Dumbball: David Ireland and his Circle

Anglim Gilbert Gallery is pleased to present DUMBBALL, an exhibition honoring the work of David Ireland (1930 - 2009) and its influence. The exhibition complements two events: the reopening of the David Ireland House at 500 Capp Street and a solo exhibition David Ireland at the San Francisco Art Institute.
David Ireland’s dumbballs are his signature object formed by passing a lump of concrete from hand to hand (over a period of hours) until a sphere sets up and hardens. An artwork that requires time and repetition (calling into question notions of craft and artist's decision-making), the dumbball is key to David Ireland’s view of creativity. Each dumbball’s creation is a performance that engages the body as much as the mind. The meditative process itself becomes the work. When the work becomes a hardened permanent object the artist’s commitment ends, bringing the piece to completion. Central to the exhibition will be Ireland’s Dumbball Box (1983), a cabinet with an electric light acting as showcase and repository for 36 dumbballs, originally shown with the title “Reliquary”.
David Ireland mounted six solo exhibitions at Gallery Paule Anglim and participated in the gallery’s series dedicated to Bay Area Conceptual Art, SOLID CONCEPT. The Anglim Gilbert Gallery exhibition will feature artworks by contemporaries of David Ireland, conceptual artists whose practices developed on shared and parallel paths: Terry Fox, Tony Labat, Ann Hamilton and Mark Thompson. Artists for whom Ireland was a friend, mentor or source of inspiration will also present works, among them John Beech, Castaneda/Reiman, Rebecca Goldfarb, Gonzalo Hidalgo, Mildred Howard, Gay Outlaw and David Ruddell. The box “500 Capp”, a multiple produced in 1994 containing a dumbball, photos by Abe Frajndlich, a text by John Ashbery and other objects will be a highlight.
The David Ireland House at 500 Capp Street has been painstakingly restored and will reopen to the public this month. The house served multiple purposes as Ireland’s home, studio, gathering place for artists and writers --and an artwork in its own right-- 500 Capp Street became a locus for Bay Area Conceptual Art. The 500 Capp Street Foundation is dedicated to providing access to the artist’s work, related study and public programming.
The San Francisco Art Institute will present David Ireland, a one-person exhibition reprising parts of Ireland’s “Gallery As Place” Adeline Kent Award Exhibition of 1987 at its Walter & McBean Galleries.