David Ireland: Lament for Unbeaten Strings
Current exhibition
Overview
Quint Gallery is pleased to present two exhibitions, each a single work, at 7655 Girard Avenue. Lament for Unbeaten Strings(1989) by David Ireland is on view inside The Museum Of__.
David Ireland’s practice spanned sculpture, installation, drawing, and architectural interventions, often using everyday materials like plaster, dirt, string, or wood as the foundation for his process-based approach. As many of his assemblage works appear to materialize, Lament for Unbeaten Strings is an ambiguous structure that resists overt symbolism and meaning, and follows his principle that any object can be art if it is experienced as such. In this sculpture, yellowing and crumpled balls of newspaper sit inside a red display box that has now developed a patina and rust from age. This mysterious setting is flanked by two mirrors attached to its larger armature, inevitably incorporating its current surroundings or viewer into the artwork’s existence.
Emerging from the Conceptualist movement that was growing in the Bay Area in the 1960s, with material influences from the Arte Povera style, he described his work in these terms: “I call myself a non-media installation artist. I prefer to explore without any end or purpose in sight, an active inquiry on an architectural scale. I just live my life and my art occurs in the process.” He exhibited internationally throughout his career, with major presentations at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Ireland’s interest in site and installation culminated in 1975 when he purchased his house at 500 Capp Street in San Francisco and spent 30 years transforming it into a living work of sculpture, now preserved as a museum since his death in 2009.
Selected Works
