Five must-see shows this Dublin Gallery Weekend – The Art Newspaper

A few of Dublin’s greatest art work may be discovered down slim alleyways and in neglected neighbourhoods—becoming for a metropolis outlined by small, unbiased galleries. Based in 2023 by the nascent Up to date Artwork Gallery Affiliation, Dublin Gallery Weekend connects these lesser-known areas, generally unfamiliar even to Dubliners, with the town’s long-established artwork establishments. Working from 6–9 November, the 2025 programme guarantees “daring, experimental and unapologetic” work and options greater than 100 artists throughout 20 venues all through Eire’s capital.

These are The Artwork Newspaper’s picks of the highest exhibits shaping this yr’s outing:

Cecilia Vicuña, Reverse Migration

Irish Museum of Trendy Artwork (IMMA), Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Navy Street, Kilmainham, Dublin, 7 November-5 July 2026

In a homage to a 2006 go to to Eire, throughout which she and her companion honoured historical websites, Cecilia Vicuña’s probing, poetic work examines how ecological collapse and reminiscence work together. It’s half ritual, half emergency broadcast.

Central to her oeuvre are quipus, a knotted system of writing used within the Andes greater than 5,000 years in the past. Vicuña’s observe contains efficiency, portray and set up, mixing the political and private. Aran Quipu (2025), certainly one of her IMMA-specific works, appears to be like at how ancestry and dying are communicated and felt by way of references to Aran Island pattern-weaving traditions with a bone-like set up. “Proper now, as human beings, we’re threatening the potential for the continuity of human life by destroying the ecosystems,” Vicuña tells The Artwork Newspaper, talking from inside her Dublin quipu. “To be in a quipu that’s like being inside bones, to me, is sort of a reminder of who we’re”. Reverse Migration is the primary Irish exhibition for the multi-award-winning artist.

Isabel Nolan, Have a look at the Harlequins! 

Kerlin Gallery, Anne’s Lane, South Anne Avenue, Dublin, till 22 November

Identified for her lush, composed and philosophically charged works throughout portray, textiles and sculpture, Nolan’s Have a look at the Harlequins! takes its title from Vladimir Nabokov’s 1974 novel of the identical title, the place harlequins embody the concept every little thing may be artifice and invention. A lot of the sequence attracts on the late Center Ages and early Renaissance, together with The wolf who made a metropolis tremble c.1216 (After Sassetta) (2023), an intricate wool rug that reimagines Sassetta’s The Wolf of Gubbio (1437–44). Nolan usually attracts out small, neglected particulars from historic artwork to discover how photos, and the meanings we connect to them, change over time. She’s going to characterize Eire on the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026.​

Alan Butler: Belongings

Inexperienced on Crimson, Park Lane, Spencer Dock, Dublin, till 12 December

Digital tradition is a uncooked materials for Alan Butler, who explores how synthetic intelligence, databases and software program transmit that means by repurposing every little thing from computer-graphics to in-jokes and dwell location trackers into playful installations. His self-aware works appear to be Rube Goldberg machines for the information age, however with out cartoonish waste. Belongings typifies his recursive, scenic-route strategy: in Thanatophone (2025), dwell satellite tv for pc knowledge from the world’s hottest locations is transformed into sound and beamed immediately into guests’ heads as they cross, whereas Ghost Mussels (2025) options mussel-like varieties 3D-printed from plastic derived from the ocean creatures themselves. “I’m by no means making an attempt to teach or something like that!” Butler tells The Artwork Newspaper, talking about his dialectically impressed processes, “I’m utilizing these routes of modality to supply art work”.

Kwaidan – Encounters with Lafcadio Hearn

SO Fantastic Artwork Editions, 2nd Ground, Powerscourt Centre, 59 South William Avenue, Dublin, 7-28 November

Faceless shapeshifters and floating goblin heads hang-out works on this group present, through which 20 Japanese and 20 Irish-based artists reply to Kwaidan: Tales and Research of Unusual Issues (1904), a group of ghost tales by Eire-raised author Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), also called Koizumi Yakumo. Mixing Japanese folklore with Western literary type, the guide helped introduce Japan’s ghost story custom to international readers. Among the many responses, Mujina (2025) an ink etching by Yoko Akino, a Japanese-born artist primarily based in Dublin, depicts the same-named legendary sprite that generally takes the type of a wonderful however faceless girl. Akino attracts on the ukiyo-e custom, a mode that flourished in Japan’s Edo interval and was later romanticised within the West by way of Japonisme and influential to the Impressionists. The work is private to Akino who grew up with tales of the shapeshifters. “After I was in main faculty, tales about Mujina, taking the type of people and tricking folks—that was fairly in style. I do know that story fairly effectively,” she tells The Artwork Newspaper.

Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil: Aer Milam

Pallas Tasks, 115-116 The Coombe, The Liberties, Dublin, 7-22 November

Mac Cathmhaoil is understood for his or her daring, experimental observe that satirises energy and questions methods of management, usually utilizing self-built installations as each a medium and message. Merkel Machine (2021), a pair of huge eyes impressed by Angela Merkel’s well-known eye-roll at Vladimir Putin, introduced worldwide consideration. In Aer Milam, they apply a queer and feminist lens to push their commentary into metaphysical territory, combining circuitry, shifting picture and recycled supplies and to discover dying by way of the aesthetics of air journey. Cosmic Runway / Departure Zone (2024) appears to be like like a lit-up night-time runway constituted of LEDs, wires and electronics. The exhibition invitations viewers to think about taking off and attracts hyperlinks between aviation paths and lucid dreaming.

Dublin Gallery Weekend, varied areas, Dublin, 7–9 November