ARTnews: 38 Museum Shows and Biennials to See This Summer

“Sam Gilliam: Sewing Fields” at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

While Sam Gilliam is usually classified as one of the primary figures of the Washington, D.C. art scene, this show suggests that Ireland played an equal role in shaping his approach to abstraction. The show is rooted in his residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo during the early 1990s, a period when Gilliam began producing sewn works that hung from the wall. Their undulating surfaces could be seen either as a response to the waves of the nearby Atlantic Ocean or as a means of re-translating his painted “Drape” pieces of the 1960s, some of which will also be featured in this show.