More than 5 years in the planning under Thomas's artistic direction, she put together a prestigious curatorial team consisting of Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Okwui Enwezor, Christine Macel, and Gerard Byrne and developed the exhibition theme of: Silence.

The reference was to the fact that while it’s being billed as a huge international event – on the scale of such established exhibitions as Documenta in Germany – virtually nothing concrete has emerged about its substance.

Later estimates say it was closer to around €2.5 million, pointing to the fact that there were 4 international launches, previous commitments to commissions, and several years of planning and organisational costs eating away at the original figures.

Embracing "the elephant in the room" resolutely led us to our tripartite theme: "Terrible Beauty: Art, Crisis, Change & the Office of Non-Compliance".

Yeats' famous phrase at a new global historical watershed underscored for us art's most important contemporary abdication-its inability to seriously engage society's problems during our own postmodern era.

[12] The second part of the exhibition's title, The Office of Non-Compliance, was a collaborative agency within Dublin Contemporary, establishing creative solutions for real or symbolic problems that stretch the bounds of conventional art experience.

The Office of Non-Compliance, located within the Earlsfort Terrace exhibition site, functioned as a promoter of ideas around a laundry list of non-conformist art proposals.

The Royal Hibernian Academy hosted an exhibition of works by American painter Lisa Yuskavage and a new commission by Irish artist James Coleman.

[13] The exhibition included: Alexandre Arrechea, Kader Attia, Nina Berman, Jorge Méndez Blake, Monica Bonvicini, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Fernando Bryce, Ella Burke (Ella de Búrca), Matt Calderwood, Cleary & Connolly (Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly), James Coleman, Amanda Coogan, Willie Doherty, Wang Du, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Omer Fast, mounir fatmi, Hans Peter Feldmann, Kendell Geers, David Godbold, Conor Harrington, Thomas Hirschhorn, Katie Holten, Jaki Irvine, Kysa Johnson, Patrick Jolley, Jim Lambie, Brian Maguire, Richard Mosse, Alice Neel, Manuel Ocampo, Brian O'Doherty, Niamh O'Malley, Dan Perjovschi, William Powhida, Wilfredo Prieto, Guy Richards Smit, Marinella Senatore, Will St Leger, Superflex, Javier Téllez, Vedovamazzei, Corban Walker, Patrick Hamilton and Lisa Yuskavage.

Long went on to praise "Niamh O’Malley’s contemplative black and white film Quarry...: a curiously compelling, slow-moving study of a crumbling limestone landscape".

The event was expected to draw over 150,000 visitors and then Minister for Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan TD believed "Dublin Contemporary 2011 will provide a highlight for cultural tourism in Ireland on a global scale.