Twenty-five years after his death, the scope of Derek Jarman’s work as a painter, writer, set-designer, gardener, political activist, and, of course, filmmaker is on view in PROTEST!, an extensive new exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art featuring many bodies of work never before seen in public.
“[Derek] wasn’t chasing the center. He wrapped the center around him… Twenty years on and we’re fighting for space that we had once.” — Tilda Swinton, 2014
Young bigots flaunting an excess of ignorance. Little England. Criminal behavior in the police force. Little England. Jingoism at Westminster. Little England. Small town folk gutted by ring roads. Little England. Distressed housing estates cosmeticized in historicism. Little England. The greedy destruction of the countryside. Little England. — Derek Jarman, The Last of England, 1987
DEREK JARMAN—PROTEST! is curated by Seán Kissane, and the exhibition was organized in partnership with the Manchester Art Gallery. In early 2020, Thames and Hudson will publish a major monograph to accompany the retrospective.
Through February 23.
Irish Museum of Modern Art
Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin.
Derek Jarman, Protest!, Irish Museum of Modern Art, November 15, 2019–February 23, 2020, from top: Jarman, photograph by Ray Dean; Queer, 1992; Margaret Thatcher’s Lunch, 1987; Burning the Pyramids (Art of Mirrors), 1970–73, super 8 film, courtesy and © the LUMA Foundation; Jarman, photographs by Ray Dean (2); Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks, “Edward II to Glitterbug,” private collection; Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks, 1965, Untitled (“Poem V”), courtesy and © BFI National Archive; AIDS Isle, 1992; Landscape with a Blue Pool, 1967; Avebury Series II, 1973, collection Derby Museum and Art Gallery; Morphine, 1992, Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre; T.B. or not T.B., 1990; Blue, 1993, photograph by Liam Daniel, courtesy and © Basilisk Communications; photograph from Jarman’s notebooks, 1968, “Ballet for small spaces”; The Angelic Conversation (1985), still, courtesy and © BFI National Archive; Fuck Me Blind, 1993; Self-Portrait, 1959, private collection. Artwork by Derek Jarman; images courtesy and © the Keith Collins Will Trust, the Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London, and the IMMA.
