Using a form of expanded cinema artist Jesse Jones explores magical counter-narratives to the state, drawn from suppressed archetypes and myth. This is the first book dedicated to two seminal works by Jones: Tremble Tremble which she presented in the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and subsequently toured globally; and The Tower which was commissioned by Rua Red in Dublin as part of The Magdalene Series.
Jones’ research is grounded in the history of female mystical thought as a site of autonomy and resistance. She trusts in the potential of art to ignite our collective imaginary and agitate for change against the centuries of capital accumulation that has impacted upon women’s freedoms. It is also the story about Jones’ motivation as an artist and the extraordinary sea of political and cultural change that has engulfed Ireland over the past decade.
This book is published on the occasion of Jesse Jones’ exhibition The Tower at Talbot Rice Gallery.
Jesse Jones is a Dublin-based artist. She represented Ireland at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017 with the work Tremble Tremble, which toured to ICA LASALLE College of Arts, Singapore (2017); Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2018); Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh (2018-19); Museo Guggenheim Bilbao (2019- 2020) and SAMSTAG Museum of Art and the Adelaide Art Festival (2021). Recent solo exhibitions include The Tower, at Rua Red, Tallaght (2022) and Syllabus, a five- year project commissioned by Kunsthal Gent, Belgium (2020-2025). Other solo exhibitions include NO MORE FUN AND GAMES, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Dublin (2016); The Other North, Art Sonje Centre, Seoul (2013); CCA Londonderry (2013); Sleepwalkers, Hugh Lane Municipal Art Gallery, Dublin (2012); The Struggle Against Ourselves, Spike Island, Bristol; REDCAT Los Angeles (2011); The National Sculpture Factory, Cork (2011); Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto (2009); The Spectre and the Sphere, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2008).
Group exhibitions include Bones in the Attic, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (2022); COME ALIVE, Het Nieuwe Muntgebouw, Utrecht (2022); The Other Side – Borderlands in Contemporary Irish Art, Dortmunder U, Dortmund (2019-20); Gaia Has 1000 Names, Elgiz Museum, Istanbul (2019); At The Gates, La Criée centre d’art contemporain, Rennes (2019); Still I Rise, Nottingham Contemporary and De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2019); Mademoiselle, Centre régional d’art contemporain (CRAC) de Sète (2018); Against the Romance of Community, Swiss Institute, New York (2016), Radical Actions, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2016); The Eclipse of an Innocent Eye, National Gallery, Prague (2015); Primal Architecture, IMMA, Dublin (2015); Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers, Seoul Media City Biennial, Seoul Museum of Art (2014); Invisible Violence, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade and ARTIUM, Basque country; The Talking Cure, Oakville Galleries Toronto and IMA Brisbane (2014). Jones also produced the major public art project In the Shadow of the State with Sarah Browne, commissioned by Artangel.
Her work is in collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin City Gallery, Hugh Lane Gallery and University of Edinburgh Art Collection. She is the 250th member of Aosdána, founded in 1981 to honour artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland. She lectures in Fine Art at Technological University Dublin. Jones has a forthcoming solo exhibition at IKON
Tessa Giblin is the Director of Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh, where she holds a Personal Chair in Contemporary Curating with Edinburgh College of Art. She has recently curated solo exhibitions of Angelica Mesiti, Emeka Ogboh, Samson Young, Lucy Skaer, David Claerbout and Jesse Jones. She was commissioner and curator of Jesse Jones’ Tremble Tremble for Ireland at the 57th Biennale di Venezia (2017), which has since continued to tour internationally. She is part of the acquisitions committee of the Frac Bretagne 2020–2022, and from 2006–2016 was Curator of Project Arts Centre in Dublin, Ireland.
Melissa MacRobert is Deputy Director at Talbot Rice Gallery. With a focus on project management, artist commissions, research and touring - she has produced exhibitions with Angelica Mesiti, Emeka Ogboh, Samson Young, Myriam Lefkowitz and Lucy Skaer in addition to various major international group exhibitions including
The Normal, Pine’s Eye, Borderlines and
At the Gates. She was co-editor of Emeka Ogboh
Song of the Union (Talbot Rice Gallery, 2021) and has co-ordinated a number of artist publications including Ken Price
A Survey of Sculptures and Drawings (H&W Publishers/DelMonico Prestel, 2017); Guillermo Kuitca (H&W Publishers/Snoeck, 2016); Phyllida Barlow
Fifty Years of Drawings (JRP Ringier, 2014); Takesada Matsutani
A Matrix (JRP Ringier, 2013).
