On The Town: An inaugural exhibition, Making Time, was opened in the newly refurbished cowsheds of Dublin's Farmleigh House by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern this week.
"This year marks the 100th anniversary of what is termed Albert Einstein's miraculous year," said Ahern. "It was the year physics was turned on its head."
Making Time, at the new Farmleigh Gallery, is an artistic celebration of the discovery of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, curated by Adrian Kelly from Letterkenny's Glebe Gallery.
Also on view is a retrospective exhibition of the work of French artist Jacques Mandelbrojt, who was at the opening with his daughter, Dr Mireille Sweeney.
In Making Time, a film by Prof Ken McMullen, of the University of the Arts in London, a woman in a cadmium red dress spins a single 100-watt lightbulb. "When she begins this action, she controls the lightbulb. As it picks up momentum, the lightbulb controls her," said McMullen.
Among those at the opening were Patrick Murphy, of the Office of Public Works; Catherine Caughlan, of Whyte's Art Auctioneers; Penny Harris, of TownHouse Publishers; and John Cunningham, of Letterkenny Arts Centre, who curated the Mandelbrojt collection. Cunningham's favourite image by Mandelbrojt is Curved Space. "It represents the way space folds in on itself," Cunningham said.
Others at the opening included Noelle Campbell Sharpe, of the Arts Council; poets Tony Curtis and Anthony Cronin (who was there with his wife, novelist Anne Haverty); Seán Benton, chair of the Office of Public Works; and artist Guy Hundere, of San Antonio, Texas, winner of the inaugural John Hunt Prize.
Making Time and Paintings by Jacques Mandelbrojt run at the Farmleigh Gallery until Mon, Oct 31