Installation view of Maureen O’Leary “Portraits of Ireland’s Easter Rising Leaders” (NYU’s Kimmel Windows Gallery, March 5, 2022 - June 17, 2022.) Photograph by Elisabeth Bernstein.
In Portraits of Ireland's Easter Rising Leaders, Maureen O'Leary's portraits hang like iridescent bubbles of memory over a three-dimensional set, created by artist and theater designer David L. Arsenault to represent Dublin in the rubble of the uprising. Yet the lack of distinctive landmarks gives the setting a universal quality, mirroring the argument of The Irish Revolution: A Global History, a part of The Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series, that frames the revolution as "an inherently transnational event." As one historian instructs, "No America, No New York, No Easter Rising. Simple as that."
