Who is David Ireland?
Chronology

David Ireland (b. 1930) is one of the West Coast’s most important artists working in the challenging arena of conceptual and installation art. He is part of a community of national and international contemporary artists concerned with expanding the definition of art: how it is made, what it looks like, and what it means. In Ireland’s mind, art can be made from anything and in any way. It can be as large as a house or as small as a glass jar. It can be poured, painted, handcrafted, spoken, written, performed, or videotaped. It can be made from found objects, materials of the earth, commercial artifacts, and even immaterial elements such as liquid, air, or sound.

Ireland has described himself as an “idea” artist, one whose art is the result of investigating a broad range of concepts and possibilities. He has, for example, displayed ordinary chairs as sculpture; and he is fascinated by the physical transformation that materials can go through, such as cement when it changes from a powder to liquid, and then to a hardened form.

But as this exhibition makes clear, Ireland’s art—just like ideas themselves—can be puzzling, humorous, and even confusing. Indeed, this is part of the artist’s intent. Ireland’s idea is to challenge those things that allow us to engage with a work of art. “What makes a piece successful for me is when a viewer is totally ill-equipped to understand why a piece of concrete that I find on the street should be significant,” he states. “When I see them getting close to understanding it, then I want to push it farther from their grasp.” Through his work, Ireland provokes us to question the very idea of art and how we, as viewers, perceive, define, and value it.

Karen Tsujimoto
Senior Curator of Art
Oakland Museum of California