DUBLIN.- Minister for Culture, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan T.D., was in IMMA this past week to launch The Ethics of Scrutiny curated by Daphne Wright, the second exhibition to be presented as part of the ground-breaking IMMA Collection: Freud Project - a five-year loan of 52 works by renowned artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011); one of the greatest painters of the 20th-century.

In 2016 IMMA secured the loan of 50 works on a five-year loan to the IMMA Collection from a number of private lenders. The IMMA Collection: Freud Project 2016 - 2021 presented all 50 works in the first year, 30 of the artist’s finest paintings alongside 20 works on paper, in a dedicated Freud Centre in IMMA’s Garden Galleries. For the second exhibition in this unique project IMMA invited visual artist Daphne Wright to curate an exhibition in response to Lucian Freud’s works. The Ethics of Scrutiny takes aspects of Freud’s intimate studio practice as a starting point to explore themes of vulnerability, longing and loss that permeate the painter’s work. Two new paintings by Lucian Freud are being exhibited at IMMA for the first time, alongside work by other artists including Emily Dickinson, Sigmund Freud, Marlene Dumas and John Berger.

At the opening event Minister Madigan said; “This exhibition, in placing a number of Freud’s paintings alongside the work of others, allows us all to experience a wide array of emotions. Freud, as one of the best-known and most highly-regarded British artists of recent times has seduced many with his realism. His paintings elicit as many differing opinions as there are brushstrokes on his portraits, and yet there is a common, near unanimous regard for Freud’s artistic skill and impact in the art world. Jerzy Kosinski once said that 'the principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke’. This is true of this exhibition, as Daphne's arrangement of Freud's work with that of others will evoke yet more debate and thought.”

The establishment of the Freud Centre in IMMA’s Garden Galleries was made possible through capital support from the Department for Culture, Heritage & the Gaeltacht to carry out essential improvement works at the Garden Galleries in 2016.

The ambitious Freud Project includes exhibitions, artist residencies research partnerships, talks, lectures and other events that offer a host of ways to connect with this celebrated artist. The project has been made possible by the generosity of the lenders and the support of the Department in conjunction with support from the visionary members of the Freud Circle; BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse who have each committed to the project for a period of three years. This commitment will ensure free access for audiences every Tuesday, in addition to the customary free access for full time students and those under 18.

Lucian Freud chose his subjects from people who entered his life through various means from the acquaintances he encountered regularly during his gambling days, to the members of his own family and inner circle of friends who all modelled within the tight constrains of his studio. In his portraits, some painted over many months or even years, we see a body of work that examines the complex relationships between an artist and their sitter or, more broadly, we see paintings that deal with the psychology of looking.

Taking these specific aspects of Freud’s intimate and insular studio practice as a starting point, The Ethics of Scrutiny explores themes of vulnerability, longing and loss that permeate the painter’s work, while also looking to the works of other artists who address on a wider scale the complexities of representation. Placing Freud’s paintings alongside the work of writers Emily Dickinson, John Berger and Lydia Davis, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and artists Gwen John, Kathy Prendergast, Wiebke Siem, Marlene Dumas and Thomas Schütte, The Ethics of Scrutiny calls into question how we see ourselves, how our gazes fall onto one another, and importantly how our identities shift over the cycle of time. The exhibition also sees the addition of two major works by Freud, Two Brothers from Ulster, 2001, and Man in a Silver Suit, 1998.