Entitled “La Grande Illusion” the exhibition is structured and distilled in ways that reveal how the artist has represented the fragility of human rights and how he has persistently responded to societal injustices and their legacies. Focusing on a period of intense productivity for the artist, 2007–2024, it appraises his activism in human rights and his efforts to document the shape-shifting nature of war with its far-reaching impact on the poor and our environment.
Maguire presents an expanded view of war- seen as a constant cycle of corrupted power and death – it encompasses capital, class, gender, and post-colonial legacies. Intimate and uncompromising, his paintings form a demand for social justice and are an act of solidarity with families and communities. The exhibition will draw on seven pioneering and interconnected bodies of work, with works from Hugh Lane Gallery and Crawford art Gallery collections alongside works from private collections including the Tia Collection, Santa Fe. These include paintings from projects in Juárez, Mexico (2012–15), the Mediterranean (2016), Aleppo (2017), South Sudan (2018), the Amazon (2022), Arizona (2022) and Brazil (2022-23)
Testimony is integral to understanding violence, human rights violations and state abuse.
In turning towards the plight of those erased by media or state institutions, the artist reminds us why painting matters. “In painting, ‘the invisible becomes visible’, he explains.It is a transformative frame, placing the experiences you encounter on the doorstep of power and in a continuum with history, mythology and the tragedies of existence.” Like education for Paulo Freire, art for Maguire is a radical process of passion and indignation, which carries the potential of alternative futures. “the image carries the present, the medium carries the hope” says Maguire and expands by referring to the domains of loss as ‘the perpetrators of the injustice are worldwide and singular and that’s what makes the stories the same’.
This exhibition is co-curated by Michael Dempsey, Head of Exhibitions and Barbara Dawson Director, Hugh Lane Gallery.
La Grande Illusion will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring illuminating essays by Lucy Cotter, Michael Dempsey, Marc Donnadieu and Christian Viveros Faune, that contextualise the exhibition and the environment in which it is created.
