nca | nichido contemporary art

Clare Langan

Education
1992 Intensive Film Workshop, NYU, New York
1989 First Class Honours Degree, Fine Art, NCAD, Dublin

Solo Exhibitions
2009
“The ice above, the fire below, and other works – 2007 -2009”,
Limerick City Art Gallery

2008
“New Work”, Fenton Gallery, Cork, Ireland
Solo Exhibition at Miguel Marcos Gallery, Barcelona

2007
“Metamorphosis”, Houldsworth Gallery, London; Anita Beckers Galerie, Frankfurt; Galerie Nichido Contemporary, Tokyo.
“Selected Works 1999 -・003”, Galeria Art Gaspar, Barcelona, Spain.

2004
“MediaScope”, MoMA, New York
“A Film Trilogy,” Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo; nca | nichido
contemporary art, Tokyo, Japan; Domus Artium DA 2, Salamanca, Spain;

2003 “A Film Trilogy”, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; Mia Sundberg Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden; Galleri Salvador Diaz, Madrid, Spain; Fenton Gallery, Cork.

2001 “Too dark for night”, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin; Vedanta Gallery, Chicago; Fenton Gallery, Cork

1999 “Forty Below”, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin

1998 “Track”, Model Arts Centre, Sligo

1997 “Track”, Hafnarburg Cultural Centre, Iceland; University of Salamanca, Spain; Gallery of Photography, Dublin

1994 “Dogdays”, Cult Galerie, Vienna, Austria

1993 “Dogdays”, City Arts Center, Dublin; Unwahr Galerie, Berlin, Germany

Selected Group Shows
2010
“Busan Biennale: Living in Evolution”, Busan Museum of Modern Art, Busan, Korea
2009
“Sounds and Visions, Art Film and Video from Europe”, Museum of Modern Art, Tel Aviv - representing Ireland. Curated by Angelo Gioè and Maria Rosa Sossai.
“Highlights of KunstFilmBiennale, Cologne” - Group Exhibition composed by Gabriele Horn and Heinz Peter Schwerfel. - KunstWerke, Berlin and touring to Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
“House Warming”, Group show, RED, South Dublin Art Centre, Ireland
Dojima River Biennale 2009: Reflection: The World Through Art, From Singapore Biennale 2006, 2008
Curated by Fumio Nanjo & Kenji Kubota, Osaka, Japan
Goldstein Connections, Participating artists: Jack Goldstein, Gregor Hildebrandt, Clare Langan, Bjørn Melhus, Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt
A Secret Understanding, touring exhibition programmed by Forma Arts.
The Best of LOOP 2008, Pacific Design Center, LA, curated by Paul Young
H20: Film on Water, Great River Arts, Vermont Connecticut, & Cynthia Reeves Gallery New York.
Then & Now: Evolving Art Practices, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
Terror and the Sublime: Art and Politics in an Age of Anxiety, from the IMMA Collection, The Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.
Adventures in Sound & Image; Panorama 1: I thought I was Hallucinating, Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands

2008
“Singapore Biennale”, Curated by Fumio Nanjo, Joselina Cruz and Matthew Ngui.
“Video Zone Festival”, Braveman Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
“El agua y sus suenos contemporaneous”, Expo Zaragoza 2008, Spain. Curated by Miguel Marcos and Fernando Castro-Florez
“Loop '08 “Barcelona, Fundacio Miro, “A Film Trilogy” Part of the Collection of The Irish Museum of Modern Art curated by IMMA director Enrique Juancosa.
“Rendez-vous” curated by Isabelle Bertolotti, Shanghai Art Museum, China

2007
“Atlas of the Future - Visions of Scenarios to Come”, - Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Italy Courtesy of Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt, Germany
“Becks Fusions”, collaboration with Sigur Ros - Trafalgar Square, Curated by & ICA London, UK
“Rendez - Vous”, Lyon Biennale, curated by Isabelle Bertolotti
“Terra Infirma”, Pratt Gallery, New York, curated by Berta Sichel, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Spain.
“Apocalypse”, Candace Dawn Gallery, New York.

2006 “Group Exhibition”, with Juane Plensa and Zhang Huan, Galerie Cadaques, Cadaques, Spain

2005
“Marking Time / Moving Images”, Miami Art Museum, Florida, curated by Lorie Mertes
“Vision Express”, Shanghai Youth Biennale 2005, Lui Hai Su Art Museum, Curated by Fumio Nanjo
“World Without End”, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne

2004
“Tir na Nog: Younger Irish Artists from the IMMA Collection”, IMMA, Dublin
“Views from an Island”; Contemporary Art from Ireland, Millennium Museum, Beijing; Shanghai Gallery of Modern Art, Shanghai, China.

2003
“Panoramica”, Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City
“After Nature”, CCA, Glasgow
“The New Kunsthalle”, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany

2002
“International 2002, Liverpool Biennial”, Tate Liverpool
“25th Bienal de Sao Paulo”, Brazil (representing Ireland)
“View Finder”, curated by Catsou Roberts / Stephen Hepworth, Arnolfini, Bristol.
“Greyscale / CMYK”, Tramway, Glasgow
“The Mind is a Horse”, Bloomberg Space, London

2001 “At Sea”, curated by Victoria Pomery, Tate Liverpool

2000 “Glen Dimplex Artists Award 2000”, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

1999
“Recent Acquisitions”, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
“Utopias”, curated by John Hutchinson, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
“First Look”, curated by Patrick T. Murphy, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin
“Loose End”, Trondhjems Kunstforening, Trondheim, Norway

Film Festivals
2007
“Metamorphosis”, Oberhausen International Film Festival, Germany. - Premier prize for International Film
“Metamorphosis”, Lorcrano Film Festival, Switzerland
“Metamorphosis”, Loop Art Fair Barcelona

2002 “Too dark for night”, Cork Film Festival, Ireland. Youth Jury Award.

Film Projects
1998 Art Director on James Coleman’s Photograph

1997 Assistant Art Director on “The Boxer” re-shoot directed by Jim Sheridan

1995 Assistant Art Director on “Some Mothers Son “directed by Terry George

1994 Assistant Art Director on” Braveheart” directed by Mel Gibson

1992 Art Director on” Far and Away” directed by Ron Howard

1991 Short film for Dorothy Cross shown at “Powerhouse”, ICA, Philadelphia

Art Fairs
2009
The ice above, the fire below, Pulse New York 2009 – featured installation Galerie Anita Beckers

2008
Pulse New York - Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London
Art Cologne, Germany, Galeria Miguel Marcos, Barcelona
SWAB - Barcelona - Galeria Cadaques Dos, Spain
Arco, Madrid - Galeria Miguel Marcos, Barcelona

2007
Pulse Miami - Anita Beckers Gallery, Frankfurt
Art Miami - Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London
Pulse London - Anita Beckers Gallery, Frankfurt
Year ’07 - Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London
Loop, Barcelona - Anita Beckers Gallery, Frankfurt
Chicago Art Fair - Anita Beckers Gallery, Frankfurt

Residencies
2005 Residency at at La Fondation Albert Gleizes, Moly Sabata, France

2004 Artists Work Programme, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

1998 Artist in Residence at Roches Point Lighthouse, Cork.

1997 Artists Work Programme, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Awards
2007-2009 Arts Council Multi- Annual Bursary

2003-2004 Nominated for The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Visual Artists

1992-2007 Visual Arts Bursaries & commissions from The Arts Council of Ireland & The Irish Film Board.

1992 Fulbright Scholarship to attend Intensive Film Workshop at N.Y.U.

Collections
Tony Podesta Private Collection, Washington DC
Hugo & Carla Brown, Private Collection
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
Clarks Private Collection, UK
Dublin Institute of Technology
University College Dublin
University College Cork

Selected Filmography
“The ice above, the fire below”, 2008 - 8 minutes
“Metamorphosis”, 2007 - 9 minutes
“The Flooded Rooms”, 2007 - 4 minutes
“I Gaer” - with Sigur Ros for Becks Fusions, 2007 - 6 minutes
“Glass Hour”, 2002, 8 minutes
“Too dark for night”, 2001, 10 minutes
“Storm”, 2001 3 minutes
“Floodlight”, 2000, 3 minutes
“Forty Below 1999”, 5 minutes

Selected Bibliography
Rachael Thomas, “The ice above, the fire below”, 2008
“Metamorphosis - through a glass darkly “- Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator, Head of Exhibitions, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2007
“Terra Infirma” - Berta Sichel, Director of the Department of Audiovisuals and Film & Video Curator, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Spain, 2007
“Civilization’s Homestretch”, Mimi Thompson for Apocalypse, Candace Dawn Gallery, New York 2007
“No Place to Stay, Clare Langan - A Film Trilogy” - Aidan Dunne, RHA, Dublin, 2003
“International 2002 “- Christoph Grunenberg, Liverpool Biennial 2002
“Apocalypse Now, Clare Langan - Too dark for night “- Christoph Grunenberg, Published on the occasion of Ireland’s participation in the 25th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2002
“Too dark for night”, - Patrick T. Murphy, Paises, 25th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Iconografias Metropolitanas, 2002
“Greyscale / CMYK”, - Patrick T. Murphy, Tramway, Glasgow, 2002
“View Finder” - Stephen Hepworth & Catsou Roberts, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2002
“Silent Witness to the Devouring Forces of Nature” - Medb Ruane, Sunday Times, 2001
“Glen Dimplex Artists’Award 2000 “- Sarah Glennie, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2000
Patrick T. Murphy, “Regarding Location”, Clare Langan -“Forty Below”, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, 1999

"A Film Trilogy" Text by Christoph Grunenberg

International Exhibition,
Tate Liverpool,
Liverpool Biennial 2002

Glass hour, 2002 is the third part in Clare Langan's post-apocalyptic trilogy that commenced with Forty Below in 1999 and continued with Too Dark for Night in 2001. Glass hour, 2002 was partly commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial and the three films will be shown together for the first time in The International 2002. Having explored the natural wastelands of the Namibian desert and the arctic sceneries of Iceland and Ireland, Glass hour, adds a third dimension to the exploration 'of mankindﾕs brief fragile existence in the face of apparently limitless forces of nature" (Clare Langan). Set in deserted urban and industrial wasteland Glass hour, shifts the focus from the natural to the man-made environment.

Glass hour, most explicitly depicts the impact of monumental devastation on the human habitat while, at the same time, posing the question how much this grim fate might be self-inflicted. Massive factories, smoking chimneys and bland industrial sheds are seen in dreamlike sequences, ambiguously positioned between the indifferent chronicling of terminal decline due to some global disaster and a defiant celebration of the enduring technological sublime. The monuments to manﾕs incessant urge to build, create, produce and multiply still stand tall, basked in a steely cold light of an eternal winter of discontent. Human hubris, however, is being challenged by a force even greater than global capitalism: the earth is opening up boiling in volcanic anger, ready to swallow whole cities, to cover its sprawling suburbs of nondescript prefab housing with black ash and penetrate industrial estates with toxic fumes.

Langan's dramatic landscapes-tinged in shades of aquatic blue-greens, glowing in atmospheric sand tones and burning in volcanic reds-are the product of relatively primitive technology applied on location. In her film installations she continues to afford the luxury of using the 'old-fashioned," mechanical medium of film, shooting on 16 mm stock which is then transferred to DVD and projected. The artist deliberately refrains from the elaborate manipulation of images in post-production (except for some careful editing and overlaying of some additional sound elements) that today is standard practice in both commercial as well as experimental film and video production, relying instead on the inherent sensuality of film. In all three films, Langan has experimented with hand-made filters painted with glass paint that are placed in front of or inside the lens. This simple procedure results in stunning scenes of great immediacy, supported by pervasive soundscapes which support the dreamlike atmosphere of the installations-memories of future disasters when most of mankind has already vanished from the face of the earth.

There is nothing more beautiful than a disaster on a monumental scale, when the grandeur of nature and the frisson of death observed from afar coincide in a panoramic catastrophe, arrested in time for our viewing pleasure. Langan's refrains from the spectacular fireworks of hurricanes, volcano eruptions, earthquakes or deluges and indulges instead in recording the gradual progress of destruction, respectively natureﾕs reconstruction through its extremes states. Her land- and cityscapes are largely unpopulated locations-with only a few reminders of human existence-that have remained strangely intact, as if preserved in some kind of Pompeiian deep storage. The catastrophe has already happened and we are confronted with an apocalyptic aftermath as the earth pushes back the boundaries of human civilisation. Nature itself knows no destruction but only an endless cycle of growth and decay. Despite the gloomy, turbulent mood of eternal change permeating these film installations, there is also serenity and peacefulness as nature asserts its rightful place. Langan's trilogy ultimately projects not a dystopian view of the end of human race through self-annihilation but the beginning of a process of regeneration and rebirth.