Malcolm-Jamal Warner, The Cosby Show star, dies aged 54
ABC News in the US reported that Warner drowned near Cocles, a beach in Limon, Costa Rica on Sunday.
It is reported that he was on a family holiday at the time of his death.
As a teenager, New Jersey-born Warner became an Emmy nominee for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on The Cosby Show.
His many other screen credits included the series Fame, Malcolm & Eddie, Reed Between the Lines, Community, Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story: Freak Show, Suits, and The Resident.
In 2015, Warner was a Grammy winner in the Best Traditional R&B Performance category for the song Jesus Children alongside Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway.
He also worked as a director, producer, podcaster, and voiceover artist.
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Irish Examiner
3 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Sam Gilliam: IMMA exhibition underlines impact of Irish visits on output of US artist
Sam Gilliam was an American abstract artist who revolutionised the display of work in gallery spaces. Draping unstretched canvases from the ceilings, and arranging industrial fabric on the floor, he blurred the line between painting and sculpture, and helped shape the development of installation art in the 1960s and '70s. Gilliam broke ground also by becoming the first African American artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1972. By the time of his passing, aged 88, in June 2022, he had enjoyed any number of public commissions and major museum shows across the US. Although Gilliam is not as well-known on this side of the Atlantic, he visited Ireland in the early 1990s, and was greatly moved by the experience. His stay is commemorated in Sewing Fields, the new exhibition of his work curated by Mary Cremin and Seán Kissane at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham, Dublin. 'When we first started talking about this exhibition,' says Cremin, 'I met Gilliam's widow, Annie Gawlak. She came to IMMA and told us about how Gilliam had completed a three-week artist's residency at the Ballinglen Art Foundation in County Mayo in 1993. 'Gilliam normally worked on large canvases with petroleum paints, but he wasn't allowed to bring those paints on the plane, so he dyed and painted fabric and sent it on ahead to Ballinaglen. And when he got there, he worked with a local seamstress to collage pieces of the fabric together, so they're kind of stacked on top of each other. You'll see one of those pieces in the exhibition, it's part of a series of four called Cottages. I think the experience was quite transformative for him.' Gilliam was one of the many international artists who have spent time in Ballinaglen with the support of the arts foundation established in the early 1990s by Margo Dolan and the late Peter Maxwell, who owned a prestigious art gallery in Philadelphia. The foundation runs workshops, residencies and fellowships, along with education and outreach programmes and a museum of art. 'It's this amazing place in the middle of the village,' says Cork-born curator Cremin. 'People like Howardena Pindell, who we've shown at IMMA, and Jo Baer, who was very influenced by the archaeology in the area, have all done residencies there. It's very interesting that Ireland has had a real impact on these artists, and a real resonance with them in terms of art making.' Down Patricks-head, by Sam Gilliam. When Cremin began work on the Sewing Fields exhibition, she discovered that Gilliam had once shown in Dublin. 'In the early 1970s, he had a solo exhibition with a gallerist named Oliver Dowling, who passed away just last year. Dowling was a maverick, and quite an influential person within the arts in Ireland. He helped set up the ROSC exhibitions. But it was news both to Annie and to us that Gilliam had ever exhibited in Ireland. We don't think he came over for the opening, but everyone involved is dead now, so it's not possible to say for sure.' Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1933. 'Growing up where he did,' says Cremin, 'where there's a massive cotton industry, he was probably seeing a lot of quilting and that type of making. We have an exhibition of quilts from Gee's Bend in Mississippi on at IMMA at the moment, and we know that Gilliam had several Gee's Bend quilts in his own art collection. There's a correlation between this idea of stitching and layering, telling narratives through the fabrics, that I think is referenced in his work as well.' In Gilliam's youth, his family migrated north. He studied art at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and then settled in Washington DC. 'He was part of the colour field movement, with people like Kenneth Noland. They made minimal abstract paintings. But later on, he made works that were much more three-dimensional, or sculptural, and he started really playing around with the paint, scraping, stitching and layering. There was really a lot of improvisation. 'He was very interested in jazz as well. Improvisation is very important in jazz, of course, but it's also very important to the kind of way he worked. There were no limitations in terms of how he worked with paint or with the canvas. He was very liberated.' Gilliam came of age during the Civil Rights Movement in America. 'That was, very obviously, hugely important to everyone,' says Cremin. 'And for Gilliam, being a black artist coming up at that time was a big deal, because it was predominantly white males in the art world. He wasn't making work that was overtly political, he was making art for art's sake. But that said, he was very involved in the establishment of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and he was part of a very important exhibition called X in America. 'And also, I guess he does engage politically, in that a lot of his paintings are called after significant black figures, like Martin Luther King. There's one piece in the exhibition here called Count On Us, which is this beautiful three-coloured canvas that's referencing when Obama was voted in as president. It was a very aspirational and very exciting time. So, he referenced politics in a different way.' Mary Cremin, curator. Sewing Fields was organised in collaboration with the Sam Gilliam Foundation, which is run by the late artist's family. 'Gilliam was very supportive of young black artists, and his foundation has continued that work,' says Cremin. 'They also collaborate on exhibitions such as this, ensuring that Gilliam's work is shown as he would have liked. Some of the work in Sewing Fields has never been shown before, and some of the technicians who'd been with Gilliam since the 1980s came over to help with the installation. 'It's only two years since Gilliam passed, but I guess it's important for his work to continue to grow, and for people to have an increased awareness around him. In terms of contemporary Ireland, this is not just the first time he's been shown here since the 1970s, it's his first museum show here as well. Many of these works have never been exhibited before, and many people are travelling over from America to see the show. It's really exciting for us.' Gilliam's time in Mayo may have been brief, but the landscape had a big influence on his work, says Cremin. 'Even towards the end of his life, he was making these really large paintings, with thick impasto, he called Downpatrick Head and Irish, County Mayo. As Annie says, he always referenced back to his time in Ireland.' Sam Gilliam, Sewing Fields runs at the Irish Museum of Modern Art until January 25, 2026. Further information:
RTÉ News
3 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Concern over future of planned €300m Wicklow film studio
Concerns have been raised about the future of a €300m film studio planned for Greystones in Co Wicklow because three years after the project was launched, there has been no sign of progress. Locals say there's a lack of information about what's happening to the site, and expressed concern about the €24m of taxpayers money committed to the project. They say if the media campus, which was expected to create 1,500 jobs, is no longer viable, the land should be used for other business purposes. Plans for state of the art studio and production facilities on the 44 acre site were unveiled to much fanfare in 2022, promising to build Ireland's largest tv and film campus, which was to have begun operating in 2024. A consortium called Hackman Capital Partners took a lease on IDA land for the Greystones Media Campus for 999 years at just under €600 a year Louise Gaskin, Chair of the East Wicklow Business Network, says her members are concerned about the lack of progress on the site and the "void" of information about the project. "It would bring a lot of community employment and it would bring for businesses locally, huge economic development. "Lying idle, it's becoming an ugly site, overgrown, just lying there doing nothing. "First of all we were being told it was about the actors strike going on. Then we were told it's commercially sensitive. Then we're getting blanks. "No one's coming back with information. So who has the information? Someone has to know something." Ms Gaskin said that - if there are questions about the viability of the project - she would like to see the lease agreement revoked and the land put to other business use. Since the launch of the Greystones Media Campus three years ago, planning permission has also been granted for a large media campus in South Dublin called Dublin Fields. However, those in the industry say that the facilities at Greystones are still badly needed. Larry Bass, Founder and CEO of ShinAwil Productions, says the lack of studio space in Ireland meant that his company had to build a new studio to film Dancing With the Stars when it returned after Covid-19 lockdowns. He said that, despite global uncertainty and the threat by Donald Trump of tariffs on the industry, Ireland's film industry personnel remain in demand, but the lack of studio space is a barrier to attracting productions here "Apple, Amazon, Netflix, the BBC, the big American networks, these studios will all still, thankfully, be creating new shows. "We're an English language country, we've got a fantastic crew base. "It has evolved from, maybe five or six thousand people working in the industry 20 years ago to over thirty thousand people, highly skilled, highly sought after. "All we need is the raw material, the place, to build. And you know, this has never been a truer statement. If you build it, watch them come." The Department of Finance said that while investment is likely to be on a phased basis, it can't say how much of the €24m committed to the Greystones Media Campus has been spent to date. It also says that the current Minister has not had any engagement on the project from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund or the consortium behind it, Hackman Capital Partners. A spokesman for the consortium said that they will make a statement on the project in the coming months.
Irish Post
7 hours ago
- Irish Post
Sarah Bolger to star in Irish-American crime series from the creator of Narcos
IRISH actress Sarah Bolger is to star in a new Irish-American crime series from Narcos creator Chris Brancato. The Westies is described as a gritty and kinetic crime drama that centres on New York City's infamously violent Irish gang of the same name. According to Variety, 34-year-old Bolger will star as IRA operative Bridget Walsh. She will link up with Oscar winner JK Simmons, who will lead the cast as crime boss Eamonn Sweeney. The new series from MGM+ is set in the early 1980s when the construction of the Jacob Javitz Convention Center on the Westies' home turf in Hell's Kitchen promises a financial windfall. "Despite being outnumbered fifty-to-one by the Five Families of the Italian Mafia, the Westies' legendary brutality and cunning have given them the leverage necessary to share the spoils through a fragile détente," reads the synopsis. "But internal conflict between the brash younger generation and the old-school leadership threatens to set a match to this powder keg, which will sweep the Westies into the FBI's ever-deepening investigation into the Italian mafia." 'Passion project' Bolger rose to fame after starring in Jim Sheridan's 2002 film, In America, and later played Mary Tudor in the BBC series, The Tudors. She also had a main role in the recent Sons of Anarchy spin-off, Mayans MC. Brancato, who will serve as executive producer and showrunner, said the series had been a 'passion project' of his for some time. "This is a story about ambition, loyalty, and power, set against the backdrop of 1980s New York," he added. "I'm grateful to be working again alongside my collaborators Michael Panes (co-creator) and most especially with Michael Wright (Head of MGM+) and the entire MGM+ team." The eight-episode series marks his third collaboration with MGM+ following the success of the critically-acclaimed Godfather of Harlem and the crime thriller Hotel Cocaine. He previously created the Netflix series Narcos and its spin-off Narcos: Mexico. The Westies went into production this month in Toronto, Canada and will premiere on MGM+. See More: Sarah Bolger, The Westies
