DAVID IRELAND: SKELLIG
The catalog stemming from David Ireland’s formative 1993 trip to Skellig Michael. Skellig Michael, or Great Skellig, is the larger of two remote Skellig Islands off the southern coast of Ireland. While surrounded in folklore, the island is best known for the small 6th century monastery that was built along one of the island’s jagged ridges. It is estimated that only 13 monks lived on site at any given time. In the hermetic tradition of Saint Anthony, they withdrew from civilization in hopes of getting closer to God. The monks were forced to leave around the 12th or 13th century due to a rise in harsh weather conditions, though from the austere photos we have seen it’s difficult to imagine the conditions as ever being anything but harsh.
Ireland traveled to Skellig Michael with Jane Levy Reed to research for an exhibition at the Ansel Adams Center for Photography in San Francisco in 1994. Ireland and Reed shared authorship of the images taken while on Skellig, and their show consisted of 36 images of the island, objects in Ireland’s studio, and pages from their travel journals. As Reed wrote in the catalog for the show: “Collaborating with David Ireland on this project has fulfilled a long-time ambition of ours and given our mutual friendship a new dimension. It has also enabled us to cross the traditional lines separating artist and curator, author and editor, participant and observer. By redefining these roles, we have attempted to create an atmosphere in which new kinds of art can flourish”
Edited by Jane Levy Reed
Photographs by David Ireland and Jane Levy Reed
0.5 x 12.2 x 12.2 inches
60 pages
Hardcover with Rivet Binding
ISBN-10: 0933286651
ISBN-13: 978-0933286658
Out of Print