The gallery has staged two exhibitions of Irish art in the past four years, receiving funding from the Irish government Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism for its show in 2004 and ongoing sponsorship from the Irish Arts Foundation. Hibernia of the New Millennium showcased the work of over 12 artists based in both Ireland and America in a diverse range of media, including fine art and installation, photography, furniture, music and short film.
The exhibitions sought to address what was seen as a deficit in the understanding of contemporary Irish art in California. "Far too often, the notion of 'Old Ireland' is a stereotype that dominates Irish American culture", says director Claire McGovern. "This is carried over into an understanding of Irish art and does not take into account the remarkable changes that have occurred in Ireland in the past two decades. Very few successful artists today operate within the confines of a traditional
Irish identity code and we hoped to represent that fact with this exhibition". The reception was formally opened
by the Irish Consulate in San Francisco and received laudatory reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle and Irish Herald.
During the course of the exhibition Brian Kennedy, the Irish artist and critic delivered a lecture entitled "Visual Arts in Ireland".
Without question, Irish society today has positioned itself firmly as part of a new global, post modern, cosmopolitan society and this has had a great impact on the character of visual arts. Old aspects of Irish culture such as rural society and dominant Catholicism
metamorphosed into an economy fueled by transnational corporations and a nation that is predominantly urban.
Irish artists no longer define themselves in terms of political or religious orthodoxy
but deal with an intense and very unique history of diaspora, displacement and nostalgia.
An installation by artists Susan Kennedy and Claire McGovern sought to emulate these issues.
In addition could fixed borders and regimented definitions of what it means to be Irish
be imposed upon a culture that has seen one of the greatest diasporas of its people across the globe? Rosie O'Gorman's installation "Untitled-Read" involving multiple drawings of the map of Ireland was construed as an excellent metaphor for this displacement and generational evolution of Irish emigrants. Each free hand drawing, more and more removed from the original, suffered an increasing mutation until the final result was a map that barely resembles Ireland at all.
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