Irish Arts Center Presents Dannielle Tegeder: Drawing Room, The Field Guide To Experimental Irish Literature

Irish Arts Center (IAC), a multidisciplinary center dedicated to bringing people of all backgrounds together through the excellence and dynamism of Irish arts and culture, presents Dannielle Tegeder: Drawing Room, the Field Guide to Experimental Irish Literature, January 11-April 7. For this active exhibition, New York artist Dannielle Tegeder reached out to select contemporary Irish poets, asking them to contribute a work of theirs, in some way evoking or thematically related to Ireland. Using sheets of archival paper printed with these pieces, Tegeder has begun-and will continue-responding to their words through abstract drawing and collage. The exhibition will have several different iterations, changing and evolving as new collaborations between artist and poet emerge.

Tegeder found inspiration for this abstracted anthology of experimental Irish poetry through artists including Tristan Tzara (particularly his unrealized DadaGlobe); John Cage; poet Frank O'Hara and his collaborations with visual artists; and the 1967 MCA Chicago exhibition Pictures to be Read/Poetry to be Seen. Rather than a static exhibition, Tegeder has created a living cross-disciplinary conversation, between visual art and poetry. Tegeder's process of reaching out to writers, asking for work, and bringing viewers together in conversation about Ireland-and how it's represented through various poetic voices-are part of the exhibition itself. Drawing Room began with the display of eight works responding to Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon's "Ireland." Next, Tegeder will layer in works responding to poems by Sligo-based poet Alice Lyons and Cork-based poet Feargal Gaynor; before the exhibition's closing, it will encompass responses to the words of seven poets in total including Christodoulos Makris, Mike McCormack, Vona Groarke and Maighread Medbh.

Books by featured poets will be available to read in the space, throughout the exhibition. The public will have an opportunity to engage with Tegeder and the featured poetry in an interactive tea that will include an artist-led discussion and creative exercise. Tegeder will host a Parlour Writing Game & Tea, (Saturday, March 2, 4:30pm - 6pm)-for which the public is invited to participate in a collaborative writing game, a relative of the exquisite corpse game of the surrealists, which uses collage and found texts from the exhibition. A Closing Reception will take place Tuesday, April 2, 6pm-7:30pm. Irish Arts Center is located at 553 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019. The gallery will open now through April 7, Monday - Friday, 10am - 6pm. For gallery hours by appointment, call: 212-757-3318.

A native of Peekskill, NY, Brooklyn-based artist Dannielle Tegeder received a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase and an MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Tegeder works in the intersection of visual art and literature. For the past 15 years, her work-paintings and drawings, plus large-scale wall drawings, sculptural objects, and animation-has explored abstraction and the legacy of modernism, and has been exhibited in more than 100 national and international gallery exhibitions. She has held teaching positions at Cornell University and SUNY Purchase, and is currently an associate professor of art at the City University of New York at Lehman College.

Through a grandmother who immigrated to New York from Country Kerry, Tegeder recently became an Irish citizen.

Irish Arts Center, founded in 1972 and based in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, is a national and international home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. IAC presents, develops, promotes, tours, and distributes work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually transporting experiences-the results of innovation, collaboration, and the authentic celebration of our common humanity.

Steeped in grassroots traditions, with a commitment to inclusion that dates back to our founding, IAC provides education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, and an international home for the Irish community to come together and engage with a dynamic global diaspora.

IAC offers visual artists working in various mediums an intimate space in which their work can enter the organization's multidisciplinary dialogue with the evolving Irish story. Recent exhibitions have included Bernie Leahy's mid-career solo exhibition of drawing and sculpture with stitch, Why We Are; acclaimed Dublin artist Eóin Francis McCormack's exhibition of vibrant abstract painting, Born in Time; Mairead McCormack's work on Irish linen inspired by textile manufacturing, Formidable Parallels; and Beckett and His World, a photographic exhibition featuring John Minihan's iconic portraits of Samuel Beckett and the artists he inspired.

In October 2018, IAC broke ground on a landmark new permanent home, including a state of the art contemporary, flexible performance and arts space for the presentation and development of work across a range of disciplines; a second, intimate performance space-the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre-optimized for the most intimate live music and conversation, recordings, master classes and special events; classrooms and studio spaces for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities; technology to stream and distribute the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; a spacious and vibrant avenue-facing café lobby that will be a hospitable hub for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; and a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center building and the new facility meet.