• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Irish America

Irish America

Irish America

  • HOME
  • WHO WE ARE
    • ABOUT US
    • OUR CONTRIBUTORS
  • IN THIS ISSUE
  • HALL OF FAME
  • THE LISTS
    • BUSINESS 100
    • HALL OF FAME
    • HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES 50
    • WALL STREET 50
  • LIBRARY
  • TRAVEL
  • EVENTS

Beyond White: The Work of Patrick Ireland

By Lindsay MacDonald
August / September 2007

August 1, 2007 by Leave a Comment

From April 17 to July 14, The Grey Art Gallery at New York University was home to an exhibit called “Beyond the White Cube,” a retrospective created by Irish-American artist Brian O’Doherty.

Previously shown at The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, the collection featured work spanning 50 years of O’Doherty’s career, and was presented under his alias — Patrick Ireland.

O’Doherty adopted the name to protest Bloody Sunday, when the British Army shot and killed 13 civil rights marchers in Derry in 1972, and pledged to sign his name as Patrick Ireland “until such time as the British military presence is removed from Northern Ireland and all citizens are granted their civil rights.”

The concept of identity has had a strong influence throughout O’Doherty’s career. In his piece The Transformation, Discontinuity, and Degeneration of the Image, 1969–present, O’Doherty uses photographs to show the shifting identity of an individual throughout the process of aging, and in juxtaposition, his painting Portrait of the Artist as a Naked Young Man, 1953,  is a self-portrait at a singular point in his life when enrolled in medical school.

O’Doherty, who moved to New York from Ireland in 1957, is well known not only as an artist but as a critic. The exhibition derives its name from his essay Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, first published in 1976. O’Doherty reasons that the walls of galleries have influenced the perception of art just as much as the works themselves.

He began creating rope drawings in 1973 as a way to deconstruct gallery space. His Rope Drawing (#111), which he created for this exhibit, is a combination of painted walls and cords stretched across space, which the viewer must physically climb through in order to see the work in its entirety.

It is another attempt by O’Doherty to create art that actively involves the spectator in the experience of interpretation.

His 1967 piece, Labyrinth Drawing, Isometric Projection, engages the viewers’ perceptions both mentally and through the suggestion of physical enactment.

Throughout his career, O’Doherty has returned to the idea of labyrinths in his art. This idea extends into his chess drawings and sculptures, such as Chess Set, 1966, made of anodized aluminum, glass, and gouache on mirror and board.

“The tangle of moves accumulating invisibly on the board as a game matured fascinated me, and I drew some famous games until they yielded a superimposed labyrinth of tracks,” he explained.

Also included in the exhibit are the large, six-by-six-foot paintings of Ogham script, an ancient Irish form. Within these paintings, O’Doherty spells out ONE, HERE, and NOW through a code of strokes translated from the Roman alphabet.

“ONE obviously had to do with unity, the Absolute. HERE had to do with position, thus with the ghost of composition. NOW collapsed past and future into the present,” he said.

“You draw to see what you’re thinking,” O’Doherty explains, and to the active spectator, his artwork demands to be thought about. ♦

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Highlights

News
Articles and stories from Irish America.....
MORE

Hibernia
News from Ireland and happenings in Irish America.....
MORE

Those We Lost
Remembering some of the great Irish Americans who have passed.....
MORE

Slainte!
Discover Irish ancestry, predilections, and recipes.....
MORE

Photo Album
Irish America readers share the stories of their ancestors....
MORE

More Articles

  • Morrison Visas: Round Two

    Morrison Visas: Round Two

    Hard to believe that it's already a year since the days of Morrison Madness, when tens of thousands ...
  • British Government Faced With Legal Dilemma Over 1997 Murder of Sean Brown

    British Government Faced With Legal Dilemma Over 1997 Murder of Sean Brown

    This month is crunch time for the British government on one of the most prominent legal cases from t...
  • Hibernia | Honoring Our Heritage & Empowering The Next Generation

    Hibernia | Honoring Our Heritage & Empowering The Next Generation

    Irish American Partnership: Investing in Ireland's Future For the Irish American Partnership, th...
  • Hibernia | Sports

    Hibernia | Sports

    Hibernian Hoops: From City Gyms to the World Stage When the National Basketball Association (NBA)...

Footer

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Subscribe

  • Subscribe
  • Give a Gift
  • Newsletter

Additional

  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 · IrishAmerica Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in