Clare Langan

Clare Langan

Born 1967, April 18, Kerry, (Ireland)
Website clarelangan.com

Clare Langan studied Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and with a Fulbright Scholarship, completed a film workshop at NYU. In 2017 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from The National University of Ireland. In 2019 she became a member of Aosdana. She has represented Ireland in numerous international Biennales, including the 25th Bienal de Sao Paulo, 2002 Brazil; The Liverpool Biennial – International 2002, Tate Liverpool: Sounds and Visions, Art Film and Video from Europe, 2009, Museum of Modern Art, Tel Aviv; Singapore Biennial 2008, curated by Fumio Nanjo touring to Dojima River Biennale 2009, Osaka Japan; Busan Biennale 2010, South Korea. In 2003 Langan presented A Film Trilogy at MoMA in New York and at the RHA, Dublin. ¹

Bio & Career

The Floating World premiered at Kino Der Kunst, Munich 2013, where it was really well received by the jury and the audience. The jury members included Cindy Sherman, Isaac Julien, Amira Casar, Defne Ayas and Heinz Peter Schwerfel. The film went on to win the Prix Videoformes 2014 | Conseil Général du Puy de Dôme at VIDEOFORMES 2014, Clermont-Ferrand, France. It was exhibited as a 3-screen installation in VISUAL Center of Contemporary Art in 2015, and has since been exhibited in Städtische Galerie, Delmenhorst, Germany.

Her film Metamorphosis, 2007 won the Principle Prize at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Germany. In 2007 it was exhibited at the Lyon Biennale; Houldsworth Gallery, London; Loop, Barcelona; NCA Gallery, Tokyo; Pratt Art Gallery New York and the Miguel Marcos Gallery, Barcelona. State of Suspension, 2012 was shown in Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt, and The

Rubicon Gallery, Dublin. She participated in the Glen Dimplex Artists Award 2000 at The Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Her film Flight from the City premiered at the B3 Biennale of the Moving Image 2015 in Frankfurt, before touring to Beijing and Shanghai. Jóhann Jóhannsson went on to use Flight from the City to launch his 2016 album Orphee.

In 2017 she exhibited her film The Human Flock at Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford. The film travelled to Dirimart, Istanbul July 2018, as part of The Best of Kino der Kunst curated by Heinz Peter Schwerfel. Other exhibiting artists include AES+F, Oliver Pietsch, Pierre Huyghe, Lola Gonzalez and Yael Bartana. Her film The Winter of 13 Storms was exhibited at the B3 Biennal of the Moving Image Frankfurt 2017 curated by Kelly Gordon.

In 2019 she had retrospective show at The Dock, Carrig on Shannon featuring a number of recent and older works, including The Winter of 13 Storms, 2017 and A Film Trilogy 1999-2002 from the IMMA Collection. It also included the 3-screen film installation River, with a selection of music curated by Gary Sheehan, director of The National Concert Hall. In 2019 her work was also included in, Of Music and Making, Solstice, Navan; Moving Women, Magda Danysz Gallery, Paris, Shaping Ireland, The National Gallery of Ireland, The Gifts of Tony Podesta, American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington. Recent festivals include Ritratti Di Poesia, Poetry Festival, Rome alongside the poets Kate Tempest and Ingrid de Kok, and Physical Cinema Festival, in Reykjavk.

The Heart of a Tree had its world premiere at Kino Der Kunst in October 2020, where it was purchased by Fondazione In Between Art and Film for their collection. They commissioned an essay The Earthbound 2022 by Teresa Castro, associate professor in Film Studies at the University Bonne Nouvelle, for their publication STILL – Studies on the Moving Image.

The essay examined the film in a wider conversation, imagining humanity’s future amidst the major threats posed by the environmental crises facing the world.

In 2021, her film Flight from the City was screened as part of Artist Film International (AFI) which included 21 partner organisations including Whitechapel Gallery, London, Para Site, Hong Kong and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. In 2022, Clare’s film River screened as part of Living Canvas, Dublin City’s new cultural initiative by IPUT which establishes new ways of exhibiting artworks in large scale outdoor installations.

Most Recently, her photograph The Heart of A Tree 1 won The Progressive Vision Curtin O’ Donoghue Photography Prize as selected by The RHA Annual Exhibition 2022. She was also interviewed by John Kelly in The Works Presents which is now available to view via RTE Player. Her most recent show TERRA INFIRMA, Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren, Germany, exhibits The Heart of a Tree, The Floating World and Flight from the City (Photographs and Films).

Her films and photographs are in a number of international public and private collections including IMMA, The Arts Council of Ireland, The OPW, the Tony Podesta Private Collection, Washington, and the Hugo and Carla Brown Collection, UK. She has done numerous public art commissions including NUI Maynooth, Castletown House and Rathmines Swimming pool.

Publications

Appears in

Photography books by the artist

2013-15, The Floating World, Carlow: VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, 978-1-907537-12-7
2004, Essays by Patrick T. Murphy and Aidan Dunne, A Film Trilogy, Dublin: The Royal Academy
2002, too dark for night, Representing Ireland at the 25th Bienal de Sao Paulo Brazil, Dublin: Arts Council of Ireland
1999, Forty Below, Dublin: The Green On Red Gallery, 0-9524564-8-6

Photography books with contribution by the artist

2021, In Conversation with Cristin Leach, Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith (ed.), And Now With Feeling, Winter Papers, Vol.7, Dublin: Arts Council of Ireland, Curlew Editions, 978-0-9933029-6-1
2018, Texts by Jack Rasmussen, Klaus Ottmann, Susan Fisher Sterling, Kathryn Wat, The Gifts of Tony Podesta, American University Museum, 978-1-7321553-2-9
2011, Noel Kelly and Sean Kissane, Creative Ireland: The Visual Arts, Arts Council of Ireland, 978-1-907683-11-4
2010, Busan Biennale, Busan Museum of Art, Gwangalli Beach, 2010
2009, Sounds & Visions: Artists’ Films and Videos from Europe, The Last Decade, Milano, Silvana Editoriale
2008, Representing Art in Ireland, Cork, The Fenton Gallery, 978-0-9544843-8-5
2008, Singapore Biennale, Singapore, National Arts Council Singapore, 978-981-08-1684-1
2009, Paysage – Video: Dialogue avec les collections #2, 978-2-905985-69-9
2005, World Without End, Australian Centre for Moving Image, Australia, 1-920805-11-7
2005, Irish Museum of Modern Art: The Collection, 1-903811-48-1
2002, Catalogue, Shimmering Substance, Bristol, Arnolfini, 0-907738-71-0
2022, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art Ltd, 0-953671-4-5

Awards and honours

2022, Winner of The Progressive Vision Curtin O’ Donoghue Photography Prize, RHA Dublin
2019, Elected as a member of Aosdana, The Arts Council Ireland
2017, Awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Art from The National University of Ireland
2014, Prix Videoformes, Conseil Général du Puy de Dôme at VIDEOFORMES, Clermont-Ferrand, France
2007, Premier Prize, Oberhausen International Film Festival, Germany
1992, Fulbright Scholarship to attend NYU Film New York
1994, up to present day – Numerous Film Project Funding, Visual Arts Bursaries from The Arts Council of Ireland & The Irish Film Board, Ireland

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

2019, Solo Show – The Dock, Carrig on Shannon, Leitrim
2017, Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford – Solo exhibition
2017, Tom Tompson Gallery, Owen Sound, Canada
2015, The Floating World – Three screen installation – VISUAL Carlow, Ireland
2012, State of Suspension, Galerie Anita Beckers, Germany
2010, The Wilderness Part 1, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2009, The ice above, the fire below, and other works 2007 – 2009,Limerick City Gallery of Art; Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt
2008, New Work, Fenton Gallery, Cork.
2008, Solo Exhibition at Miguel Marcos Gallery, Barcelona
2007, Metamorphosis, Houldsworth Gallery, London
2007, Metamorphosis, Galerie Nichido Contemporary, Tokyo.
1999 –2003 Galeria Art Gaspar, & Galeria Cadaqués Dos, Barcelona
1999 –2003 MediaScope, MoMA, New York
1999 –2003 A Film Trilogy, Domus Artium DA 2, Salamanca, Spain;
1999 –2003 Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and Nichido Contemporary, Tokyo,
2003, A Film Trilogy, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin;
2003, Mia Sundberg Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden; Fenton Gallery, Cork
2003, Galleri Salvador Diaz, Madrid, Spain
2001, Too dark for night, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin; Vedanta Gallery, Chicago, Fenton Gallery, Cork
1999, Forty Below, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin
1998, Track, Model Arts Centre, Sligo
1997, Track, Hafnarburg Cultural Centre, Iceland; University of Salamanca, Spain; Gallery of Photography, Dublin

Group exhibitions

2022, Terra Infirma, curated by Jan T.Wilms, Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren, Germany
2021, Artist Film International (AFI). Exhibiting Flight from the City (Music by Johann Johannsson). Partners: Bag Factory, Johannesburg.
2021, Flight from the City Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas, USA.
2021, Flight from the City Belgrade Culture Centre, Belgrade.
2021, Flight from the City Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm.
2021, Flight from the City Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan (CCAA).
2021, Flight from the City Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius.
2021, Flight from the City Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.
2021, Flight from the City Friends of IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town.
2021, Flight from the City Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires. GAMeC, Bergamo.
2021, Flight from the City Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Istanbul Modern, Istanbul.
2021, Flight from the City MMAG Foundation, Amman.
2021, Flight from the City Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow.
2021, Flight from the City Flight from the City Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila.
2021, Flight from the City Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw.
2021, Flight from the City NBK, Berlin.
2021, Flight from the City Para Site, Hong Kong.
2021, Flight from the City Project 88, Mumbai.
2021, Flight from the City Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø.
2021, Flight from the City Whitechapel Gallery, London.
2021, Flight from the City Peintures A Leau, Galerie Analix Forever, Chene-Bourg, Switzerland
2020, And in the Silence Came … The Anthropocene days Stiftung Nantesbuch Centre for Art and Nature Munich, and MUCA Munich Spring 2021
2019, The Gifts of Tony Podesta, American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, curated by Klaus Ottmann and Jennifer Sakai
2019, Ritratti Di Poesia, Poetry Festival, Rome
2019, Physical Cinema Festival, Bio Paradis, Reykjavk, Iceland
2019, Of Music and Making , Solstice Gallery, Navan Ireland. Group exhibition.
2019, Moving Women, Magda Danysz Gallery. Group Exhibition.
2019, Shaping Ireland – The National Gallery of Ireland. Group Exhbition.
2018, The Best of Kino Der Kunst, Dirimart Istanbul curated by director Heinz Peter Schwerfel
2018, A New Eden – The Art Mill, Szentendre, Hungary curated by Barbara Polla as part of The Art Capital Festival
2017, The Winter of 13 Storms, B3 Biennal of the Moving Image Frankfurt 2017 curated by Kelly Gordon & Anita Beckers
2017, A NAME UNMADE: FRANCIS LEDWIDGE (1887-1917), Solstice Arts Centre. River – 3 screen video installation curated by Sabina Mac Mahon
2015, B3 Biennale Of the Moving Image, Frankfurt
2015, Tulca Festival of Visual Art curated by Mary Cremin
2015, Moving Pictures, curated by Anita Beckers, at the Marburger Kunstverein
2014, UNSEEN Photo Fair Amsterdam – 18^th -21^st September, with Galerie Anita Beckers Frankfurt
2012, None Went Mad, None Ran Away, – Group Show Rubicon Gallery
2011, In Search of the Miraculous; ten days of film video and photography, Crawford Off-site
2011, Destructiveness and Beauty, Norbert Frensch, Monica Ursina Jäger, Clare Langan. Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt
2011, State of Suspension – Gravity – Crawford Art Gallery, Cork Ireland
2011, Inner Piece: Works from the Collection of Heather and Tony Podesta Katzen Center Museum, American University Museum.
2010, The Wilderness, Part 1, Busan Biennale 2010, South Korea, curated by Takashi Azumaya.For Real – 30 Utopian Projections in Public Space, curated by ViewMaster Foundation, The Netherlands.
2009, Sounds and Visions, Art Film and Video from Europe, Museum of Modern Art, Tel Aviv –Representing Ireland. Curated by Angelo Gioè and Maria Rosa Sossai.
2009, Dojima River Biennale 2009: Reflection: The World Through Art, From Singapore Biennale 2006, 2008 Curated by Fumio Nanjo & Kenji Kubota, Osaka, Japan
2009, Goldstein Connections, Participating artists: Jack Goldstein, Gregor Hildebrandt, Clare Langan, Bjørn
2009, Melhus, Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt
2009, Highlights of KunstFilmBiennale, Cologne – Group Exhibition composed by Gabriele Horn & Heinz Peter Schwerfel. – KunstWerke, Berlin and Centre Pompidou, Paris
2009, A Secret Understanding, touring exhibition programmed by Forma Arts.
2009, The Best of LOOP 2008, Pacific Design Center, LA, curated by Paul Young
2009, H20: Film on Water, Great River Arts, Vermont Connecticut, & Cynthia Reeves Gallery New York.
2009, Then & Now: Evolving Art Practices, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
2009, Terror and the Sublime: Art and Politics in an Age of Anxiety, from the IMMA Collection, The Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.
2009, Adventures in Sound & Image; Panorama 1: I thought I was Hallucinating, Impakt Festival, Utrecht
2009, House Warming, RED South Dublin Art Centre.
2009, The ice above, the fire below, Pulse New York 2009 – featured installation Galerie Anita Beckers.
2008, Singapore Biennale, Curated by Fumio Nanjo, Joselina Cruz & Matthew Ngui.Video Zone Festival, Braveman Gallery, Tel Aviv,El agua y sus sueños contemporaneous, Expo Zaragoza 2008, Spain. Curated by Miguel Marcos & Fernando Castro-Flórez
2008, Loop 08’ – Barcelona, Fundacio Miro, A Film Trilogy – The Collection of The Irish Museum of Modern Art curated by Enrique Juancosa.
2008, Rendez-vous – curated by Isabelle Bertolotti, Shanghai Art Museum, China
2008, Atlas of the Future – Visions of Scenarios to Come, – Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
2007, Becks Fusions, Trafalgar Square, Curated by ICA London.
2007, Metamorphosis, Lyon Biennale, curated by Isabelle Bertolotti
2007, Metamorphosis, Pratt Art Gallery, New York, curated by Berta Sichel.
2007, Apocalypse, Candace Dawn Gallery, New York.
2006, Group Exhibition, with Juame Plensa and Zhang Huan, Galerie Cadaques, Spain
2006, Marking Time / Moving Images, Miami Art Museum, Florida, curated by Lorie Mertes
2006, Vision Express, Shanghai Youth Biennale, Lui Hai Su Art Museum, by Fumio Nanjo
2006, World Without End, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne
2004, Tir na Nog: Younger Irish Artists from the IMMA Collection, IMMA, Dublin
2004, Views from an Island; Contemporary Art from Ireland, Millennium Museum Beijing, China; Shanghai Gallery of Modern Art, Shanghai, China.
2004, Panoramica, Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City;
2004, After Nature, CCA, Glasgow
2004, The New Kunsthalle, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany
2002, International 2002, Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool
2002, 25^th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil (representing Ireland)
2002, View Finder, curated by Catsou Roberts/ Stephen Hepworth, Arnolfini, Bristol
2002, Greyscale/CMYK, curated by Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, Tramway, Glasgow
2002, The Mind is a Horse, Bloomberg Space, London
2001, At Sea, curated by Victoria Pomery, Tate Liverpool,
2000, Glen Dimplex Artists Award 2000, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Projects

Alchemy 2022 – In postproduction
The film uses the concept of alchemy and its power to transform as its core theme. Alchemy is defined as the process of taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary, sometimes in a way that cannot be explained. At this juncture in the story of planet earth, humanity finds itself at a pivotally volatile and uncertain moment, in an era shift. It seems that a drastic transformation is needed in the collective psyche of our species if we are to survive the situation we have created for ourselves and for the planet with our current level of consciousness.
The Rewilding (2022)
The Rewilding is an interdisciplinary film project encompassing choreography, performance art, land-art, painting, and music composition. It explores the concept of ‘rewilding’, in reaction to recent studies on the mass extinction of animals and plants and the disintegration of the natural world. The film is set in a future world where mankind, animals and nature are more in balance with each other. The film does not set out to create a Utopian vision, but one filled with ‘real possibility’, with a focus on a real awareness of our actions and decisions, no matter how small.
The Heart of a Tree (2020)
The Heart of a Tree contemplates the centrality of these giants of nature to the planet’s survival, and ours. Trees provide us with the very air we breathe. It is a glimpse into a future world where human beings have evolved and adapted in order to survive. Pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity’s destruction of nature, according to leaders at the UN, WHO and WWF International, and the world has been ignoring this stark reality for decades. This film is a timely metaphor of a world turned upside down by our disregard for nature and the planet.
Future Primal (2018)
Future Primal is a film about evolution, and questions the future of the human race, in the face of major threats of species extinction. The film begins with a strange embryonic creature, at first resembling jellyfish-like sea creatures, to eventually revel the presence of humans inside these submerged pod-like membranes. They are many and numerous as the film reveals hundreds of these ‘creatures’ in what looks like some sort of ‘human farm’. The film is somewhere between sci-fi and speculative fiction, imagining a future world, that is both frightening and redeeming.
Flight from the City (2015)
Flight from the City is a film about connection, love and separation and transition. Starkly shot in ‘black’ water, it focuses on the bond between a mother and daughter. This poetic, emotive film will strike a chord in all of us, reflecting our own relationships whether it is with a child, a parent or a partner. The film was shot in March 2015 in the hot spring at Fludir in Iceland for a new composition, Flight from the City which was created for Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who sadly passed away earlier in 2015.