Rachel Thomas Bio

 Rachel Thomas

Welcome to the Rachel Thomas blog. Rachel Thomas is the Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin. Thomas is a Leonardo fellow at Trinity College Dublin, contributor to the MA/MFA Art in the Contemporary World programme at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and the European judge for the Rise Art Prize for young artists. Thomas is a mentor and guest lecturer a Goldsmiths University.

Thomas has curated various exhibitions including solo surveys of Philippe Parreno, BhartiKher, Frank Bowling, Nan Goldin, Pierre Huyghe, Etel Adnan, HélioOiticica, HaroonMirza, TinoSehgal, the American Fluxus and feminist artist Eleanor Antin, Thomas Ruff, Karen Kilimnik, MargheritaManzelli, Willie Doherty, Sophie Calle and Mark Manders. She initiated and organized with Philippe Parreno the seminal group show of post relational aesthetics ‘.all hawaiieNtrées / luNarreGGae’ (2007), artists included Thomas Demand, Liam Gillick, CarstenHöller, RirkritTiravanija. Thomas has introduced a new project strand to IMMA bringing to Ireland solo and group projects and new commissions by young international artists such as Ulla Von Brandenburg, Franz Ackermann, Pierre Huyghe and Thomas Demand and the ground-breaking virtual retrospective with artist Jorge Pardo. Thomas lectured at Frieze Masters – 2018, Frieze Masters to commemorate women’s suffrage in the UK, and achievements of women in art history, with Director Tim Marlowe and artist Doris Salcedo. 

Most recently Thomas has curated the critically acclaimed solo exhibition of ‘MonirShahroudyFarmanfarmaian, Sunset, Sunrise’ (2018)to the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2019.  Critically acclaimed international group shows such asDesire: A Revision from the 20thCentury to the Digital Age, with Director of Tokyo Art Museum, Yuko Hasegawa, artists include; Cao Fei, Justine Emard, ValieExpoer, Seiha Kurosawa, AwolErizku and Yayoi Kusama.‘What We Call Love, from Surrealism to Now’ (2016),  co-curated with the Director of Biennale di Venezia 2017, Christine Macel and included artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marina Abramović, Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Wolfgang Tillmans, Alberto Giacometti, Meret Oppenheim, Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono. Thomas has also re-examined the role of spirituality in ‘As Above, So Below: Portals, Visions, Spirits & Mystics’ (2017), and included artists such as HilmaAfKlint, Bruce Nauman and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Thomas was awarded a Millennium Fellowship to produce papers on global frameworks of contemporary art practice at Tate Britain, London. Thomas  curated the Irish Pavilion, New Territories, ARCO, Madrid.  Learn more about Rachel Thomas here. Follow Rachel Thomas on her social here.