Reflecting the seismic changes in Ireland's political, social, economic, and cultural realities during the 1990s, contemporary Irish artists have begun to redefine traditional identities, raising questions about the relationships between male and female, urban and rural, North and South, and history and the present. This struggle over identities that used to marginalize Ireland and societies like it has become central to current cultural debates around the globe.

From the Poetic to the Political presents a reading of Irish art of the 1990s and examines the repositioning of Irish identity in works drawn primarily from the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, which opened in 1991. The exhibition brings together works by younger as well as more established artists, some of whom live and work outside Ireland. Their questioning voices have initiated a dialogue within their society and in contexts beyond Ireland, using painting, photography, sculpture, video, and installation to explore subjects ranging from the personal and poetic to the political. They share a basic understanding that the language they use cannot be regarded as an innocent carrier of meaning but must be seen as an integral part of their subject. These concerns-and the way they are conveyed through nontraditional materials and new interpretations of more conventional mediums-link these works to new art being made elsewhere in the world.

The 96-page catalogue, co-published with Merrell Holberton, London, features extensive color illustrations, and includes an analysis of these artists' works by curator Declan McGonagle and a commentary from an American perspective by New York-based critic Kim Levin, plus a portrait of contemporary Ireland by Irish cultural critic Fintan O'Toole. A filmography, selected by the Irish Film Archive at the Film Institute of Ireland, complements the exhibition. McGonagle is the founding director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.