good Friday, 24th – 26th and 31 December: Closed

Further information:
http://www.imma.ie

Please note: Image in box from Ulla von Brandenburg, Tarot: Roy de Bâton (King of Sticks), 2008, Screen-print on paper, 78 cards, each: 120 × 63 mm, Design: Clemens Habicht, Courtesy: The artist and IMMA, Dublin. Edition of 100.