Brian O’Doherty in Conversation with Brenda Moore-McCann

Please join Brian O’Doherty for the launch of the book Dear…Selected Letters from Brian O’Doherty 1970s to 2018 (Vermillion Design). Following introductory remarks by designer and curator Prem Krishnamurthy, O’Doherty will be joined in conversation by project editor and art historian Brenda Moore-McCann. Among the topics under discussion will be letter-writing; the artist’ pioneering role in conceptual and installation art; the seminal edition of Aspen magazine; identity; pseudonyms; and the fate of the white cube. Join the event on Facebook here.

Brian O’Doherty is an artist who communicates through a range of activities not least his art, but also through criticism, fictional writings, teaching, performances, lectures, interviews and, importantly, through a fifty-year practice of letter-writing. As revealed in this new book, he is a lucid and witty commentator on his art practice but also on the politics of the day. The tone of the letters varies from the casual and chatty, to the more formal, according to whom― friends, scholars, museum curators, art critics―they are addressed. The book provides a vivid record of the artist’s work as it was evolving against the backdrop of one of the most exciting periods of contemporary art. The extensive editorial notes annotate the contents of the letters but also this important era thereby extending the potential reach of its readership. Order a copy here.

Brian O’ Doherty is an Irish artist resident in New York for over sixty years. He is an artist but also a critic, writer, medical doctor and award-winning filmmaker and novelist. Throughout his career O’Doherty and his alias Patrick Ireland (1972-2008), have mounted over forty solo exhibitions and have had several retrospectives including Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane in 2006 which toured to NYU’s Grey Art Gallery in 2007 and Art as Argument at Kunstmuseum, Bayreuth, Germany in 2013. O’Doherty’s art, films and fictional writings have been the subject of a year-long analysis from 2018-2019 by the Sirius Arts Centre, Co. Cork.

O’Doherty/Ireland’s art was included at Documenta,1977, the Irish ROSC Biennial, 1977, and at the Venice Biennale in 1980. His work is held in numerous private and public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh; Crawford and Glucksman Galleries, Cork, and Limerick City Art Gallery.

Brenda Moore-McCann is an Irish medical doctor, art historian and writer. She is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin. She has published widely on O’Doherty’s work and is the author of the first monograph, Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland: Between Categories (Lund Humphries 2009, ISBN 978-1-84822-016-4).

Prem Krishnamurthy is a New York/Berlin-based designer, author and curator. He is the founder of Project Projects Design Studio, New York and a Director, with Chris Wu, of Wkshps. He has recently been appointed Co-Artistic Director with Tina Kukielski of FRONT 2021 International Triennial of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio.