Issue 3: May – June 2019
The Visual Artists' News Sheet
Inside This Issue A PAINTER’S LIFE: STEPHEN MCKENNA INTERVIEW WITH EVA ROTHSCHILD ART COLLECTIONS IN IRELAND VAI/DCC ART WRITING AWARD 2019
Contents On The Cover ‘A Painters Life: Stephen McKenna (1939–2017)’, installation view; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, copyright and courtesy of VISUAL. First Pages 6. 8.
Roundup. Exhibitions and events from the past two months. News. The latest developments in the arts sector. Collections
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11. 12.
ACNI Collection. Suzanne Lyle discusses the contemporary collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Northern Irish Public Collections. Rob Hilken provides an overview of collections in Northern Ireland. The Niland Collection. Emer McGarry discusses the 60-year evolution of Sligo’s Niland Collection. National Acquisitions. Eamon Maxwell offers insights into the Arts Council of Ireland Collection.
Regional Focus: County Westmeath 14. 15. 16.
Chimera Art Gallery. David O'Shea, Gallery Director. Luan Gallery. Katriona Gillespie, Curator. Situating Practice. Liz Johnson, Visual Artist and Educator. Shambles Art Studios. Ann McGuinness, Co-Founder. If We Were Pheasants. Celine Sheridan, Visual Artist.
How is it Made? 18. 19. 20. 22.
We're Lost in Music. Pádraic E. Moore discusses 'The Last Great Album of the Decade' at the LAB Gallery, Dublin. Constant Ressurection. Dorothy Hunter offers insights into ‘Active Archive – Slow Institution: The Long Goodbye’ at Project Arts Centre. How sweet it is to murmur together. Valerie Connor outlines the Off Site Programme (1998–9) at Project Arts Centre. Asylum Archive. Vukašin Nedeljković discusses the Asylum Archive.
Profile 23. 24.
6 Seville Place. Aidan Kelly Murphy speaks to a group of artists who have created a temporary studio space in north inner-city Dublin. A Painter's Life. Christina Mullan on Stephen McKenna at VISUAL.
Introduction WELCOME to the May – June 2019 issue of the Visual Artists’ News Sheet.
This issue includes a brief focus on prominent national art collections. Discussing the 60-year evolution of the Niland Collection, Emer McGarry, Director of The Model, highlights collecting and ‘keeping’ as active investments in building ‘living repositories’ of thoughts and ideas. As the Arts Council of Northern Ireland launches its new Art Lending Scheme, Suzanne Lyle, Head of Visual Arts, discusses their contemporary collection. Similarly, Eamon Maxwell offers insights into the evolution of the Arts Council of Ireland Collection, which was established in 1962. VAI NI Manager, Rob Hilken provides an overview of art collections in Northern Ireland. Several feature articles focus on recent or ongoing archival projects. Val Connor and Dorothy Hunter offer insights into ‘The Long Goodbye’ – an exhibition focusing on the late 1990s as a pivotal stage in the 50-year history of Project Arts Centre. In a similar recollective vein, Christina Mullan profiles the Stephen McKenna retrospective, currently showing at VISUAL Carlow, while Pádraic E. Moore discusses the cultural nostalgia underpinning ‘The Last Great Album of the Decade’, a group exhibition at The LAB Gallery, Dublin. In addition, Vukašin Nedeljković discusses his ongoing project, Asylum Archive, which documents Ireland’s Direct Provision system. We are delighted to publish a review by Lily Cahill, winner of the VAI/DCC Art Writing
Rock the Casbah. Lily Cahill reviews Michelle Doyle’s exhibition at A4 Sounds.
Residency 31.
Footwork. Artist Karen Hendy reflects on her recent residency at Siamsa Tíre.
Last Pages 32. 34. 35.
Public Art Roundup. Art outside of the gallery. Opportunities. Grants, awards, open calls and commissions. VAI Professional Development. Upcoming VAI workshops.
As ever, we have details of the upcoming VAI Professional Development Programme, exhibition and public art roundups, news from the sector and current opportunities.
CEO/Director: Noel Kelly Office Manager: Bernadette Beecher Northern Ireland Manager: Rob Hilken Communications Officer: Shelly McDonnell Membership Officer: Siobhan Mooney Publications: Joanne Laws, Christopher Steenson Professional Development Officer: Monica Flynn Opportunities Listings: Shelly McDonnell Exhibition Listings: Christopher Steenson Bookkeeping: Dina Mulchrone
The Shrinking Universe. Jonathan Carroll interviews Eva Rothschild about representing Ireland at the 58th Venice Biennale.
Permission To Be Puzzled (And To Think). Julia Moustacchi discusses the benefits of Visual Thinking Strategies for Irish galleries. A Shared Sense of Purpose. Denis Farrell describes the evolution of the Lodestar School of Art.
Reviewed in the Critique section are: Sam Reveles at Butler Gallery; Anita Groener at The Dock; Geraldine O’Sullivan at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre; Walker and Walker at IMMA; and ‘MAKing Art: The PAINTing Exhibition’ at Draíocht.
Visual Artists Ireland:
Board of Directors: Michael Corrigan (Acting Chair), Michael Fitzpatrick, Richard Forrest, Paul Moore, Mary-Ruth Walsh, Cliodhna Ní Anluain
Art Education 30.
The Regional Focus for this issue comes from County Westmeath, with profiles from Luan Gallery, Chimera Art Gallery, Shambles Art Studios. Westmeath-based artists Celine Sheridan and Liz Johnson discuss their recent work.
Features Editor: Joanne Laws Production Editor/Design: Christopher Steenson News/Opportunities: Shelly McDonnell, Siobhan Mooney
Art Writing Award 28.
In other feature articles, artist Karen Hendy reflects on her recent residency at Siamsa Tíre, while Aidan Kelly Murphy speaks to a group of artists who have created a temporary studio space in north inner-city Dublin. Julia Moustacchi discusses the benefits of Visual Thinking Strategies for Irish galleries, while Denis Farrell describes the evolution of Lodestar School of Art, an alternative summer residency in Glenstal Abbey.
The Visual Artists' News Sheet:
Biennial 26.
Award 2019, which offers vibrant reflections on Michelle Doyle’s exhibition, ‘Obedient City’ (13 – 23 September 2017), at A4 Sounds Gallery, Dublin. Also in this issue, Jonathan Carroll speaks to artist Eva Rothschild, who will represent Ireland at the 58th International Venice Biennale (11 May – 24 November 2019).
Republic of Ireland Office
Northern Ireland Office
Visual Artists Ireland Windmill View House 4 Oliver Bond Street Merchants Quay, Dublin 8 T: +353 (0)1 672 9488 E: info@visualartists.ie W: visualaritsts.ie
Visual Artists Ireland 109 Royal Avenue Belfast BT1 1FF T: +44 (0)28 958 70361 E: info@visualartists-ni.org W: visualartists-ni.org
Principle Funders
Project Funders
Corporate Sponsors
Project Partners
Critique Supplement i. Cover Image: Anita Groener, The Past is a Foreign Country, 2019. ii. Walker and Walker at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. iii. Anita Groener at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon. iii. Sam Reveles at Butler Gallery, Kilkenny. iv. 'MAKing Art: The PAINTing Exhibition' at Dráiocht, Blachardstown. iv. Geraldine O'Sullivan at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen.
International Memberships
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Roundup
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS FROM THE PAST TWO MONTHS
Dublin
Belfast
A4 SOUNDS
The TORCH collective presented ‘Exploring trauma and resilience’, an exhibition of visual art on themes of survivorship, healing, sexuality and gender. Held in A4 Sounds, the exhibit featured the work of 13 Irish artists. The opening night (11 Apr) began with a free reception, speaker’s panel and release of the second issue of the TORCH zine. On 13 Apr, a series of workshops on sexual health and consent, organised by the TORCH collective also took place. The exhibition ran from 11 to17 Apr 2019.
HUGH LANE
Currently on show at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane is a solo exhibition, ‘Our Plundered Planet’, by American artist Mark Dion. The exhibition functions as a commentary on humankind’s affects on the natural environment. Through playfulness and humour, Dion forces his viewers to question their responsibility for the natural world’s deterioration. The exhibition opening coincided with the EuroMAB 2019 conference on biospheres, which was held in Dublin on 5 Apr. ‘Our Plundered Planet’ continues until 1 Sept.
a4sounds.org
IMMA
The group exhibition, ‘A Vague Anxiety’ (12 Apr to 18 Aug), features emerging Irish and international artists whose work reflects the concerns and anxieties of ‘Generation Y’. Combining traditional mediums – such as painting, photography and sculpture – with installation, social media, performance, workshops and dance, the exhibition seeks to highlight various tensions within contemporary society. The works presented explore pressing political issues – such as increasing anxiety over borders, housing and the environment – as well as contemporary personal issues.
‘Sirens’ (15 to 30 Mar) was an exhibition by performance artist Celina Muldoon, which took place as part of the second iteration of the ‘Artist-Initiated Projects’ programme at Pallas Project/Studios. ‘Sirens’ was used a testing bed for collaboration between Muldoon, writer Sue Rainsford and musician Keith Mannion. Together, they explored the use of language and sound in response to Muldoon’s project Fomorian. Two live performances took place as on as part of the opening and closing events for the exhibition on the 14 and 30 Mar. pallasprojects.org
Richard Canning is a recent MFA graduate from Belfast School of Art and the inaugural recipient of Atypical Gallery Graduate Award. ‘The Space Between’ was Canning’s recent exhibition at Atypical Gallery, which ran from 1 to 26 Apr. According to the press release, the work is an expansion of the work Canning completed as part of his end of year show, which explores “inconsistencies of construction and deconstruction”. The exhibition featured four wall drawings depicting places in a process of destruction and disappearance.
hughlane.ie
MOLESWORTH GALLERY
Helen G. Blake’s second solo exhibition at Molesworth Gallery, Dublin, took place from 8 Mar to 10 Apr. The exhibition comprised a number of works recently created by the artist. These paintings demonstrate a continuation of Blake’s identifying style, whereby colour and rhythm are combined to create formalist, pattern-based works on both small and medium-sized canvases. Although conforming to straight-line geometries, these paintings find room to breathe through the use of hand-made gestures and chance methods.
imma.ie
PALLAS PROJECTS/STUDIOS
ATYPICAL GALLERY
The RHA recently presented a solo exhibition of photographs created by Dublin-based photographer, DJ and music label manager Eamonn Doyle. The exhibition, which ran from 15 Mar to 22 Apr, showcased works taken from Doyle’s ‘Dublin triology’, comprising the books i, ON and End. Also featured were works from his new publication, K, which was made in the west of Ireland and Spain. Doyle’s new photo book, Made in Dublin, was also launched during the exhibition’s run. rhagallery.ie
Frances Hegarty & Andrew Stone, ‘The Land That...’, installation view, The MAC, Belfast; photograph by Paul Marshall; courtesy of the artists and The MAC
‘To Imagine What Cares’ (25 to 30 Mar) was a recent a solo exhibition by Joey O’Gorman, which took place at Framewerk, Belfast, as part of the Imagine Festival of Ideas and Politics programme of events. For this exhibition, O’Gorman focused on ways in which “humans interact with the non-human”. Using a series of diagrams and by drawing on ideas taken from ecological theory, philosophy and radical geographies, the artist explored the predicaments of twenty-first century eco-politics in the face of increasing accelerationism and authoritarianism.
universityofatypical.org
THE MAC
Currently showing at The MAC are two concurrent exhibitions by Frances Hegarty & Andrew Stones and Christopher James Burns. ‘The Land That…’ by Hegarty & Stones showcases the artists’ engagement with a ten-acre plot of land in Donegal over a five-year period, culminating in immersive video and mixed-media installations. Burns’s exhibition of sculptural work, ‘Limbo Land’, explores complex themes of memory, place, identity and liminality through visual codes and iconography. Both exhibitions run until 7 Jul.
molesworthgallery.com
RHA
FRAMEWERK
framewerkbelfast.com
PLATFORM ARTS
‘Distortion May Vary’ was a joint exhibition between by Germany-based artist Elise Beutner and Daniel Rode, which ran at Platform Arts from 7 to 30 Mar. ‘Distortion May Vary’ explore the oppositional aesthetic dynamics of text-based and moving image-based works and how these mediums use differing techniques to produce distorted perceptions of the world around us. The exhibition was supported by Amt für kultur und Denkmalschutz Dresden and Institut für Auslandbeziehungen.
themaclive.com
PS2
Lithuanian artist Ieva Rojūtė’s exhibition ‘THIS IS LIFE AND NOT A FANTASY’ was created during a one-week stay at PS2. The project engaged with Lithuanian culture in Belfast and the looming consequences of the Brexit vote on this community. The artist’s work mixes street graffiti and gallery art by spray-painting texts onto different surfaces, such as wooden boards and floating fabrics. The opening night of the exhibition on 14 Mar featured a sound performance by Jokūbas Čižikas. The exhibition was supported by Lithuanian Culture Institute and ran until 6 Apr. pssquared.org
platformartsbelfast.com
ULSTER UNIVERSITY
Rita Duffy’s exhibition, ‘The Souvenir Shop’, ran at the Ulster University Gallery from 25 Mar to 6 Apr. Initially commissioned as part of Ireland’s 1916 commemorations, ‘The Souvenir Shop’ explores the “nuances of Irish life” by transforming ordinary domestic objects into works of art. Significant historical and political events are represented to the viewer as everyday commodities, such as tinned food, blankets or pharmacy products. These object tie together essential human needs alongside the cultural diversity of our society. ulster.ac.uk
Richard Canning, ‘The Space Between’, installation view, Atypical Gallery, Belfast; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist and University of Atypical
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Roundup
Natalie Daoust, Amusement Park, courtesy of the artist and Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar
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Julia Pallone, 'The Hawk and the House', installation view, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen; photograph by Tomasz Madajaczak, courtesy of the artist and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
Regional & International
126 ARTIST-RUN GALLERY
Meadhbh McNutt’s ‘Idolum’ ran from 16 to 24 Mar at 126 Artist-Run Gallery, Galway. The exhibition functioned as a showcase of the work McNutt completed during her participation in the 126 ‘Unset in Stone’ residency programme. Through the use of text and photographic works, McNutt explores the human fascination with idols and the uses of ceremonial or commemorative objects. The artist investigates these impulses by drawing through the gaze of her home in County Donegal, focusing on the rural Irish youth culture in this area.
ALAN CRISTEA GALLERY, LONDON
‘Protest and Remembrance’ (28 Feb to 30 Mar) was a group exhibition held in the Alan Cristea Gallery, London, which used drawings to visually examine the principles of protesting and remembrance and the topic of visibility in memorials. The exhibition provided varying artistic insights into different visual forms of resistance and remembrance, including political demonstration, war, burial sites and lost industry. Artists featured in the exhibition included Miriam de Búrca, Mary Griffiths, Barbara Walker and Irish artistJoy Gerrard.
126gallery.com
KAMERA 8
Kilkenny-based artist Bernadette Kiely exhibited new work at KAMERA 8 gallery in Wexford from 21 Mar – 13 Apr. Titled '…tell me about your mother…(feat. The Two Travellers)', the exhibition presented an intimate collection of drawings, paintings, photographs and poetry, as well as various reference objects, to reflect on the life and recent passing of her mother, Maisie. As a poignant meditation on time and grief, and a celebration of life, the exhibition was “strongly rooted in the artist’s sense of place” and the evocative memories held within these familiar landscapes.
London-based Irish artist Denis Buckley carried out a durational art intervention, titled ‘The Erased Heads of Europe’, from 25 to 29 Mar. Leading up to the anticipated Brexit deadline on 29 Mar, Buckley painted a mural depicting the 11 founders of the European Union on the side of the Mermaid Arts Centre building. The artist felt this action would suitably mark the end of a chapter in European history. Buckley then systematically painted over the mural, thus returning the wall to its original state before the Brexit deadline. mermaidartscentre.ie
‘Plastic Imprints’ was the third solo exhibition by Clare-based artist and educator Evelyn Sorohan. The theme of this exhibition focused on the use of plastics in modern society. Despite plastic’s brilliant versatility as a material, there is increasing evidence demonstrating the damaging effects that plastics have on the world’s natural ecosystem. It is this dichotomy between fascination and abhorrence, which Sorohan wishes to express in her plastic collage-based works. The exhibition ran at Clare County Museum from 3 to 24 Apr.
alancristea.com
LIMERICK CITY GALLERY OF ART
‘Crystalline: Hidden Monuments’ (1 Feb to 17 Mar) was a solo exhibition by Siobhan McDonald on display in the Limerick City Gallery of Art that addressed Bronze Age structures and earthworks in a fragile and changing landscape. McDonald’s work combines contemporary technology of radiocarbon dating with prehistoric materials, like charcoal and bone char, to re-contextualise prehistoric structures into the current climate. The exhibition was a timely display of the artist’s growing and interconnected body of work.
kamera8.com
MERMAID ARTS CENTRE
CLARE COUNTY MUSEUM
gallery.limerick.ie
SIGNAL ARTS CENTRE
From 1 to 14 Apr, Signal Arts Centre in Bray held the 19th annual exhibition by members of the Signal Arts Society – an organisation that is affiliated with the arts centre. Formed in 2001, the society consists of artists working across many different media and diverse forms of arts practice. Membership to the Society is not exclusive to artists – anybody with an interest in the arts can join. The society offers a range of facilities and discounts to members. For more information, visit the Signal Arts Centre website. signalartscentre.ie
JUST ART IT
‘Permission’ is a collaborative project between Notes to Self author Emile Pine and Engage Art Studios. Engage invited Pine to present its artists with a short excerpt from one of her essays, which the artists then responded to. The exhibition ran from 6 to 26 Apr at Just Art It, Galway, and featured artworks from 19 artists. The exhibition was part of this year’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature. An informal public discussion between the author and the participating studio artists also took place on 13 Apr.
clarelibrary.ie
LINENHALL ARTS CENTRE
Photographer Natalie Daoust’s solo exhibition, ‘Korean Dreams’, runs at Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, until 11 May. Daoust intentionally manipulates her photographs during the development process, so that the images become blurred and partially destroyed, resulting in recorded facts becoming lost. As such, the works remark on the controlling nature of the North Korean government and how the truth is concealed from its citizens. As with much of Daoust’s work, these photographs point to ideas of both fantasy and escapism.
engageartstudios.com
LISMORE CASTLE ARTS
Carol Anne Connolly ‘s latest exhibition, ‘Pattern Landscape’ (15 to 17 Mar), is a collection of work co-created by the people of Lismore community alongside the artist. The exhibition was presented as part of ‘A Space for Lismore’, a project run by Lismore Castle Arts. Connolly uses a wide range of media to create work related to “one’s place in society” and site-specific community intervention. ‘Pattern Landscape’ observes the connections between design and nature, focusing on the area of Lismore as a source of inspiration.
thelinenhall.com
UILLINN: WEST CORK ARTS CENTRE
Anne Ffrench and Julia Pallone’s two-person exhibition, titled ‘The Hawk and The House’, ran from 9 Mar to 10 April at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre. The exhibition – which featured photography, video, sculpture, drawing and installation – thematically explored temporal, geographic and symbolic “notions of passage”, as well as archetypes from the “collective unconscious” and connections to the “primordial self ”. These distinct bodies of work shown were developed by Ffrench and Pallone during their joint residency in Uillinn over the past two years. westcorkartscentre.com
lismorecastlearts.ie
VOID
The group exhibition, ‘Opened Ground’ (9 Feb to 29 Mar), at VOID, Derry, featured works by Irish artist Willie Doherty, Chechen artist Aslan Gaisumov and New Delhi-based filmmaker Amar Kanwar. Taking its title from a collection of poems by Seamus Heaney, the timely exhibition allowed for reflection on the contentious presence of borders and the complex narrative of land ownership in local, national and international contexts. Each artist used their unique relationship with the depicted landscape to represent the lived experience of borders. derryvoid.com
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News
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
THE LATEST FROM THE ARTS SECTOR
General News
ACNI FUNDING CUTS
On 4 April, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) announced annual funding of £12.8 million for 97 key arts organisations from its exchequer and National Lottery resources. The ACNI’s Annual Funding Programme (AFP) is the most significant allocation of public funding for the arts in Northern Ireland each year. The ACNI’s budget from the Department for Communities has remained the same for 2019/20, however the National lottery income (which supports programming costs for AFP) was subject to a 4.5% reduction on last year, meaning that the number of arts organisations supported by AFP in 2019/20 was reduced from 102 to 97. The Arts Council Chair, John Edmund, commented: “It is with regret that we had to refuse AFP 2019 funding to five current AFP clients. [They] will be given three months funding to help them transition out of AFP funding while they consider other grant application streams.” Among the five organisations whose annual funding was withdrawn, are the Belfast-based architecture charity, Planning Landscape Architecture Community Environment (PLACE). Established 15 years ago, PLACE runs a programme of tours, talks, exhibitions and festivals on the arts, architecture and the built environment, while also working extensively with community groups and public bodies, to advise on urban planning in Northern Ireland. PLACE were also a major partner for Visual Artists Ireland in delivering their Belfast Open Studios programme in 2019, alongside the Open House Belfast festival. ACNI was the main source of income for PLACE, covering the running costs of their city-centre office and three full-time staff. The other four arts organisations who received 100% cuts are: New Lodge Arts, Voluntary Arts Network (for Voluntary Arts Ireland), Youth Action Northern Ireland and Terra Nova Productions. On top of this, other visual arts organisations this year were allocated siginificant reductions to their overall funding allocations, such as Millennium Court Arts Centre, who received an overall cut of 24%. Nevertheless, other organisations, received increases to their overall funding, such as Black Box Trust, who were given an overall increase in funding of 19.5%, thus reinstating their 2017/18 funding levels, following last year’s cuts.
TBG+S PROGRAMME CURATOR
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios have recently announced Michael Hill as their new Programme Curator. Michael Hill is a curator and independent publisher who has held key roles in Ireland’s leading public and private contemporary art galleries, including Douglas Hyde Gallery (2009– 2017) and mother’s tankstation (2017–2018). Hill has been the Interim Programme Curator at TBG+S for the last five months, after taking over from the gallery’s previous Programme Curator Rayne Booth. During this time, he has played an integral role in planning and installing a number of significant exhibitions at TBG+S, as well as making a significant contribution to the gallery’s programme of public events. His first curated exhibition will be a solo show by Finnish artist Pilvi Takala, which will open in July this year.
GOLDEN FLEECE AWARDS 2019
Nuala O’Donovan (ceramics) and Marcel Vidal (installation and painting) have been awarded €12,000 each at this year’s Golden Fleece Awards. The winners were announced at a ceremony at the RHA in Dublin at the beginning of April. Two additional ‘special awards’ of €3,000 were made to the other shortlisted artists, Sara Flynn (ceramics and bronze forms) and Dragana Jurišić (photography). Over 170 artists applied for this year’s award. Each applicant was asked outline how they would use their prize funds, should they win. A common theme that emerged through the application process was that artists required a stable studio space in order to make work, while others cited that they needed extra funding so they could “buy time”, in order to work on their projects, instead of working others jobs to cover day-to-day expenses. Nuala O’Donovan stated that she would be using the award to build a permanent studio space attached to her home. She stated that while working as an artist over the past 10 years, she has had to move studios approximately every two years. She stated that each relocation costs her a significant amount of money, as she has to pay electricians and plumbers to install the equipment necessary to make her ceramic works. Marcel Vidal stated that the award would allow him to work full-time on new projects, including an exhibition in the RHA’s Ashford Gallery in 2020. Vidal also mentioned that he would be using the award to diversify the materials and techniques he uses to create his work. The advisory panel for this year’s award included: Patrick T. Murphy (Director of RHA); painter Eoin Mac Lochlainn; Anne Mulrooney (Director of The Science Gallery); jewellery designer and NCAD academic Angela O’Kelly; and graphic artist Robert Russell.
TULCA 2019 CURATOR ANNOUNCED
Kerry Guinan has been appointed curator of the 17th edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019. Guinan is an artist, researcher and curator based between Limerick and Dublin, whose artistic practice is concerned with the sociological function of art in contemporary life. Her works consist of social interventions, both within and outside the gallery, in a range of private and public spaces. Her most recent public project, Presenting the Cultural Quarter (2017), led to an “artistic confrontation” with an Garda Síochána after she circulated fake information about new entry fees for the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. Guinan received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Bursary Award in 2018. The theme for this year’s TUCLA is ‘Tactical Magic’, which will seek to “identify the links between art and magical practice”, while taking inspiration from the “resilient magical customs from the West of Ireland”. The theme for the festival also intends to position itself against the newly secularised Ireland, which is increasingly losing touch with its magical traditions and beliefs. The festival programme will therefore seek to find magic in the “contemporary everyday”. The open call for TULCA 2019 closes on 6 May. For more information and to submit an application, visit tulca.ie.
REEL ART AWARD WINNERS
CCI 2019–20 ARTIST RESIDENCIES
EVA PLATFORMS COMMISSIONS
LOCAL AUTHORITY CENTENARY FUNDING
IMMA 1000 RESIDENCIES
IRISH ARTS CENTRE TO OPEN IN LA, USA
The Arts Council has announced that Vivienne Dick and Ciara Nic Chormaic are the successful recipients of the 2018 Reel Art Awards – the Arts Council’s long-running creative arts documentary scheme. Vivienne Dick’s film, titled New York Our Time, will function as a reflection on the concerns of the present day, in contrast to the “bohemian wildness” of ‘70s New York ‘No Wave’ scene. The documentary will feature contributions from the director, as well as offerings from her friends – such as Lydia Lunch, Nan Goldin and Alexis Adler. Ciara Nic Chormaic’s film, Skin+Soul, will be a cinematic meditation on fashion photography, seen through the lens of photographer Perry Ogden. The two successful films will premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival in February 2020.
EVA International has recently announced the recipients of the Platform Commissions – a new initiative that focuses on the commissioning of ambitious and impactful projects by artists based in Ireland. The selected artists are Laura Fitzgerald, Áine McBride, Emily McFarland, Eimear Walshe, Cathal McCarthy and Fiona Woods. The artists will develop a series of new projects to be presented next year, as part of the broader biennale programme. These projects will address issues such as environmentalism, land use and housing activism, whilst also tapping into the biennial’s thematic of ‘The Golden Vein’. The 39th EVA International will take place in Limerick from 4 September to 15 November 2020. The successful proposals for the these comimissions were selected by Merve Elveren and Anne Tellentire, chaired by EVA Director Matt Packer.
The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, have recently announced the latest contingent of artists selected to take part in the IMMA 1000 Residency Programme. The 2019 awardees are: Emma-Wolf Haugh, Sibyl Montague and Katie Watchorn. The awardees were selected by an invited panel of arts professionals, consisting of Zoe Gray (Senior Curator, Wiels, Belgium), Niamh O’Malley (Residency Alumni) and Sean Kissane (IMMA Curator). The IMMA 1000 Residencies aims to “expand, complement or challenge artistic development” of its artists. The selected artists will get the opportunity to live on the grounds of IMMA over a six-month period, whilst having access to a generous workspace for developing new work. The value of the residency per month and per artists is estimated at €3,000, making it one of the most substantial residency awards in the country. Details of a new IMMA 1000 open-call will be announced in April, for a photographer or visual artist working with photography to undertake three residency experiences through one single award. This award will be in partnership with the Light Work photography organisation in Syracuse, New York. For more details, see the IMMA website (imma.ie).
The Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI), Paris, has recently announced a list of 36 artists, working across film, literature, music, performing arts and visual arts, who will take up residencies at CCI for the 2019–20 period. The artists awarded residencies under the visual arts category are: Ailbhe Barrett (in association with Graphic Print Studio), John Beattie, Alan Butler, Kevin Callaghan (in association with Design & Crafts Council of Ireland), Teresa Dillon, Joy Gerrard, Shane Lynam (in association with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council), Anna Macleod, Deirdre O’Mahony (in association with Kilkenny Arts Office) and MaryRuth Walsh. The Visual Artists Ireland and Suki Tea Award for this year has been awarded to the Galway-based painter Cecilia Danell.
The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan T.D., has announced a funding allocation of €10,000 for every local authority in 2019. The funding is designed to support each Local Authority’s role in developing commemorative activities at county level under the Community Strand of the Decade of Centenaries programme. It is intended that this collaborative approach between the State, Local Authority networks and community organisations will provide a supportive structure to ensure that the significant and often deeply personal events that occurred between 1919 and 1923 are remembered in a respectful, inclusive and balanced manner. This approach recognises the need to be sensitive to local historical context and is intended to facilitate engagement from all traditions and communities.
The Contemporary Irish Arts Centre (CIACLA) opens at Bergmaton Station, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, USA, on 15 June. The CIACLA is a new non-profit arts centre dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Irish art in Los Angeles, encompassing visual art, film, dance, theatre, performance, literature and music. The directors of MART Gallery and Studios, Matthew Nevin and Ciara Scanlan, have founded the centre, which officially opens with a site-specific exhibition, titled ‘The Ladder is Always There’, by the performance artist Amanda Coogan. The Irish Government’s Emigrant Support Programme and Culture Ireland are supporting the CIACLA. The centre has also partnered with a number of Irish arts organisations, including First Music Contact, Irish Theatre Institute, Irish Screen America, Dance Ireland and the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland. A programme of exhibitions, events, talks and screenings will take place at the CIACLA throughout the summer months. The CIACLA does not currently have a permanent location but will be working towards this in time for 2020. Those interested in supporting the CIACLA can do so by becoming a member of the oganisation. For more information on the full programme and CIACLA membership, visit their website: ciacla.com.
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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Collections
ACNI Collection
Northern Irish Public Collections
AS THE ARTS COUNCIL OF NORTHERN IRELAND LAUNCHES ITS NEW ART LENDING SCHEME, SUZANNE LYLE, HEAD OF VISUAL ARTS, DISCUSSES THEIR CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION.
ROB HILKEN PROVIDES AN OVERVIEW OF COLLECTIONS IN NORTHERN IRELAND.
THE ARTS COUNCIL of Northern Ireland
(ACNI) began collecting art in the 1940s. Between 1945 and 1999, we purchased contemporary art, primarily from artists living in Northern Ireland. Following a fundamental review of our collecting policy in 1999, we decided – due to increasing costs, conservation and storage issues – to gift our collection (of some 1,119 works) to registered museums in Northern Ireland. The works were gifted, rather than sold on the open market, because gifting ensured the long-term care of artworks, while enabling regional museums, which often do not have acquisition budgets for art, to acquire works by artists working locally. Several of the museums have since introduced programmes, which have encouraged greater public engagement with these works. The review of our collecting policy nevertheless recommended that continuing to purchase works of art was a good use of public money, for many reasons, and we began purchasing again in 2002. Collecting work enables us to: support individual artists; contribute to the development of visual arts practice in Northern Ireland; educate our young people about their visual arts heritage; develop a culture in which visual art is respected and appreciated; ensure that contemporary visual arts are showcased; stimulate the art market in Northern Ireland; and build a coherent collection of art from Northern Ireland for future generations to enjoy. For the artist, having work in a major public collection can really help to raise their professional profile. It is an important institutional endorsement that can open doors to new opportunities with other collectors and galleries. It is perhaps equally as valuable as direct funding or exhibition opportunities and it has a long-term value on an artist’s CV. We acquire works in a number of ways. We view work in exhibitions, approach artists directly, hold open-submissions and visit commercial galleries in pursuit of work. We do not, however, purchase through auctions, for reasons to do with how public money is permitted to be spent. An Acquisitions Panel – made up of staff and board members – makes the final decisions on which works should be acquired. To qualify, artists must have been living in Northern Ireland for 12 months before the date of purchase of work and must have made a recognised contribution to artistic activities in Northern Ireland. Artists from Northern Ireland who are living elsewhere will also be considered. Artists not from Northern Ireland whose work is of particular relevance to Northern Ireland will be considered in exceptional circumstances. Priority is given to artists whose work is both challenging and innovative. The ACNI Collection contains work in a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, textiles, ceramics, silverwork, mixed-media, digital art, moving image work and animation. We have acquired
work by both emerging and established artists working in, or originating from, Northern Ireland. Many of the artists represented in the collection have major national and international reputations – such as Willie Doherty, Cara Murphy, Colin Davidson and Mark Francis, amongst many others. You can see the full list of works in our collection on our website, artscouncil-ni.org. Our aim for the collection is to exhibit as much of it as we can and as widely as possible. That ranges from loans of full exhibitions, to placing a single piece with an organisation for a time, perhaps as a talking point to increase awareness of contemporary art. We have lent out some 250 pieces in the last five years. We are in the fortunate position that we can lend to organisations and venues that are perhaps less traditional than white cube gallery spaces, so we can make it easier for a wider public to access the works. Libraries, for example, have been keen to exhibit works in their spaces over the years and that brings the potential of significant new audiences for the work. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has recently been promoting our Art Lending Scheme to curators, museums and galleries locally, nationally and internationally. This new scheme was recently announced at the Museums Association Conference in Belfast, in the hope that we could interest curators at museums and galleries in the UK and Ireland. We are also working more closely with schools in Northern Ireland, to share really good contemporary art from our collection with children, in an environment that is familiar to them. To this end, in April we launched a new Art Lending Scheme for Schools, and we are involving artists directly in that process, through associated talks and presentations. As part of our Art Lending Scheme, a selection of photographic works from the ACNI Collection was recently shown at the Belfast Exposed gallery. The group exhibition, titled ‘Curating the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’ (25 January – 16 March), was curated by Deirdre Robb and contained works by 20 emerging and established artists from Northern Ireland, including Paul Seawright, Donavan Wylie and Susan MacWilliam. Also featured were video works from Mairead McClean, Adrian O’Connell and Angela Halliday. Further information on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Art Lending Scheme, can be found on our website.
Dr Suzanne Lyle is Head of Visual Arts at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. artscouncil-ni.org/collection
NATIONAL MUSEUMS NI maintains the largest public collection of art in Northern Ireland.1 Containing over 15,000 works, the collection includes fine and applied artworks of national and international significance. There are works by British and Irish artists going back to the seventeenth century, while works by contemporary artists continue to be collected. British and international post-war art is at the core of the Ulster Museum painting collection, which includes notable works from J. M. W. Turner, Francis Bacon and Bridget Riley. There are both permanent and temporary exhibitions of works from the collection on display at the Ulster Museum throughout the year. The museum is currently showing a major new video work, Left Right and Centre (2018), by Cornelia Parker. It is a recent acquisition to their New Media collection which also features work by Willie Doherty, Mary McIntyre and Martin Parr. National Museums NI continues to collect, and work has recently been acquired as gifts from artists and the public, through the Friends of the Ulster Museum, with help from the Art Fund, through Heritage Lottery grants and from HMRC’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme. The biggest collection of Northern Irish art outside of Ireland is housed in Wolverhampton Art Gallery in the UK. It was originally developed from a broader interest in political art, as well as the gallery’s existing collection of British and American Pop Art. Curator Brendan Flynn established the collection in the 1980s with support from the Contemporary Art Society and their Special Collection Scheme. Marguerite Nugent took over responsibility for building the collection and made significant acquisitions in 2008, through a Collecting Cultures grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. This time there was a particular emphasis on work reflecting Peace and Reconciliation. Wolverhampton has recently shifted their main collecting focus towards Black Art, although are still interested in acquiring work by Northern Irish artists. In 2014 Wolverhampton Art Gallery collaborated with the Ulster Museum and the Imperial War Museum (who also hold a large collection of works related to The Troubles) to create the landmark exhibition, ‘The Art of the Troubles’, held at the Ulster Museum. The Diploma Collection of the Royal Ulster Academy boasts 184 works, of which several – including James Lawson Balfour’s self-portrait – were presented to the academy during their antecedent period as the Belfast Art Society. The collection comprises work that members donate as they are inaugurated into the academy. The majority of collection are paintings and works on paper, although sculpture and photography assert a small but welcome presence. It is available to view in its entirety by appointment at their offices in Belfast City Centre, and the current administration is exploring new ways to make the work more accessible. Queen’s University Belfast has a collection of over 200 works but is best known for the permanent collection of 53 portraits that hangs in the
Great Hall. For many years there was only one female portrait in the collection – that of Queen Victoria – but they have been working with the university’s Gender Initiative since 2002 to actively redress the balance. Most recently, in 2016, they commissioned two new portraits: Professor Ruth Lynden-Bell by Jennifer Trouton; and Professor Margaret Mullett by Stephen Johnston. Queen’s no longer has an active acquisitions programme but does regularly commission new work in collaboration with individual university departments. A less well-known but significant public collection is that of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Comprising over 1,500 works, the collection is spread throughout various government offices and buildings, with over two-thirds of the collection on loan at any one time. The Department of Finance has collaborated with the Office of Public Works (OPW) in the Republic of Ireland for over ten years to create exhibitions of works from both collections. These exhibitions often tour throughout Ireland to reach wider audiences. The Belfast Harbour Commissioners collection aims to give a sense of the history of shipping and of the Belfast harbour itself. There are portraits of previous Harbour Commissioners as well as portraits of significant ships. There are nineteenth-century Italian and French bronzes, paintings by unknown artists going back to the seventeenth century, and a small number of works by twentieth-century Northern Irish artists, such as William Conor, Frank McKelvey and Maurice Wilks. The whole collection is on view at the Harbour Commissioners Offices, so there is limited scope for new acquisitions. This year, the Golden Thread Gallery is launching their own ‘Collective Histories of Northern Irish Art’ collection. Like the decade-spanning exhibition series of the same name, the collection will seek to provide a useful historical context from which audiences can engage with stories of Northern Ireland through its art. They plan to have the collection on permanent display in Belfast and will draw attention to the many subjective and alternative narratives that attempt to recount the development of art in the region. The gallery welcome expressions of interest from artists. People interested in viewing works held in these collections can use the online resource artuk.org. Whilst not comprehensive, there are over 4,000 works in Northern Ireland collections available to view on the site. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland have a larger gallery on their own website, which contains 561 works in total. Works from their recent round of acquisitions have not yet been added to the online gallery. Rob Hilken is Northern Ireland Manager of Visual Artists Ireland. Notes 1 National Museums NI comprises four museums: Ulster Museum, Ulster Folk Museum, Ulster Transport Museum and the Ulster American Folk Park.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Collections
The Niland Collection EMER MCGARRY DISCUSSES THE 60-YEAR EVOLUTION OF SLIGO’S NILAND COLLECTION.
Taus Makhacheva, Tightrope, Dagestan, 2015. 58 min 10 sec, video, colour, sound. Tightrope walker: Rasul Abakarov. The work is based on the collection of Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts named after P. S. Gamzatova, and its production supported by Cosmoscow Artists’ Patrons Programme
HERE AT THE MODEL, over the last weeks and months, we have been considering ideas around the act of collecting and, more importantly, how and why we ‘keep’ a collection of artwork and objects. It could be argued that collecting requires determination and resources; while ‘keeping’ involves a more active investment in building a body of works that act as a living repository of thoughts and ideas. Our current exhibition, ‘The Keeper: To Have and to Hold’, marks the 60th anniversary of Sligo’s Niland Collection and investigates the often-hidden stories that lie at the heart of collections. It poses a series of open-ended questions as to why we are drawn to collect, what kind of knowledge a collection can encompass, and what can be lost if a collection is dispersed. ‘The Keeper’ includes contemporary works by Ed Atkins, Susan Hiller, Taus Makhacheva and Elizabeth Price that directly respond to collections and the notion of ‘keeping’. The heart of the exhibition comprises the largest showing to date of the Niland Collection, which numbers almost 110 pieces in a ‘salon-style’ installation. A third strand, an exploration of the idiosyncratic private collection of Jobst Graeve (formerly the Director of The Model Arts Centre between 1996–98) takes the form of an exhibition within an exhibition and is entitled ‘The Accidental Keeper’. One work that particularly strikes a resonant chord with The Niland Collection is Taus Makhacheva’s Tightrope, Dagestan (2015), in which we encounter a fifth-generation tightrope walker carrying copies of work from the collection of the Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts across a precipitous ravine. This layered work subtly references the precarious position of regional collections, as they compete for resources and investment against larger, more attractive, centralised cultural institutions. The story of The Niland Collection itself is one of tenacity and determination. It was founded by former Sligo County Librarian, Nora Niland, in 1959 and was carefully ‘kept’ and actively invested in by Niland until her retirement in 1979. Her vision was to establish a holding for County Sligo, an-
chored by the works of Jack Butler Yeats. Through networking, petitioning, fundraising and a driving passion for the visual arts, Niland soon added several substantial works by Yeats and other artists including Seán Keating, Norah McGuinness, Louis le Brocquy, Estella Solomons, Gerard Dillon, Mary Swanzy, Nano Reid and Mainie Jellett. Since Niland’s retirement, several other keepers have added significant works to the collection, and the holding now numbers over 350 pieces. The earliest work – which is something of an oddity within the collection – is Jupiter Crushing the Vices with his Thunderbolt by the French artist Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845); while one of the latest is the colourful, interactive installation, A History of Play by Irish artist Eamon O’Kane, made in 2015. An important advancement came in the early 2000s when the curator and collector Jobst Graeve donated 35 pieces from his personal collection to The Niland Collection on a long-term loan. This gift includes works by Dorothy Cross, Marie Foley, Alice Maher, Patrick Scott, Ronnie Hughes and Micheál Farrell, amongst work by many other artists who were active in the late twentieth century. As a whole, the Graeve Collection takes up and develops themes around socio-political change in Ireland that also appear in The Niland Collection. For several years now, The Model has not been in receipt of funding to grow the collection through purchases. However, we have an active collection committee and well-defined collection management policies. Our current Acquisitions Policy prioritises the addition of works that focus on The Model’s unique location in the North West of Ireland. This can include works that are linked to the region through the heritage of the artist or subject matter. However, it can also include works by artists who have undertaken residential opportunities or engaged with The Model’s contemporary programme. This approach has allowed pieces, specially commissioned by The Model for exhibition – such as Clodagh Emoe’s We Are and Are not (2015) – to join the collection. Within the collection, there is also a practice of holding a
number of works by an individual artist, in order to convey the breadth of an artist’s career. The strength of the two collections – put together with much thought and care by Niland and Graeve in separate endeavours – complement each other carefully and particularly, and this makes The Niland Collection an attractive repository in which to place artworks for both artists and collectors. Museum standard donations by artists that are in keeping with our policies – such as those by Sean McSweeney, Clodagh Emoe, Eamon O’Kane, Mark Clare, Clea van der Grijn, Janet Mullarney and Ronnie Hughes – have been gratefully received over the past three years. At the same time, collectors continue to support the overall vision for the collection, and this is very much exemplified by the generous donation from a private individual who purchased a significant body of work from the 2017 Yeats Family Collection sale at Sotheby’s. This has enabled an intimate body of portraits of members of the Yeats Family, painted by their father John Butler Yeats, to join the collection on a long-term loan. The same collector has made an outright gift of Jack Yeats’ own collection of model boats, along with a wonderful travelling case lined with 19 original watercolour drawings by the artist. We are fortunate to have the ongoing friendship and support of Jobst Graeve who, to mark ‘The Keeper; To Have and to Hold’, has recently donated a further body of work, including early interactive pieces by John Gerrard and Connolly Cleary, as well as works by Mick O’Dea, Fiona Mulholland, Robert Ballagh and the late Maurice O’Connell. As Nora Niland knew, the keeping of a regional art collection, with its attendant lack of resources on which to pull, is a delicate tightrope act that seeks to balance relationships with artists, collectors, auction houses and private galleries with the interest of the public, within the broader context of artistic and societal developments. The Niland Collection is very much a testament to the work and generosity of many individuals, collectives and keepers. Emer McGarry is Interim Director of The Model, Sligo.
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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Collections
Richard Mosse, Platon (North Kivu, Eastern Congo), 2012; courtesy the artist and carlier | gebauer
IN 1962 THE Arts Council purchased paintings by Patrick Collins, Norah
National Acquisitions EAMONN MAXWELL OFFERS INSIGHTS INTO THE ARTS COUNCIL OF IRELAND COLLECTION.
McGuinness and Nano Reid, as the first works for the collection. The aim from the beginning was to purchase work from living artists at a critical stage in their career. The ethos of only purchasing work by living artists reflecting contemporary Irish practice continues to be central to the Arts Council collection, largely differentiating itself from other publicly-funded galleries, museums and organisations who collect. Over the past 57 years, around 1,100 works have been acquired for the collection. The collection contains works by many important modern and contemporary Irish artists, including all the artists who have represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale with solo exhibitions, members of Aosdána (past and present), and artists who have been nominated for or received international awards, such as Prix Pictet and the Turner Prize. Key works include: several of Louis le Brocquy’s tapestries; Barbara Knezevic’s Exquisite tempo sector (from her recent solo show at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios); Gerard Byrne’s installation, 1984 and beyond; a 21 DVD film work by Anne Tallentire; and a photographic diptych from Willie Doherty’s ‘1916:2016’ project. The Collection is dynamic and evolving. This is underpinned by a commitment to regularly acquire new works for the collection that reflect developments in Irish contemporary art. The collection can loosely be divided into three main categories: • • •
Two-dimensional work including paintings, drawings, prints and photographs on paper and canvas (comprising approximately 85% of the collection) Three-dimensional work including sculpture, ceramics and installation (comprising approximately 10% of the collection) Multi-media works, including video and audio works (comprising approximately 5% of the collection
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Collections
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From the beginning, the aim of the collection has been to directly support living artists at a critical stage in their career and not to focus on creating a museum-like collection. The Arts Council recognises the significant impact on artists and their careers in having their work included in national collections. Purchasing work from artists and sharing the collection with the public ensures that a number of key objectives are met, pertaining to the Arts Council’s Making Great Art Work strategy. To achieve this, the Arts Council: • • • •
Aims to ensure that artists are supported at key stages in the life cycle of their careers Places an emphasis on the fair and equitable remuneration of artists Gives equal consideration to all media and materials Supports artists in making high-quality art
As the national development agency for the arts, the purchasing of artworks is a key part of the Arts Council’s wider support to visual artists, complementing a number of awards provided for visual artists, including the Visual Arts Bursary, Next Generation, Visual Arts Project and Travel & Training Awards. The purchase of artists’ work provides the Arts Council with a unique opportunity to invest in artists’ completed work, which it considers critical to its arc of supports. The process of acquiring work for the collection is overseen by the Collection Acquisitions Committee, whose membership include members of the Arts Council, as well as external experts and at least one visual artist who already has work in the collection. Works are bought from artists directly or, if they are represented, from their nominated commercial gallery. The Arts Council never buys work from auctions, because the direct connection to artists is critically important to the work of the organisation. Historically the policy has been to only acquire once from an artist, unless there’s a significant shift in their practice. To maintain this rigorous selection process, the Arts Council never accepts unsolicited approaches or gifts to the collection. As part of the recently agreed collection policy, there will be a concerted effort made to ensure that future acquisitions will reflect the equality and diversity of contemporary art practice in Ireland. Whilst the gender balance for the collection is better than many public art collections (41% female, 59% male), it is important to continually monitor this going forward. The collection tells the story of contemporary art as it has evolved since the Arts Council was founded. Artistically, the de-accessioning of any part of the collection could be problematic, as often works can become unfashionable for a period, remain in storage, but can become popular again. However, the Arts Council has a formal deaccessioning policy for works that are irrevocably damaged, lost or duplicated within the collection. Works will only be deaccessioned in exceptional circumstances and never for financial gain. Operating as a ‘museum without walls’, it could be considered as the national loan collection. Works can be seen in schools, hospitals, public sector buildings, as well as galleries, museums and other arts organisations in Ireland. At the time of writing, approximately 500 works are on loan across Ireland and internationally. In 2018, works from the collection were seen in exhibitions by more than 10,000 people. The Arts Council asks that borrowing organisations liaise with the relevant collection artists, when planning their exhibitions. This can cover everything – from getting permission for reproducing images, to receiving input on installation specifications and public engagement programmes. As well as works being available in public locations, approximately 95% of the collection is available to view online, via the Arts Council’s website (artscouncil.ie). A contemporary art collection housed and displayed outside of a museum context presents many challenges. The most critical of these is care of the collection for current and future generations. This requires a balance between maintaining the artistic integrity of the work, sharing the work with as diverse a public as possible, whilst ensuring the longevity of the collection. It is, therefore, necessary to be pragmatic within these constraints. The Council regularly consults with collection artists regarding the presentation of fragile works or moving image works. As technology changes, the collection must adapt to international best practice. Indeed, the collection storage is being relocated in 2019 to a more suitable facility for the long-term preservation of works. The collection is looked after by a small team comprising a Collection Officer, a Collection Adviser and Artworks Coordinator. There is an annual budget for acquisitions, along with a budget for the maintenance, care and storage of the collection. But we have big ambitions and high aspirations! Eamonn Maxwell is the Collection Adviser to the Arts Council, as well as an independent curator. artscouncil.ie
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Great Good Places IV, 2011, HD video with colour & sound; image courtesy the artist and Domobaal Gallery, London
Barbara Knezevic, Exquisite tempo sector, 2017; photograph by Louis Haugh, courtesy the artist and the Arts Council of Ireland Collection
Regional Focus County Westmeath
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Luan Gallery Katriona Gillespie Curator
Chimera Art Gallery David O’Shea Gallery Director
I ESTABLISHED The Chimera Art Gallery in
2014, after retiring from the Defence Forces in 2009. Formerly based on Spoutwell Lane in Mullingar, the gallery’s founding mission was to have a world-class art gallery in a provincial town that has a history of great artists. I was previously involved in establishing The Garden Gallery in 2010, which was primarily set up to sell the artwork of my business partner at the time, Hazel Revington Cross. By adding some paintings by Conor Walton, Pauline Bewick, Graham Knuttle and other artists, the gallery slowly morphed into a more commercial space and began to grow legs. Following the widely positive responses we were receiving from locals, we decided to take the venture more seriously. After four years building a portfolio of high calibre artists, Hazel and myself decided it was becoming too big for the small space we were leasing at that time in Crowenstown, so we decided to go our separate ways, with the intention of continuing to support each other going forward, which we still do to this day. So, after the Garden Gallery closed shop, I set up in the Chimera Gallery. This initial endeavour proved so successful, that the next logical step was to move into the centre of the town. So, in 2015, the gallery upped sticks and moved to Days Bazaar on Oliver Plunkett Street – a building made famous by James Joyce, who once lived in Mullingar as a young man. The re-launch of the gallery was officiated by The Cure drummer, Jason Cooper, to a huge furor in the town. With this new beginning, the gallery made a firm artistic statement which has continued and expanded, as we have moved forward.
The gallery’s mission is to continue to function as a vibrant artistic hub for the Irish midlands, offering the same unpretentious environment and informal hospitality that people have come to expect in the countryside. To date, The Chimera Art Gallery has represented a roster of award-winning artists, who are recognised both nationally and internationally. By my estimation, we represent five of the top portrait artists and two of the top equine artists in the country, amongst the many other talented artists included in our portfolio. This year’s exhibition schedule is also of the highest quality. We started the ball rolling in early March with a show by the award-winning abstract artist John Kingerlee. On 6 April, two times Zurich / Hennessey Portrait Prize nominee, Kyle Barnes, opened his first major solo exhibition at the gallery with a theme dear to many hearts: portraits of ex-soldiers from Ireland and Great Britain, including one of Mullingar’s own, the veteran Tom Gunn, known locally as the ‘Jadotville Tiger’. Titled ‘Post-’, the exhibition ran until 25 April. Going forward for the remainder of this year, our schedule of exhibitors includes: Gavin Lavelle, Connor Robertson and Tom McLead (who was recently voted by the Irish Arts Review as one of eight artists under 40 to watch in the future). In July, world-renowned American artist Jennifer Balkan will have her first international exhibition at the gallery, along with Manchester-based artist, Colin Traynor, whose work has been recently procured by the Office of Public Works. In addition, the gallery is currently in discussions with Galerie Mokum in Amsterdam about the possibility of working on some sort of collaborative project later this summer. Regarding long-terms and future aspirations, The Chimera Art Gallery will continue to provide a commercial platform of international standing for artists and audiences living and working in the Westmeath region, with relevance at local, national and international level.
chimera-gallery.com
Paolo Borlie, L'insegnante di ripetizioni (The repetitions master) (detail), 2018, courtesy of the artist and Chimera Gallery
Fiona Mulholland, Do I believe in magic; courtesy of the artist and Luan Gallery
SITUATED IN THE Cultural Quarter of Athlone, on the Banks of the River Shannon, Luan Gallery comprises three exhibition spaces: The Library Gallery, The River Gallery and The New Gallery. Designed by Keith Williams Architects, Luan Gallery won the RIAI Best Cultural Building Award in 2013 and the much-coveted Civic Choice Architecture Award in 2014. As a municipal visual arts space in County Westmeath, Luan Gallery is aware of the role the arts play in determining, clarifying and shaping culture and identity at local, regional and national levels. Luan Gallery aims to make positive contributions to the culture of Athlone and beyond, seeking to engage with artists and audiences from near and afar. We provide a space for visual art that fosters friendly relations between artists and audiences alike, while stimulating and promoting artistic interest, both locally and nationally. As we do not have a permanent collection, we are afforded the time to fully invest in our ambitious and challenging exhibition programme and in offering immersive experiences. It also allows us the time to present work from the wealth of talent brought by individuals and communities, and to allow hybridisation and innovation in artistic creation, while maintaining excellence in artistic and cultural standards offered to our audiences and participants. Luan Gallery’s programme is limited to a maximum of 15 and a minimum of six exhibitions slots per year. These exhibition slots consist of a diverse range of presentations from multiple disciplines including (but not limited to) installation, performance, film, paint, print and sculpture works. Works are accepted by artists at various career stages, which allows us to develop an extensive programme of artists who are working locally, nationally and internationally. Luan Gallery actively seeks to collaborate with other venues and agencies. Our current exhibition, entitled ‘Other Dimensions’, continues until 9 June. This three-person exhibition features the work of artists Laura Angell, Paul Bokslag and Fiona Mulholland. In this exhibition we examine the idea of the ‘other dimension’ – a place we would ideally like to
find ourselves inhabiting. The works presented here pose the questions: what are the restrictions placed on us by contemporary society and how do we succeed in our quest for liberation? ‘Other Dimensions’ combines the fundamental elements of a committed art practice and presents a skewed meaning of the word, redefining its limits. The viewer is invited to discard expectations and examine the work of the photographer, the textile artist and the graphic designer as their roles are dismantled, with the boundaries of socially-engaged practice being altered. The following exhibition, entitled ‘Re-IMAGINE’, opens on 14 June and runs until 11 August. This photography and installation-based exhibition presents the work of Breda Burns, Martina Cleary and Jo Kimmins. This three-person exhibition provides opportunities to reflect upon the many facets of cultural memory, including place, identity, time and space. We each have an innate visual signature that relates to these elements of cultural memory, a mark that affects our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us. The photographs and installations that feature in this exhibition provide an aid to memory and a channel that connects our present to our past. We are asked to question how our individual memories connect with our outwardly social worlds. New perspectives and interesting visual stories emerge as we spend time observing and understanding the work, ourselves and our interaction with places and people. Our current open-call invites artists to respond to the theme of Queer Migration, for inclusion in our 2020 programme of exhibitions. This open-call refers specifically to the movement of members of the LGBTQ+ communities from rural Ireland to urban centres, questioning issues of acceptance and oppression, as well as cultural values and community attitudes. We are inviting artists to submit artwork that responds to or addresses the concerns and questions inherent in the concept of Queer Migration. Further information on this open-call is available through our website or by contacting the gallery directly at info@luangallery.ie. luangallery.ie
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Regional Focus
Situating Practice
Shambles Art Studios
Liz Johnson Visual Artist and Educator
Ann McGuinness Co-Founder
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, I left London and
came to live in County Westmeath. My first response to being situated in this new landscape was to develop a series of paintings inspired by the nearby lakes. My artistic motivation came from wanting to make a connection to my environment, and unexpectedly, this body of work became the starting point for developing an important correlation between ‘place’ and my practice. Over time, I have become more familiar with the topography of Westmeath. I still find myself constantly drawn to the lakes and their environs, and I endeavour to discover and convey what lies tacitly within the landscape. I find profound inspiration in small places tucked away at Butlers Bridge, as well as along The Royal Canal and the Greenway. My practice combines painting, drawing and collaborative arts, and I completed an MA in Socially Engaged Art at NCAD in 2015. In the mid-1980s, I studied Mural Design at Chelsea School of Art, where I developed a keen interest in public art and art that exists beyond the gallery walls – not just in terms of being physically ‘outside the gallery’, but also in terms of extending public access to art. Since the 1980s, a paradigm shift in art towards socially-engaged projects, led to the development of many strategies to widen participation, largely through engaging communities in public art projects and arts regeneration programmes. These developments informed my practice and led to my involvement in both community arts and collaborative arts projects. As an artist whose practice is immersed in participation, I’ve been fortunate to work with many partners and groups in a variety of contexts across the county. This has been the cornerstone that has allowed me to develop an intrinsic connection between my arts practice and County Westmeath. I have a long held belief in the societal value of the arts, which can unite people through active participation and reciprocal creative exchange. These core values have also strengthened my understanding of the rich cultural landscape of Westmeath within an ever-changing and evolving indigenous cultural identity. One example is an art project, titled The
Contemporary Museum Without Walls (2015), in which I worked collaboratively with a community-of-interest to explore topics such as cultural identity and representation, in relation to Ireland’s National Collection of Contemporary Art, housed in the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). The outcome was the creation of a film depicting contemporary artworks germane to the lives and distinct regional identity of the participants. Perhaps the most significant impact of the project was the participants’ ability to utilise elements of the process (post-project) to benefit their future learning. Maintaining an arts practice is a huge challenge. I’ve received tremendous support, encouragement and advice from Westmeath Arts Office over the years. Maintaining a regular income through part-time teaching has also been fundamental. In recent years, my experience in managing collaborative arts projects has led to work opportunities in project management and arts programming. In 2016, I was fortunate to work with Dublin City Council Arts Office as a project manager for the National Neighbourhood pilot project, in partnership with IMMA, and last year I had the chance to work with international artists and practitioners, whilst working as Programme Coordinator for Create (The National Development Agency for Collaborative Art) which was highly inspirational. I am currently working with Age & Opportunity as Visual Arts Coordinator for Bealtaine Festival 2019 and I have the pleasure of working on an exciting programme of visual arts events, as part of the wider festival programme, which includes music, performing arts, literature, film and workshops. The festival will take place nationwide during the month of May (bealtaine.ie). While my programming work has taken me away from County Westmeath and my studio, the breadth of learning I have obtained has been invaluable and certainly the comfort of a regular salary cannot be overestimated. However, there’s been one concession: Consequently, I’ve now become a practitioner without a practice. Such is the precariousness of being an artist. lizjohnson.ie
Liz Johnson, Briars, Butlers Bridge (detail), 2010, acrylic on canvas, 60 × 120 cm; courtesy of the artist
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Catherine Rock's studio at Shamble Art Studios, Athlone; courtesy of the artist and Shambles Art Studios
THE SHAMBLES ART Studios, named after its
location in the historic Butchers’ Quarter in the West Bank area of Athlone, has operated as a studio provider for a number of local artists for the past six years. Most of the artists at Shambles had previously availed of space in the Abbey Road Studios in Athlone (operated under the auspices of the Luan Gallery and Westmeath County Council) and wished to gain access, on a more permanent basis, to the benefits of individual studio practice and collaborative working environment. In May 2013 a suitable premises became available and with the generous facilitation of the owner, Shambles Art Studios now provides six individual studio spaces, as well as common areas and a small gallery space for exhibitions. Coming together and committing to an artist-led approach makes it easier for the group to manage and share the practicalities of renting and insuring the premises, dealing with the day-to-day management of the common areas, and arranging and hanging exhibitions. Individual strengths are drawn upon to support solo and group exhibitions, funding applications and interactions with public authorities, as well as other artists and groups in the region. The core group of artists has remained in place but some workspace sharing has allowed a small number of other artists to benefit from the studios. When group exhibitions take place, it is a convention that one or more local or international artists are invited to participate. The studios occupy the upper floor of a two-storey town house in a busy riverside area of Athlone, close to the acclaimed Luan Gallery and Dean Crowe Theatre. This is considered to be the cultural quarter of Athlone and attracts many visitors. The Shambles Art Studios are an integral part of this area and the artists, individually and collectively, participate in the various events that periodically take place. The studios are a recognised cultural asset in this part of Athlone. The scope of creative activity in the studios is extensive, with artists working across a range of media, including painting, photography and sculpture. A key aim for the studio is to make
the work accessible to the public and to this end, the Shambles is open to the public annually on Culture Night, with artists hosting open studios and exhibiting new and experimental work in the studio’s gallery space. Individual members of the group have exhibited locally, regionally and internationally, while smaller groups of members come together to exhibit regularly in the studio gallery and at other local venues. Painters Lesley Wingfield, Ann McGuinness and Catherine Rock recently exhibited together in the Dean Crowe Theatre, during the 2018 RTE All-Ireland Drama Festival, and have been allocated space in the atrium of the Athlone Civic Centre for an exhibition at the end of 2019. Painter Mark Grehan currently has a solo show in the Shambles Studio Gallery. Photographer Veronica Nicholson was recently commissioned by Offaly County Council to produce the Observing Offaly photobook – a collection of 150 images of everyday life in the county. Three of the Shambles’s artists, Lawrence O’Neill, Margo McNulty and Catherine Rock, have had solo exhibitions in the Luan Gallery. Lesley Wingfield and Veronica Nicholson each operate a studio practice that also extends into the community, in the form of workshops, collaborations, classes and community-based projects. Some of the studio’s artists have also availed of residencies in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig. Since its establishment, the Shambles Art Studios have provided a creative hub for members. The studios give artists continuity of tenure in the same space, the motivation generated by a shared interest, as well as relief from flagging inspiration (provided by sociable interludes in the common area!). The group originally came together with the common purpose of being an independent, artist-led studio, which has worked very successfully. At the same time, each artist has the security of an individual studio space to pursue creative projects both within and outside the studios. The Shambles Art Studios is a practical model for collaboration to support creative endeavour. facebook.com/ShamblesArtStudios
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Regional Focus
If We Were Pheasants Celine Sheridan Visual Artist
THE IDEA FOR my artist’s book, If We Were
Pheasants, emerged ten years ago. At the time, I was undertaking a two-year part-time MA in Visual Arts Practice at IADT, on the artmaking pathway. My practice was, and still is, autobiographical, with my research focusing on monogamy and marriage (I had just gotten engaged to my partner), as well as gender roles and Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. During this time, I was particularly interested in sexual dimorphism and the mating rituals and dances of different species, as well as the bizarre human tendency to apply human traits and emotions to animals and birds. I discussed this latter idea in greater detail with Dr Nicola Marples, a Professor of Zoology in Trinity College Dublin, whom I visited as part of my research. The narrative for the book became this sad, yet beautiful, anthropomorphic fable of a female pheasant resigned to a partner who is by nature a polygamous creature. To sit alongside the narrative, I developed a series of small etching-style drawings of both characters, with the male pheasant acting as the protagonist. Upon completion of the MA course, my book project was shelved for various reasons, one of which was my lack of funding to self-publish. Bookmaking as an art form requires substantial funding, especially if professional services are needed, such as design and printing (as opposed to the mass-photocopying of black and white zines). Two years ago, during the VAI Get Together, I met Dublin-based duo Vinny Gregan and Kasia Kaminska from publishing company Read That Image (readthatimage.org). After indepth discussions and many emails back and forth, the project enthusiastically resumed. In the world of Read That Image, the collaborative nature of bookmaking is very much celebrated. We discussed the various technical considerations including: stitching, binding, book covers and fabrics, interior colophons, letterpress printing, font, text and image positioning, embossing foils, paper, font colour and so on. At one point, I changed all of the drawings, but they coaxed me to change them back again. The narrative was edited with help from artist friends and professional colleagues. The poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin – who was the John Broderick Writer-in-Residence 2018 with Westmeath County
Council – also offered advice and made a final edit. So, in the end, the book became a co-curated art object with its own autonomy and identity. The finished book has a luscious green velvet cover with pink embossing, while inside, beautiful pink ink font and images are printed on munken paper. If We Were Pheasants was not my first foray into bookmaking and publishing. In 2008, I made my first self-published zine, called Build Me A Studio, which was shown in various exhibitions including ‘The Reading Room’ in Berlin (2010) and ‘Labyrinth – Writings and Observations’, Tumba, Sweden (2009). In 2011, Exquisite Colab, a collective I form part of, worked alongside members of Mullingar’s Traveller community to develop a publishing project, titled EveryonE, as part of a Per Cent for Art commission, funded by Westmeath County Council. This project focused on inclusion and memory and examined the personal experiences of each contributor. Both books were purchased by the National Irish Visual Arts Library, Dublin. Current members of Exquisite Colab include Ann Wingfield and Lesley Wingfield. Collaborating and forming collectives in a rural setting like Westmeath provides a great opportunity to share ideas and discuss our individual practices, as well as gain emotional peer support, in a career that can be quite isolating. To this end, I am part of a collective called Neo-Intimism with Meath artist, Dave Newton, which allows us to discuss our shared artistic themes. I just began a collaborative project with Westmeath-based artist Mel French, whose thematic inquiries overlap with my own work, including an exploration of motherhood, womanhood, physicality and the body, animal hybrids and all things anthropomorphic. If We Were Pheasants was funded through a bursary from Westmeath Arts Office and through the sale of my limited edition lino print, called Mating Ritual. The book will be launched as a limited edition on 29 June in the Luan Gallery, Athlone. Distribution venues include the Library Project in Temple Bar and various Irish book fairs. celinesheridan.com
Celine Sheridan, If We Were Pheasants, 2019; photograph by Read That Image, courtesy of the artist
18
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
How is it Made?
We’re Lost in Music PÁDRAIC E. MOORE DISCUSSES ‘THE LAST GREAT ALBUM OF THE DECADE’, CURRENTLY SHOWING AT THE LAB, DUBLIN.
'The Last Great Album of the Decade', installation view, The LAB Gallery, Dublin; all photographs by Louis Haugh, courtesy of the artists and the LAB Gallery
‘THE LAST GREAT Album of the Decade’ is a group exhibition
I co-curated with Sheena Barrett that opened at The LAB in March. As the title suggests, the exhibition touches upon the decline of the music album as an artform, but ultimately the main intention behind this endeavour was a desire to explore popular music’s power to connect people, through an investigation of the intersections between musical culture and the visual arts. Preliminary conversations began in 2017 and – over the course of two years – each of the invited artists explored their own relationships with music, eventually producing work that served as testament of music as catalyst for social exchange and the expansion of boundaries between artforms. An early conversation with Declan Clarke informed and ultimately provided the genesis of the exhibition. Having discovered a photograph featuring Clarke, taken outside the National Stadium in 1991, I initiated a conversation that informed the curatorial approach. Clarke had extremely vivid recollections of gigs he’d attended in Dublin in the early ‘90s. These memories were presented as wall texts in the exhibition, alongside an array of ticket stubs and t-shirts collected all those years ago. Taking on the character of relics in this context, each object held personal memories, as well as wider sociological significance. They represent a seminal moment in the transition of youth culture in which popular musical tastes moved rapidly, from indie rock and electronica to the emergence of rave culture. The image that we ended up using as the promotional ‘avatar’ for the exhibition was a photo of Clarke taken surreptitiously by his late father in 1991, in which he is surrounded by his posters and cassettes. The image underscores how the journey of discovery and belonging for the adolescent in musical worlds can provide a lifelong source of enthusiasm. In addition, a selection of zines, dating from 1978 to 1981, from the Brian McMahon Archive (Brand New Retro) offered insights into the range of music-related printed matter that was once produced and disseminated in Ireland. The quality of these zines varied hugely and the determination and desire to contribute enthusiastically to this dialogue far outweighed the technical means of production available during that period.
Although the outcome, aesthetic and milieu were different, the potential and power of the DIY ethic was also evidenced in a series of photographs taken by Anne Maree Barry in the early noughties. The underground beach parties that took place in North County Dublin in the summer of 2003 emerged from a culture of self-organisation and self-sufficiency, with an emphasis upon inclusion and togetherness, facilitated through music. The parties captured in Barry’s photos were (and still are) relatively rare in a city like Dublin, where overzealous law enforcement belies a provincial and conservative leadership who view nightlife and club culture as valueless and deviant. While the aforementioned contributors focused upon the material remnants and the social milieu that forms around music, others responded to and ‘inhabited’ music more formally, producing work concerned with characteristics that might be aligned with the more abstract properties of music. Ostensibly, Alan Phelan’s visually striking installation is made from material usually employed in photoshoots. In this instance, the RGB (red, green and blue) curtain was conceived as the backdrop for a music video, with the aim of creating a setting for a narrative – a site of possibility. To accompany Phelan’s mise-en-scène, a piece of electronic music was composed and presented on the opening night, functioning as an excerpt of a soundtrack to a film not yet made. A new body of sculptural assemblages by Cliodhna Timoney are named after nightclubs in the town of Letterkenny, County Donegal. Some of these clubs – such as The Golden Grill, The Pulse and Voodoo – flourished in the mid to late ‘90s and are now defunct and in a state of dilapidation. Timoney’s sculptures are both a homage and formal interpretation of these environments of music and hedonism, where people go to lose themselves in dancefloor catharsis. Scattered throughout The LAB, Timoney’s variegated assemblages suggest the detritus that remains in the aftermath of the party; when the lights turn on at the end of the night and dazzle us. Both Phelan and Timoney responded directly to one of the more interesting aspects of the LAB’s main gallery space – its height. Both created works that could be viewed
Detail from the Brian McMahon Archive (Brand New Retro)
from different levels and which created an immersive experience for viewers. Several live events punctuated this exhibition, and these were programmed to coincide with MusicTown, the annual festival led by Dublin City Council and Aiken Promotions (5–21 April). One of these was a walking tour on 14 April, led by local historian Dónal Fallon. The tour responded to and engaged with Dublin’s architectural fabric and encouraged consideration of the informal organisations and social structures that once emerged around – and within – the city’s music scenes. Beginning at The LAB, the walking tour took a circuitous route through the city, visiting several venues and sites of musical and social significance. In the process of curating this exhibition, a touchstone was Dan Graham’s seminal video essay, Rock My Religion from 1985, which I would encourage all readers to watch. Made at a time when convergences between visual art and music were reaching unprecedented synergistic peaks, Graham’s essay, aimed primarily at a visual arts audience, sought to underscore the importance of certain musical genres within the preceding decade. Essentially, Graham’s video essay addresses how popular rock music facilitated certain forms of enlightenment and egalitarian togetherness. This position is communicated in the closing lines via the proclamation that “if art is only a business, as [Andy] Warhol suggests, then music expresses a more communal, transcendental emotion which art now denies”. Like Graham’s film, this exhibition at The LAB revelled in the sacral aspects of popular music that have (perhaps necessarily) been discarded or relegated from the sphere of visual art. This group show considers, quite seriously, the profound devotion of the fan, the surrender to cultish following, the fetishistic interest in memorabilia, the communality of the sweaty fray, and perhaps, most importantly, the desire to get lost in (what Roxy Music refer to as) The Thrill of it All. Pádraic E. Moore is a writer, curator and art historian based in Brussels. ‘The Last Great Album of the Decade’ continues at The LAB until 12 May.
The Visual Artists' News Sheet
Critique Edition 43: May – June 2019
Anita Groener, The Past is a Foreign Country, 2019, installation view, The Dock; photograph by Paul McCarthy, courtesy of the artist and The Dock
Critique
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Walker and Walker ‘Nowhere Without No(w)’ Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 15 February – 3 June 2019 ‘NOWHERE WITHOUT NO(W)’ highlights Walker and Walker’s longstanding interest in the Modernist canon – particularly Charles Baudelaire and Stephane Mallarmé, in this instance. The themes of the works presented – and the artists’ long-running collaborative practice – are diverse, but Romantic association predominates. The exhibition is exactingly prescriptive in its use of ideas and literary references. Its sleekly direct and literal translations of ideas into form invoke the aesthetic austerity of the conceptual tradition. However, its sensuous silvers and inky blacks exacerbate the cerebral quality into kitsch and fetish, helping to establish a sense of fraught disclosure. Pathos is prevalent along the fault lines, where abstract ideas are made materially concrete. The artists appear to be interested in making celebrated artistic and intellectual material perform isolated gestures in public space – exposing them to embodied interactions and interpretations. The work approximates sculptural aesthetics in this tentative or emergent materiality. The conceptual agenda generally feels pertinent to a foregrounded Romantic sensibility, with an emphasis on authenticity, the endeavours of reason and the existential situation of the subject. This is so with French Surrealist writer, René Daumal, whose unfinished 1952 novel features a summit joining reason with an incommensurable sublime. The duo’s feature-length film, Mount Analogue Revisited (2010), condenses Daumal’s alternately penetrating and knowingly obtuse philosophical text – while also drawing on the work of other writers – into a more sober film in which a polymath, an author and a linguist grandiloquently explain who they are and why they have come to Mount Analogue, in response to questions apparently posed in an immigration reception centre. Thoughtful play with reference and space permeates the entire exhibition. One enters by turning a door handle designed by Walter Gropius, German architect and founder of the Bauhaus. Via this device (distributed inside and outside), viewers engage In Dialogue With the Past (2019). The penultimate room bears the brass plaque, Temenos (2019) – a Greek term meaning ‘spiritually dedicated land’ and a Jungian postulate of a therapeutic mental haven. Here also, a table-top installation, Morning star/evening star (2019), tracks the movement of Venus, famously denoted by both terms in this work’s title, with a monitor displaying binary code and a pencil-wielding machine, putatively in the early stages of a rose pattern. In the first room, a host of disk-like forms awaits the viewer. In Waiting (oak tree) (2015) is an arresting stainless-steel grille – the sort usually encountered on urban pavements or town squares protecting trees – which alludes to the potential presence of an absent tree. It occupies the same space as a large circular black mirror, in which a cold white neon reflection appears. The titular phrase, the presence before him was a presence, is taken from a short story by American writer, Henry James, but it is rendered backwards, adorning the upper portion of the opposing wall. This tautological neon succinctly evokes the logic which underlies the language we use to conceive, reference and articulate ideas, as well as material presences – the nature and meaning of which confounds us, despite fluency in culture and learning. Such sombreness and anxiety in respect of language, and the apprehension and conceptualisation of proximate entities, is encountered elsewhere in the exhibition. Dusk
Walker and Walker, Morning star/evening star, 2019, installation view, IMMA; all photographs by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of the artists and IMMA
(2019) extends a black and a white string from floor to ceiling, between parallel nickel and brass fasteners. I found its binary reverse tendencies bruisingly poetic. In the second space, elided, chunky aluminium letters declare: “I say: a fl w r! And … there arises musically, as the very idea and delicate, the one absent from every bouquet”. This line – taken from an essay by French Symbolist Mallarmé – adorns a wall with ethereal awkwardness. Widow’s Pane, or Bachelors, Even, after Marcel Duchamp, after Charles Baudelaire (2015) is a poplar wood model of a window which sits squatly on the floor. Pastel-blue with eight dark panes in hinged doors, it evokes reverie while summoning conflicting historical influences: two poems by Baudelaire, celebrating subjective interpretation (one of which, Windows (1869), is displayed nearby); and Duchamp’s artist-decentring glass construction, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (1923). The range of works is punctuated by white, powder-coated aluminium shapes, roughly the size of A4 pages and nearly an inch deep. This ‘In-between Letters’ series (2013) presents the cognitive dross of prepositions and a pronoun – ‘it’. These jigsaw-like forms are jarringly ghostly, hovering at head-height, protruding slightly from the walls and glowing softly with the spotlighting overhead. In the esoteric environment of ‘Nowhere Without N(ow)’, their illegibility draws attention to the matter of how the exhibition and its themes relate to publics. The work’s sensitive coaxing of ideas into aesthetic, interactive materiality serves to configure a drama of (mis)apprehension; of aesthetic and moral urges, and mental intentionality. While this should be generally relatable to viewers, the artistic or curatorial emphasis on illustrious personages as protagonists is intriguing. While an argument for their relative audacity appears implicit, it can feel side-lined, quaint or eccentric. Danny Kelly is an artist based in Dublin.
Walker and Walker, the presence before him was a presence, 2019, installation view, IMMA
Critique
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Anita Groener ‘The Past Is A Foreign Country’ The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon 19 January – 9 March 2019 STORIES OF DISPLACEMENT are not aesthetic. These are rushed, unplanned, reactive situations, without much time or resources for calculation or intention. Perhaps this is part of the reason why many people find it hard to identify with asylum seekers; it is difficult for most of us to comprehend such an urgent need to escape danger and to find a safer place. Anita Groener’s recent exhibition at The Dock captured this challenge, before we even approached the work. The title, ‘The Past Is A Foreign Country’ – taken from the opening of L. P. Hartley’s novel, The Go-Between (1953) – highlighted this sense of detachment. Spread across three gallery spaces, the work itself aimed to negotiate this distance by identifying and portraying individual experiences. The challenge was to situate these stories within a global historical narrative of ‘refuge-seeking’, while simultaneously recognising that each account belongs to an individual. Gallery 1 hosted the titular installation, featuring trees hanging in mid-air and linked by bandages, creating an organised, straight-lined matrix. Rather than being rooted in place and nourished by land to grow branches or leaves, these displaced trees were dry and completely dependent on the structures that kept them upright. The same space also included a video, titled Nest (2018), showing a bird’s nest being broken into twigs by a pair of hands in the dark. These pieces made a strong opening statement on both the subject matter of displacement and on Groener’s recurring visual motif – drawing in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. Gallery 2 carried the narrative thread from the natural world back to society. A large circle of twigs, mounted on the far wall, acted as a diorama of sorts, holding miniature silhouettes of individuals or groups as they travelled along the dark offshoots. Some scenes were expected, like a group of women carrying parcels on their heads as they walk, but some stung with poignancy, such as the man standing with his arms raised, presumably surrendering to an unknown pursuer. On the opposing wall, five animated drawings, titled Moments (2018), featured short snippets of news interviews with children displaced from Syria. Even when they were standing still,
the characters were animated, as if at any moment these children would continue with an update on their current lives. Minimal, handdrawn lines were traced around those featured in the footage, reducing the emotional content of these scenes to their most essential and making them difficult to leave behind once viewed. A series of five ink and gouache drawings on paper was presented in Gallery 3, further embodying the allegory of drawing as social practice. Created line-by-line, dot-by-dot, these drawings are an exercise in focus. Each mark is different and unique and has its own moment of creation. In the gallery’s mezzanine space, the narrative seemed to suddenly shift from local to global once again, with a looped video, entitled Blink (2018), showing thematically-arranged photographs of international victims who have all been displaced. Though the images in this film were primarily presented in greyscale, some colours were introduced periodically, to highlight a particular character or moment in time, which offered moments of relief to the intense sequence and the viewing experience. This piece also provided the loud, deep, heartbeat audio that resonated throughout the three gallery spaces. In contemporary western society, we are trained to be audience members – a mode that is more often used cynically, to manipulate and numb our responses to injustice. Groener uses this contemporary disposition to demonstrate the empathy we are capable of, when someone else’s story is relayed to us with care. Walking through ‘The Past Is A Foreign Country’ was, without a doubt, a challenging experience. The artist persistently played with our capacity to alternate between long-shot frames and extreme close-ups, from painful story to global impact, and vice versa. Drawing being her primary medium, the artist carefully placed lines, markings, and lighting to create beautiful shapes, while making sure individual elements did not get lost in the process. Overall, the exhibition allegorically uses visual manipulation to take a compassionate political stance. Moran Been-noon is an independent curator and artist based in Dublin. mobespaces.wordpress.com
Anita Groener, The Past is a Foreign Country, 2019, installation view, The Dock; photograph by Paul McCarthy
Sam Reveles ‘Poulaphouca: New Paintings & Works on Paper’ Butler Gallery, Kilkenny 17 March – 12 May 2019
Sam Reveles, Recurring Dissolution (detail), 2018, oil and pencil on canvas, 91.5 × 152.5 cm; photograph by Roland Paschhoff, © the artist, courtesy of the artist and Butler Gallery
‘POULAPHOUCA’ AT THE Butler Gallery is Sam Reveles’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Ireland. The fourteen works on display in the four adjoining galleries include Reveles’s most recent paintings and works on paper. The exhibition is a journey of an experience which demonstrates the development and shifts in Reveles’s work over the last few years. In the first gallery space, one of the artist’s earlier works, Cill Rialaig 2, is an elemental example of his previous ‘grey’ period. The paper is approached episodically; an underlay of grey wash is erased by a lattice of horizontal scratchy marks. This method of creating through destruction is haphazardly deployed, revealing the layers and excavated glimpses of embedded arcs and veins in white and stone. In the past, Reveles has been labelled a “graffitist”, as well as a “gestural abstraction painter” and “a scribbler”. His artworks combust in tangled lines and they are energetic, chaotic and frenzied. However, as observed in this exhibition, there has been a defiant shift in his recent work. Gallery 2 is subdued and still. The four gouache and pencil works on show seem to construct the pictorial schema with the architectural coherence of structural lines. Poulaphouca #2 has six points where the (possible) perspectival lines meet, dissecting the otherwise blank paper into shards and splinters. Reveles has attempted to encapsulate the three-dimension quality of landscape into a reduced and distilled representation. It’s as if a kaleidoscopic camera obscura has been used. The traditional organisation of the vanishing point, horizon and field of projection have been reconfigured to produce a constellation of shattered pieces. Although the perspective has been pinched and pulled, a certain depth is still present; the two large concave forms meet at the centre and there is a darkened sinking sensation. It is important to know that Poulaphouca is a reservoir to Blessington Lakes in County Wicklow – a body of water spanning more than twenty kilometres. Having spent a lot time at these lakes myself, I wonder if these plotted lines represent actual viewing points? Is this an aerial view of Poulaphouca, mapping the myriad of surveying sites that circulate the lakes? As an abstract representation of the place, these artworks appear to dismiss the limits of time and
distance, instead seizing upon a more dynamic form of observation. In the final space, the exhibition culminates with three large oil paintings. Recurring Dissolution epitomises Wicklow as the ‘Garden of Ireland’. The complex composition breaks the horizontal frieze into a multitude of coloured facets: vermillion green, canary yellow and cornflower blue. The same accumulative layering is present here – the blank canvas is exposed with its mapped measurements in pencil, while clusters of colour build up to form a concentric motion. Throughout the work there are small conscious gaps of bare canvas, perhaps rendering dappled light on the water or rays caught within the trees. Reveles is transfixed by the constant transformations that occur in nature, capturing its moving moments and emphasising our failure to ever connect with it entirely. It is evident that Reveles has a very meditative relationship with nature. There is a particular essentialism in his work, whereby he persistently alludes to a deepened spirituality, successfully conveyed through the process of abstraction to individualise features and enhance essential forms. Reveles’s paintings also encapsulate his own experiential relationship with the landscape of Poulaphouca. In a fronto-parallel medium, he offers the viewer a plurality of encountered moments that have been imprisoned upon a singular surface – defying space, time and distance. The result is an ethereal and weightless portrayal of the place with a compelling electricity, as if channeling the functionality of Poulaphouca reservoir, where hydroelectric energy is harnessed to an electric means. In all, Reveles has personalised the process of abstraction and, in my opinion, has made it approachable and familiar. To engage with this exhibition, time is needed. The works demand extended engagement, to fully observe them and to immerse oneself in the immense landscapes that the artist is depicting.
Rachel Botha works in Poetry Ireland and is a freelance art critic.
Critique
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
‘MAKing Art: The PAINTing Exhibition’ Draíocht Arts Centre, Blanchardstown 14 March – 18 May 2019 IMMEDIACY, I’VE FOUND, has always been an
underlying characteristic of much contemporary painting. I’ve never tried to pull back the curtain of the canvas, in search of hidden meaning lurking beyond sight. Surely, I thought, there is no code to crack; what you see is what you get. However, this limiting preconception was unilaterally turned on its head by ‘MAKing Art:PAINTing’. Sitting with the paintings in this group exhibition – which includes work by Susan Connolly, Bridget Flannery, Geraldine O’Neill and Liz Rackard – I found nostalgia, warmth and physical engagement seeping out. ‘MAKing Art:PAINTing’ is the second instalment in a series of exhibitions tailored to the general public and young people. Speculating that this exhibition may have an ‘educational agenda’ (as I’ve seen in previous shows), I did not expect to encounter work that would showcase the true scope of Irish contemporary painting. In fact, the opposite is true. Liz Rackard’s small-scale portraits of family and friends read like a family album, however they are not necessarily the kind of photos you would display above the fireplace. Two acrylic works on paper, Big Sleeper (2016) and Little Sleeper (2016), detail anonymous figures during moments of rest. These scenarios recall the mental image we all have of loved ones relaxing after a long day. The tenderness of these images and their intimate scale draws us into the frame and into the warmth and comfort of these private domestic moments. Such delicate reminiscence is stripped bare in Bridget Flannery’s painted panels. Rather than languorous figures, we are shown rugged abstract landscapes, painted vibrantly with expressive brushstrokes in muted pastel shades. Across Clearings (2018) embodies atmospheric natural hues, textures and materials at the contracting methodical scale. Flannery’s physical expression of memory and place seeps pungently into the wood, which acts as a support for this work. Rather than formal paintings, Flannery’s compositions feel as though they have been chiselled out of a dreamscape, like organic segments cut and pasted onto the gallery wall. On the opposing wall, three works by Geraldine O’Neill lean into the art historical cannon of realist painting. O’Neill’s compositions appear to take influence from seventeenth-century Dutch Still Life and other prominent movements
throughout the history of painting. And yet, the work feels extremely fresh because it is permeated with modern cultural references, including the vibrant pink and orange outfit of Dora the Explorer, depicted in Mouse Trap (2010). This scene is so meticulously painted, that we can almost hear the synthetic rustling of the ever so slightly deflated, crinkled balloons. In addition, the rich green Irish football jersey, depicted in Boy (2008), is instantly recognisable. This painting depicts her own son against a vast and barren landscape, providing a seemingly outdated backdrop for the uncanny aura of youth. The stand-out work – quite literally – was Susan Connolly’s large-scale, installation-based painting. The artistry of Connolly’s oeuvre does not lie her in subject matter, but in matter itself. It is her layering process and her unapologetic treatment of materials that translates the work into three dimensions. For example, Ymc-iridescent (2019) invites us to shift from viewer to active participant. Our perspective moves from outward to inward, as we venture between the fixed blue wall and the back of the canvas. As we move, the shadow cast by the intricately arranged panels traverses the body, momentarily transforming it into a light-painted surface. Overall, the experience of each body of work is heightened by curator Susan Murphy’s gentle consideration, which allows autonomy to emerge between each cluster of paintings, while encouraging the viewer to follow each surface throughout the space. This diverse range of painting practice is further supported by a strong concurrent exhibition taking place in the First Floor Gallery, which showcases paintings from the Arts Council Collection. Spanning a 50-year period (1968–2018), this choesive selection of paintings range from Roy Johnston’s minimalist yet sculptural Sixteen Rotating Forms (1975) and the vibrant parallel brushstrokes of Diana Copperwhite’s Argentina (2006), to Damien Flood’s delicately restrained and considered approach to subject matter in Parting (2016). No cultural object can retain its value without consistent viewing by new audiences. This makes the regular showcasing of works from the Arts Council Collection ever more important. Sara Muthi is a writer and researcher based in Dublin.
Geraldine O’Neill, Mouse trap, 2010, oil on canvas, 130 × 180 cm; courtesy of the artist and Kevin Kavanagh Gallery
Geraldine O’Sullivan ‘Light Keepers’ Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen 9 March – 10 April 2019
Geraldine O’Sullivan, Birds Eye View of the Galley Head, acrylic on canvas, 101 × 140cm; courtesy of the artist and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
THE CRISP DEPICTION of County Cork’s
Fastnet Lighthouse – tall and erect yet submerged in a sea of blue – opens Geraldine O’Sullivan’s exhibition, ‘Light Keepers’ at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre. As one of 14 artworks on display, this painting immediately anchors the viewer in what unfurls as a world of green gushes, titanium white surf and brilliant blue horizons. O’Sullivan’s paintings are accompanied by 11 mixed-media collages that act as visual documentation of the information, stories and anecdotes the artist has encountered since commencing research into the history of lighthouse keeping in Ireland, over three years ago. Hung in a traditional style along the four walls of the ground-floor James O’Driscoll gallery, the works seem to gently enshroud the viewer. This sense of enclosure, combined with the brilliant white walls and the double-height ceiling, serendipitously seems to simulate a lighthouse interior. However, the lighthouse structure itself is only a minor component of these artworks. O’Sullivan is also concerned with the lives of the individual ‘light keepers’, as evidenced in her collaged works. The artist refers to these collages as “lifescapes” which aim to capture the keepers’ lives – based on old photos and memorabilia given to her by their families – while creating narrative through the various connections between imagery. For example, in Semaphore, black and white photographs of happy lighthouse children are juxtaposed alongside a smiling, cherubic girl advertising ‘Brasso’ metal polish, and a woman in old-fashioned dress demonstrating flag signals. A painterly rendering of Rockabill lighthouse is central to this small, intimate composition of memories. The exhibition is accompanied by a short film that provides the ‘Light Keepers’ with historical context, thus foregrounding an ‘archival impulse’ – something American art critic Hal Foster described as the desire to “make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present” .1 With modernisation, lighthouses in Ireland are no longer manned, so the world that the artist is reflecting upon is now essentially a lost culture. This archival impulse was also evident during the artist’s talk at the gallery on 16 March, when O’Sullivan’s work served as a backdrop to the anecdotes of her guest, Galley Head
lighthouse attendant, Gerard Butler. As a third generation ‘keeper’, Butler’s lively reminiscences seemed to emerge from and embed themselves in the artworks that surrounded him. Interestingly, a large acrylic painting, The Morning After the Storm, is actually based on Butler’s memory of the aftermath of a particularly cruel storm, now preserved in paint by the artist. The painting’s foreground is devoted to capturing the unusual qualities of the ‘green water’ observed by the light keeper that day. In isolation, it is almost an abstract pattern of green and grey swirls, sitting on a pool of deep Prussian blue. Surging from the left, the swell collapses into a white foam, as it meets the cliff edge to the right of the foreground. Emerging from the water to occupy the top half of the composition, is the rugged rock of Fastnet lighthouse. Slit-like marks of varying intensity indicate the harsh, jagged realities of its form. The intense pattern of water that floods the painting’s foreground is juxtaposed with stacks of marks, compacted to create a craggy rock, allowing little space for the eye to rest. The lighthouse keeper’s staggered feeling on the morning after the storm is cleverly evoked by the painting’s composition. Another large acrylic painting, The Cliff Divers Perch, is notable for its design. O’Sullivan’s research involved accessing drone imagery of the lighthouses and their surrounding areas, providing her with unusual reference imagery on which to base her compositions. Again, the composition teeters on abstraction, as the viewer is positioned at a cliff edge with the sea opening out below the rock underfoot. As such, ripples of blue replace the sky, while yellow ochre drips from the rock, as it drops down from the foreground into the watery pool. This exhibition showcases the artist’s vast painterly skill, as much as it highlights the fading culture of lighthouse keeping in Ireland. O’Sullivan’s ‘Light Keepers’ offers the viewer a fresh visual archive of an outmoded way of life. Sarah Long is an artist and writer based in County Cork. Notes 1 Hal Foster, ‘An Archival Impulse’, October, Vol. 110 (Autumn, 2004), p4.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
How is it Made?
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Constant Resurrection DOROTHY HUNTER OFFERS INSIGHTS INTO ‘ACTIVE ARCHIVE – SLOW INSTITUTION: THE LONG GOODBYE’ AT PROJECT ARTS CENTRE. IN A PERTINENT (and prescient) flyer for a 1972 auction
Top: Tanad Williams, Understudy/Untitled (assignment) Middle: Brian Hand, Project '98, 5-channel video installation (loop, sound) Bottom: Miriam O’Connor, Isla Blue Folio 1 and Folio 4, pigment inkjet prints, 552.6 × 370 mm; all photographs by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of Project Arts Centre
fundraiser, Project Arts Centre is named as “The Persistent Corpse”. With the crises that would echo throughout the years, the centre had formed an early habit of not dying. Amid repeated moments of almost-ending and being between-spaces – when priorities and capabilities were frequently weighed alongside what any future existence might look like – Project reflected the temporal and retrospective nature of an archive most closely. This is woven into the conceptual strands of Project’s ongoing research project and exhibition series, titled ‘Active Archive – Slow Institution’. Archives are having another moment in art. With a constant foundational presence, they are never far away, functioning as either creative subject or reflexive device. Contemporary archiving and its revisitation – with pronounced implicit selectivity, value judgements and nostalgia – goes hand-inhand with the unsteady knowledge and collective-making pertinent to contemporary political discourse. Working with past culture, so it cannot get lost or sanitised to suit political agendas, is part of Project Arts Centre Curator Lívia Paldi’s working ethos. Yet concurrently, one must work with the fact that archival content resembles evidence but can never shake off its ‘overwritten’ nature. The Project archive is formed through collective and individual encounters in a public space that is conditional, expanding and constantly moving. What was once important to present within a particular moment, time and space, becomes compressed and often obscured amidst wider ephemera – fragments of recurring and shifting communities, relating to artists, audiences and the institution. The ‘institution’ moves in all the realms that this term evokes. In the case of Project Arts Centre, the institution is also complicit in its spatial transition from a single event (Project 67 in November 1966), to an artist-led collective, to a purpose-built, multi-disciplinary arts space (from 2000 onward). The first exhibition in this series, titled ‘Active Archive – Slow Institution: The Long Goodbye’ (31 January – 30 March), was conceived through conversation between Paldi and Valerie Connor, who was Visual Arts Director of Project Arts Centre from 1998 to 2001 and curator of the ‘Off Site’ visual arts programme (1998–99). The exhibition draws from material in the Project archive, while making visible these processes of making and extraction. To speak of “an archive” conceals its fractured and incomplete nature: surviving material is split between the National Library of Ireland, NIVAL and various personal collections, each with very different conditions of access. As such, Project has only a certain amount of agency over its own history. Working within these forms and tensions – and in particular with Connor’s own extensive archive – the gallery was turned into a semi-private space for exploring these materials over a four-month period. During this time, artworks such as Christopher Mahon’s Couched – a printed sofa with small ceramic casts – co-existed with changeable overlapping lines of documents, workbenches and montaged gig posters. Such elements were expressly activated with events like Sebastian Cichocki’s experimental thinktank, whereby participants created an improvised ‘score’ for a new institution that might be performed, and so played with art’s position within ‘non-art’ surroundings. Taking up gallery space makes the archive a dysfunctional presence, as well as a lynchpin; the process itself is on display and distances ‘Active Archive’ from the idea of final objects. It is utilising the awkward, peripheral nature of such material. Events and pieces recorded within the archive are not artworks but residual of them – they cannot ape a factual or survey presentation. However, this work still has immanence and the ability to be formed by other forces. The artists contributing to the different phases of the exhibition are also in this state of flux, as none of the work is autonomous. Brian Hand’s 60mm film, for example, moves from a single-channel in the ‘workspace’ chapter, to a more elaborate form in the second
phase, when five CRT screens showed footage of Project Arts Centre, taken by Hand in 1998, just before the ‘Off Site’ programme was launched. The footage echoes the work that Blue Funk – a collective of six artists including Connor and Hand – were doing with the archive in 1993. This includes footage of Maurice O’Connell’s Demolishing Project – a festival-like farewell to Project’s old building in February 1998 – shown in fragmented details, with audio of gigs and performances coming together in montaged and non-linear ways. Throughout the two-month duration of ‘The Long Goodbye’, the gallery expanded with additional work, again embodying the living nature of the archive. For example, artist Miriam O’Connor revisited sites originally used during the ‘Off Site’ programme, with O’Connor’s small, rather esoteric prints shown at the opening giving way to folders of large table-based prints at a later stage, loosely recalling a disparate photo essay. Approaching the archive without prior engagement, O’Connor came to be the “eleventh Off Site artist” through this photographic intervention. The ‘Off Site’ programme information – sometimes corresponding to images, sometimes not – was separated from this work under the Perspex table top. These images were interspersed with details collected by O’Connor, in the more personal and peripheral aspects of making the work, thus ‘contaminating’ it beyond straightforward documentation. This project dovetailed with Hand’s film assemblages and Fergus Kelly’s sound work, taken from recordings of Dublin’s changing urban and cultural landscapes. Kelly reworked these recordings for the exhibition and during the artist’s talk, he referred to the constant demolition work happening around Dublin as a “tooth extraction in the landscape”. Whilst the tactility of O’Connor’s photos allowed the viewer to go through the work, it sat as a foil to the physically inaccessible information stored beneath. It also sat alongside (in this “exhibition of tables”, to quote a joke by Paldi) various clusters of literature, maps and images displayed under a huge sheet of Perspex of the main table, as well as on Tanad Williams’s display structure, Understudy/Untitled (assignment). Made from packaging material, this high, minimal black table provided a bulbous and almost breathing lightbox surface. Williams alluded to the material and three-dimensional qualities of the archive by delicately resting documents on this luminous surface to expose their texture. He later revealed (during a closing talk) that a piece of work had been hidden on the reverse, as a means of toying with its functional, referential existence. Throughout its 50-year history, Project Arts Centre has been symptomatic of change, particularly regarding its place within the redevelopment of Temple Bar and its regular relocation by necessity in the early years. At the same time, Project would push back, and its activity would shape its resources, as shown in Hannah Tiernan’s research into the queer plays staged at the centre. Various newspaper articles attested to an overspill of moral outrage, loaded headlines, funding cuts and resignations. The presence of this historic media coverage showed Project’s contentious and symbiotic relationship with the general public, funders and artists. The institution’s inability to exist unformed by others is imperative within the exhibition. Rather than venerate the past or re-canonise through this activity, this reworking and enveloping of documents make things more multiple and complex. What are esoteric and unrelated archival documents to one person, may offer visible connections and coherent trajectories to another. Scrutability is not something that is fought against but sits in symbiosis with the events. Compressing time and space produces awkward, nebulous compounds and microcosms of the archive. Subject to the layering impulses of the archival format, the trajectories of art and the spaces it occupies are reactivated with potential. Dorothy Hunter is an artist and writer based in Belfast, who worked as a researcher for ‘Active Archive – Slow Institution: The Long Goodbye’.
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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
How is it Made?
Henry setting up, Wood Quay Amphitheatre, trailer by work-seth/tallentire, Project Arts Centre Off Site, Dublin, 1998; all photographs courtesy of Valerie Connor
How sweet it is to murmur together1 VALERIE CONNOR OUTLINES THE OFF SITE PROGRAMME (1998–99) SHE CURATED FOR PROJECT ARTS CENTRE.
IN 1998, I started work on the development and delivery of what we would we would decide to call the Off Site visual arts programme at Project Arts Centre. Comprising ten projects and involving eleven artists, the programme was produced between 1998 and 1999, while Project’s building was under construction. While this was happening, we were also working on the opening programme and the first exhibitions for what would be our new building. As a curatorial project, the Off Site programme represented an opportunity to work differently and to think practically about how Project could approach programming in the new building. Out and about, we would learn, on the ground, about the neighbourhood and the surrounding city. We were well aware of the office-based alternatives to the operation and function of public galleries as art spaces and more peripatetic programming. Previously marginal practices, established in distinction from the mainstream, were now at the centre of critical and curatorial attention, as the legacy of political thinking in art and about culture in the previous decades. Independent curators were on the loose and at large. Not only were the spatial attributes of the gallery idea up in the air, but the temporal characteristics of exhibitions were too. It was a slow-newness, in fairness, as almost a century of such disturbance preceded the 1990s relationality mic-drop. Rolling through the European avant-gardes, the anti-establishment artist-led studio-galleries and the emergence of situated practices, lingered the idea of the ‘project’ – a revolutionary love of the experimental, the everyday, chance and habit. At Project Arts Centre, by the late 1980s, certain customs and practices had settled into the use of space at the old building on East Essex Street. For one thing, the amount of basic usable space had reduced over the years, lost to the effects of fire and water. At the time of writing, news of an exhibition of new paintings by Charles Tyrell at Dublin’s Taylor Galleries caught my eye, so I watched an interview with him from 1975 when he was still an art student. A video clip on RTÉ Archives includes a conversation with him in Project’s East Essex Street venue. With an art centre, he says, the artist does not have to look at the gallery as just a “distribution centre for art made in the studio” – he liked producing work for the gallery in the gallery. Project’s chairman, Michael Bulfin, later outlines how the building would have three galleries: a main gallery for exhibitions like Tyrell’s; a side gallery to showcase the arts centre’s artist members; and another featuring prints and photographs incorporating a cafe on the first floor. A dream, after a decade operating in buildings due for redevelopment on short-term leases.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Outside Brendan's on Benburb Street, Off Site by Pete Smithson, Project Arts Centre Off Site, Dublin 1998
Scan forward 20 years, what remained of the building in the clip has been demolished, the site cleared and the famously flooding River Poddle that runs beneath Project to this day is finally contained by a new culvert, to end to its depredations above. Theatre, dance and live art programming continued as project@themint – in a temporarily adapted building off Dublin’s Henry Street – and the Off Site programme began. The first Off Site project was launched in August 1998. Of the ten projects, six were produced in Dublin city centre, one in Galway, one online, one on audio CD, and one on CD-Rom. Skeye by Tony Patrickson was an interactive CD-Rom, released by Project Press.2 The Off Site projects were accompanied by new critical writing – either by me or another writer invited by the artist. Some were published or archived by a third party and this printed information remains as ephemera. At the time, Project’s first website (designed by Fever ID as per a very ambitious brief ) contained an extensive record of the programming, a searchable database and archive. The website was also the location for the last Off Site project, mirage.htm by Daniel Jewesbury, launched online in September 1999. Check the ephemera and you will see that the Off Site programme was described as ‘research-driven’, not only because this reflected the approach and attitude of the artists, but also Project’s aim to play to the organisational and multidisciplinary strengths of an arts centre and Project’s cultural interests, in particular. In 1992, Fiach MacConghail had been appointed Project’s director following Tim O’Neill. Following much work already done on the redevelopment, the closure of the old building appeared to be imminent. He began conversations with artists soon after, but it would be almost five years before Project would actually start to produce projects with the first of those artists. I was part of an artists’ group at that time that was also in discussions with Project about a commission. Time passed; things changed. Delays over boundaries, ownership, and so on, in the mid 1990s even led the arts centre to make practical investigations into what benefits might come from relocating to Smithfield, over the river, instead of redeveloping the East Essex Street site. This did not ultimately happen but in 1998, when Sandra Johnston was exploring the city and making video recordings as part of her Off Site project Reserved, it so happened that she spent considerable time in Smithfield, often adjacent to spots where men habitually gathered to sit and drink and some to sleep. Anne Tallentire and John Seth launched a new chapter in their collaborative work with trailer by work-seth/tallentire. Among the city centre locations where they held screenings each evening over a two-week period, was the Iveagh Markets on Francis Street. At the other end of the same street in 1999, Tina O’Connell made In Dublin at the Barley Mow pub. Both market and pub had ceased trading and are now in stages of dereliction. These three artists had exhibited in Project’s gallery space in 1994 and 1995. Some of the responses to O’Connell’s work at that time made it clear how contested the primary purpose of the gallery-cum-foyer had become. As with all the Off Site projects, these artists would make their new works in an atmosphere where the contradistinctions between strands of the arts centre’s programming began to fade in the absence of the building. The harmonious tempo of the busy project@the mint performance schedule and the Off Site programme was thanks to core management, crew, press and front of house staff, who were accustomed to working with variations in the scale and duration of production. These are completely routine in performance programmes for myriad reasons. It was completely imaginable that the knowhow attached to working with such variable timeframes – the same as associated with project-based or site-specific artworks – could, should, and would align in distinctive ways with the operational habits of an arts centre on the loose and at large. The very public part of Sandra Johnston’s Off Site project Reserved included performances on the roof of the Ormond Hotel on the quays of the River Liffey. Photographs and video recorded at that time show planning application timber structures for a proposed new roofline. Permission for an additional floor was repeatedly denied. Later, af-
How is it Made?
Debbie Behan, production manager, location recce, Project Arts Centre Off Site, Dublin, 1998
ter the building was acquired by NAMA and sold, it was demolished in 2018. Ground works are currently underway for a building. The timber outlines echoed the temporary so-called ‘catwalk’ hoardings, built by Pete Smithson as part of his eponymous project Off Site. These covered walkways are typical in urban places where building work is carried out above street level. These were pasted with paper printed with jumbled sequences of words from compass points. One located where the James Joyce bridge is now, picked up some graffiti from the crew of the cargo ship Hudsongracht. Now the Deniz S, the ship operates in the Black Sea and is currently berthed on the Danube, south of Bucharest. Prior to his Off Site project, Ronan McCrea had made similar builders’ walkways. For View, he mixed an image from the suburbs into the standard street level advertising on dilapidated structures beside early boom new-builds. He drove around and photographed as many as he could find. While Fergus Kelly was recording audio for his Invisible City CD, he was also taking photographs of sites in the city on verge of redevelopment. In each case, the city has leaked into the document and is inscribed in the artists’ archives. Stairwell by Jolley (and Reynold Reynolds) screened from dusk until dawn in the car park to a courthouse a few doors from Project Arts Centre. CCTV captured an epic pratfall by a solitary viewer, the audience, mesmerised by this projection of a falling figure. Apocryphal? We knew anecdotes and strangers were important in creating a kind of ‘allegorical Project’ that would sustain us in the move back home. We did have fun and we needed our friends. If you were on Francis Street in a bar that was not a bar, with a lot of tar, late on a Spring night in 1998, you will remember that at the centre of some of the wildest fun was Jason Oakley. Legend. Valerie Connor was Project Arts Centre’s visual arts director from 1998 until 2001 and curated the Off Site visual arts programme (1998-1999). Off Site Programme3 Tony Patrickson, Skeye (31 Aug 1998). CD-Rom. Pete Smithson, Off Site (19 Oct – 26 Nov 1998). Structures and text at four locations in Dublin City. Sandra Johnston, Reserved (11 – 12 Nov 1998). Performance at Ormond Hotel, Dublin 1. work-seth/tallentire, trailer (30 Nov – 4 Dec/7–11 Dec, 1998). Screenings at 10 locations in Dublin City. Paddy Jolley, Stairwell (24 Feb – 9 Mar 1999). Video projection at Dolphin House, Dublin 2. Tina O’Connell, In Dublin (26 Mar – 3 Apr 1999). Sculpture and CCTV at Barley Mow Pub, Dublin 8. Dorothy Cross, Chiasm (1 – 2 May 1999). Opera at Handball Alleys, St. Enda’s School, Salthill, Galway. Fergus Kelly, Invisible Cities, (12 Jul 1999). Audio CD. Ronan McCrea, View (30 Aug – 12 Sept 1999). 200 posters at Irish Poster Advertising sites in Dublin City. Daniel Jewesbury, mirage.htm (24 Sept 1999). Online. Notes 1 ‘How sweet it is to murmur together’ is from the opera L’Orfeo (1607) by Monteverdi, sung during the performance of Chiasm by Dorothy Cross, an Off Site project at St. Enda’s handball alleys, Galway. 2 The Project Press publishing imprint was established at the start of the decade, initially for artists’ catalogues and monographs, and later included the ‘Project’ in-house pamphlets of criticism ‘Project Papers’ (1998) on performance. 3 Archive Information: In 2009, Project Arts Centre donated archival documents to the National Library of Ireland. These include materials associated with the Off Site programme. The catalogue, available online, was prepared by Barry Houlihan, assisted by Máire Ní Chonalláin and Luke Kirwan, as The Project Arts Centre Papers, Collection List No. 152.
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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
How is it Made?
Asylum Archive VUKAŠIN NEDELJKOVIĆ DISCUSSES HIS ONGOING PROJECT, ‘ASYLUM ARCHIVE’, WHICH DOCUMENTS IRELAND’S DIRECT PROVISION SYSTEM.
“Memory, for migrants, is almost always the memory of loss. But since most migrants have been pushed out of the sites of official/national memory in their original homes, there is some anxiety surrounding the status of what is lost, since the memory of the journey to a new place, the memory of one’s own life and family world in the old place, and official memory about the nation one has left have to be recombined in a new location”.1 THE DIRECT PROVISION scheme was introduced in Ireland
in November 1999. Since then, over 150 centres have been opened and closed in this relatively recent Irish history. At the moment, there are 36 Direct Provision Centres dispersed across the country. Some of these buildings include former convents, army barracks, hotels and holiday homes. Most of the centres are situated outside of cities, in suburban, remote or rural areas on the periphery of Irish society. This decision has significantly reduced the potential for integration with the local population, leaving asylum seeker communities to dwell in ‘ghettoized’ environments. Asylum seekers live in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, where families with children are often forced to share small rooms. The management controls their food, their movements, the supply of bed linen and cleaning materials, thus exercising their authority, power and control.2 According to Dr Ronit Lentin, Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity College, Direct Provision centres are little more than “holding camps” which frame the “inmates” as “deportable subjects, ready to be deported any time”.3 According to a 2009 report, published by the Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC), these privately owned centres, administered by the Government of Ireland, constitute a “Direct Provision industry”, which makes a profit on the backs of asylum seekers.4 Direct Provision centres are the primary focus of my research. This ‘new’ category of institutions – defined by the open-ended incarceration of asylum seekers – creates what French anthropologist, Marc Augé, describes as ‘non-places’, wherein ‘unknown’ asylum seekers establish their ‘new’ identities, through the process of negotiating belonging in a current locality.5 Direct Provision centres are disciplinary and exclusionary forms of spatial and social enclosure that separate and conceal asylum seekers from mainstream society and ultimately prevent their long-term integration or inclusion. As noted by Canadian-American sociologist, Erving Goffman, they are “total institutions” and “forcing houses”, as well as a “natural experiment on what can be done to the self ”.6 In my view, when the Irish State initiated the Direct Provision system, it deliberately constructed a space where institutional racism could be readily instantiated, explicitly through the threat of deportation, or through transfer to a different accommodation centre. In this sense, Direct Provision centres are, in the words of Emmanuel Levinas, “the absence of everything... the place where the bottom has dropped out of everything, an atmospheric density, a plenitude of the void, or the murmur of silence.” 7 ASYLUM ARCHIVE: AN ARCHIVE OF ASYLUM AND DIRECT PROVISION IN IRELAND
“It is to burn with a passion. It is never to rest, interminably, from searching for the archive right where it slips away. It is to run after the archive... It is to have a compulsive, repetitive and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to return to the origin, a homesickness, a nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of absolute commencement”.8 From April 2007 to November 2009, I was housed in a Direct Provision centre while seeking asylum. As an artist, I kept myself intact by capturing and communicating with the environment through photographs and videos. This creative process helped me to overcome confinement and incarceration. Originally started as a coping mechanism, Asylum Ar-
chive is directly concerned with the reality and trauma of life for asylum seekers. Asylum Archive is an art, activist and academic platform that examines the localities and sites where asylum seekers are being held, while in the process of seeking international protection. In the beginning, Asylum Archive existed and was shown in different academic conferences and through my website (asylumarchive.com). Only relatively recently has the work become a subject for the white cube and wider visual arts discourse. The project memorialises and historicises Direct Provision by continuing to highlight the appalling treatment of people who came to Ireland to seek protection. The photographs in the archive are devoid of romanticism and aestheticism; they simply document the everyday reality for asylum seekers. This work is political and socially-engaged. My work is not so much inspired by contemporary or historical photographers and artists, though I will not deny the influence of the American Documentary Photographers or the German School of Photography, as well as writers like Primo Levi and Frantz Fanon, or radical philosophers like Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben. In my view, the Irish arts community has become increasingly vocal over the last few years, in engaging with social issues, helping to enhance the visibility of various activist campaigns. However, I believe that, as a society, we have a long way to go in addressing the inequalities occurring within our communities. As an artist and activist, I continue to explore the processes of collaboration with the asylum seekers community. Asylum Archive has a contributory aspect, creating a collaborative and collective space where individuals from other social and political subcultures can contribute to an online repository of Direct Provision. The contributory element is deliberately designed for asylum seekers to upload their visual or written experience from Direct Provision centres. One relatively recent contribution included photographs from Mount Trenchard Direct Provision Centre, a centre for single men, located in Foynes – a remote and rural area in County Limerick. The photographs were taken using a smartphone and accurately represent the isolation and destitution faced by asylum seekers in Ireland today. The Direct Provision scheme is a continuation of Ireland’s long and troubled history of confinement, through its borstals, industrial schools, Magdalene Laundries, prisons, workhouses, mother and baby homes and lunatic asylums. Given that we have very little visual documentation of these former carceral sites, I want to document the sites of the Direct Provision system. Lentin previously described Asylum Archive as an “archive of silence and secrets” which challenges Irish society to “confront the return of its repressed pain of incarceration and e/migration”. Asylum Archive frames the humans who are “warehoused by the state” – those who are “incarcerated in varying states of deportability” and “banned from the sacred realm of Irishness”– as active agents in their own right.” 9 Asylum Archive is not a singular art project, engaged in internal conversations at the fringes of society; rather, it is an open platform for inclusive dialogue and discussion, involving individuals who have experienced a sense of sociological and/or geographical displacement, memory loss, trauma and violence.10 Asylum Archive is an essential visual, informative and educational resource. Through an online presence, it is accessible to any future researchers and scholars who may wish to undertake study about the conditions of asylum seekers in Ireland.
Vukašin Nedeljković is a visual artist, activist and PhD candidate at Dublin Institute of Technology. asylumarchive.com
Top: Vukašin Nedelković, New Light House Direct Provision Centre, Dublin (detail) Bottom: Vukašin Nedelković, The Old Convent Direct Provision Centre, Ballyhaunis; all images courtesy of the artist
Notes 1 Arjun Appadurai, ‘Archive and Aspiration’, Information is Alive, eds. Joke Brouwer and Arjen Mulder (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2003) p.21. 2 See: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (New York: Verso, 1975). 3 Ron Lentin, ‘Anti-Deportation Ireland: End Deportations Now’, Free Radikal (4 October 2012). See ronitlentin.net 4 FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centre) One Size Doesn’t Fit All: A Legal Analysis of the Direct Provision and Dispersal System in Ireland, 10 Years On. (Dublin: Free Legal Advice Centre, 2009). See flac.ie 5 See: Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (London: Verso, 1995). See also: Willem Schinkel, ‘Illegal Alliens and the State, or Bare Bodies vs the Zombie’, International Sociology, 24 (6), 2009, pp.779-804. 6 Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situations of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Garden City, NY: Anchor Book Editions, 1961) p.101. 7 Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other and Additional Essays (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1987), p.46. See also: Eoin O’Sullivan and Ian O’Donnell, Coercive Confinement in Ireland: Patients, Prisoners and Penitents (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). 8 Jacques Derrida, ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression’, Diacritics, 25(2), 1995, p.57. 9 Ronit Lentin, ‘Archiving Silence: Remarks on Vukasin Nedeljkovic’s Asylum Archive Exhibition’, Free Radical (6 December 2016). See ronitlentin.net 10 See: Grant H. Kester, ‘Collaboration, Art and Subcultures’, Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil: Art Mobility Sustainability 2 (2006), p.p.10-35.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Profile
6 Seville Place AIDAN KELLY MURPHY SPEAKS TO A GROUP OF ARTISTS WHO HAVE USED THEIR OWN INITIATIVE TO CREATE A TEMPORARY STUDIO SPACE IN NORTH INNER-CITY DUBLIN.
Left and Middle: Interior view, 6 Seville Place; photograph by Aidan Kelly Murphy; Right: Liliane Puthod, Blowin’ hot n cold (2018), fluorescent light, lighting filter gels, 150 × 4 × 5cm; image courtesy the artist
IN NOVEMBER 2017 the average price for a residential
property in Ireland edged above the National Property Price Index’s baseline for the first time since 2009, signifying that the bust had been replaced with a new property boom.1 While the growth during the Celtic Tiger years was based on a system of increased supply and demand, the current increase in prices has been driven by a reduction in supply. This strain has impacted all aspects of the property market and all kinds of people are now competing for places to live and work in the city. Unfortunately, the arts community has not been spared from this struggle. Studios and galleries that moved into vacant buildings to act as custodians during the recession have begun to close, with buildings either being converted or demolished to make way for commercial units, hotels, apartments and student accommodation. The regeneration of the property market has directly resulted in a degeneration of studio spaces for artists, with workspaces like Broadstone Studios and New Art Studio closing to make way for commercial ventures. This has yet again become a critical issue within the arts community and some artists are taking matters into their own hands, by exploring options to create their own studio spaces. I talked to a group of five artists – namely Conall Downs, Andreas Kindler von Knobloch, Áine McBride, Blaine O’Donnell and Tanad Williams – who have established a new workspace for themselves in a disused house in North inner-city Dublin. Aidan Kelly Murphy: What is the backstory of 6 Seville Place? 6 Seville Place: In 2010 a couple of us moved in a few doors down the street. At that stage the property at 6 Seville Place was empty. This changed in 2014 when squatters moved in and made it their home, but they were later evicted after legal proceedings were completed. The property then fell into a state of disrepair, before eventually being blocked off, with corrugated iron on the windows and plywood over the door. In 2016 two of us applied for a Project Studio in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and part of our application was to identify a new artist studio/production space in Dublin. After leaving TBG+S we began looking for that space. It was during this time that it occurred to us to find out what the situation was with No. 6. We found the owner’s details online and contacted him. We were acutely aware of the recent history of the building and so asked if he would be interested in letting us use the space, in exchange for repairs to the building. We assumed very little would come from this correspondence, but the attempt paid off, when two days later he emailed saying that he would be interested in discussing our proposition further.
AKM: How important has it been to establish a working relationship with the owner based on trust? 6SP: Extremely important. We made sure to wait until we had his permission before entering the building. We didn’t start clearing out the space until the basic agreement – of using the property for a minimum of a year, in exchange for being caretakers of the building – had been established and formalised as a written contract. As a first act of goodwill, we spent some time reconstructing the door, which had been destroyed during the eviction process, and we repaired the old sash windows. We also met the builder and architect who are currently working on the building’s renovation, as well as the neighbours who’ve helped with clearing the front garden and pruning the bushes in return for shelves and DIY tips. Some of the neighbours have even inquired as to whether we could fix their sash windows as well. It has been remarkable how friendly and good-willed everyone has been. AKM: How did the five of you come together? 6SP: That was the easy part! Andreas, Blaine and Conall live a few doors down and we have used their back garden as a workshop for the past number of years. Tanad had been working in this workshop and was searching for a vacant building at the time. Whilst Áine was one of the people we spoke to about the property before moving in, and she was also looking for a studio. AKM: Have you begun to see tangible benefits in your own working methodologies? 6SP: We have a very high functioning space and that’s invaluable. We have produced in the region of eight shows from Seville Place over the last year, including a group show in the space itself. Work being produced in the property is also for theatre shows, photobook launches, bespoke crates for artworks and artworks for specific artists. Slowly people have begun to drop by more frequently. We’re working on the last few rooms and trying to get the space suitable for potential visitors. AKM: Do you think in Ireland we are reluctant to approach spaces with a view to converting them? 6SP: The project at No. 6 was never thought of as a conversion, but more of an in-between stage. We think artists should be reluctant to engage in these kinds of precarious situations, where the energy needed to create a stable working environment is balanced quite delicately with the amount of time you can expect to be able to work there. On the other hand, landowners in Ireland are too short-sighted – that goes for developers and the building trade too. Houses here are
built with a visible short-termism; they no longer think in terms of generations but regulations. It’s not a coincidence that we are in a house that was built over 150 years ago. AKM: What support structures do you think need to be developed to encourage more people to explore the route you have taken? 6SP: This approach was unique to our situation, and not something we would encourage as a widespread or long-term solution for artists. No. 6 has only been possible because some of us live a few doors down, allowing us access to power and bathroom facilities. The landlord’s good faith and trust has also been quite unique throughout the process. Even with all of this, our situation in the house still feels precarious and we know that it is only a temporary solution. We would say to others that there is no harm in enquiring into empty buildings. Websites like the Property Registration Authority (prai.ie) are useful if you spot a vacant place, as you can find details of the owner. We feel there should be a greater stigma attached to leaving houses empty; objects need care and houses are no different. In our case the amount of time we have put into the property has a direct correlation with the rent we would have paid for studio spaces, with the difference being that we are always here and can spend more time in the studio. The Arts Council could support and back independent artists or groups in taking on properties – whatever happened to Dublin City Council’s Vacant Spaces Initiative? Recent graduates should expect support from their colleges too, and ask these institutions to vouch for them, until they have a good enough track record to set up spaces themselves. If things continue this way over the next few years, most, if not all of us, will have moved out of Dublin or emigrated; and for a small island whose purported export is culture, we’re not doing an awful lot to keep musicians, writers, actors and artists living and working in our capital city. Our year in No. 6 is almost up and soon we will have to start thinking about the next workspace. Aidan Kelly Murphy is a writer and photographer based in Dublin, the Arts Editor for The Thin Air and Associate Editor of CIRCA Art Magazine. The artists at 6 Seville Place are: Conall Downs, Andreas Kindler von Knobloch, Áine McBride, Blaine O’Donnell and Tanad Williams. Notes 1 Based on figures from the Central Statistics Office’s National Property Price Index – see cso.ie.
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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Profile
‘A Painters Life: Stephen McKenna (1939–2017)’, installation view, VISUAL Carlow, 2019; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, copyright and courtesy of VISUAL Carlow
A Painter’s Life CHRISTINA MULLAN PROVIDES AN OVERVIEW OF THE STEPHEN MCKENNA RETROSPECTIVE AT VISUAL CARLOW.
WRITING ON THE NOTION of painting in 1994, Adrian Searle remarked that painting exhibitions are often classified as a “resurrection” of sorts. He argues that we need not consider these events in such a manner – that painting “is not a patient, it is not ill or dying, or in need of resuscitation. It is not convalescing, or in remission, reborn or revived. It needs no revivals: painting is not an old-time religion”.1 If anything can testify to this statement, it is the current retrospective exhibition, ‘A Painter’s Life: Works from 1958–2016’, and the accompanying group exhibition, ‘Legacies’, at VISUAL Carlow, which seek to celebrate the life and enduring influence of Irish artist Stephen McKenna. The genesis for this exhibition began in 2016, when McKenna was invited to create a retrospective for Ireland’s largest gallery space. During a studio visit with curator and gallery coordinator Emma-Lucy O’Brien, McKenna claimed that VISUAL was not a place “built for painting”.2 Seemingly driven by a desire to challenge the authority of this 29-metre tall cube, McKenna selected 71 paintings dating from 1958 to 2016, culminating in an incredible salon-style hang. The artist selected works specifically for ‘A Painter’s Life’, working continually from a scale architectural model he had built for the task. After the artist’s death in 2017, the exhibition was brought to completion with help from the McKenna family and the Kerlin Gallery (who represent the artist’s estate). Upon entering the main gallery space at VISUAL, one is struck by the vast scale of the gallery space, as much as the dizzying arena of work on display. Paintings scale the walls, but are discreetly grouped by genre, subject matter or chronology. McKenna worked doggedly and faithfully from early forays into abstraction and surrealism in the 1950s and ‘60s, through to his more familiar classical European and mythological canvases. Still-life paintings sit within his famous interiors; picturesque gardens are bathed in Italian light. Trees are uprooted in an almost apocalyptic vision of Arcadia, whilst Dublin buses traverse Richard Scarry cityscapes. Narcissus stares forlornly into his pool, while chimpanzees roam free and Fionn MaCoul’s Irish wolfhound, Bran, grins. Marat and the French Revolution sit comfortably alongside native herons and gulls. McKenna adhered strictly to the steady construction of his paintings, but there was an ever-changing flow and rhythm to his subject matter. A delicate study of a rainbow segues into a brutal seascape, demonstrating what the artist called “the rigour of self-permission.” There is no censorship in his production. The subject matter is matched in pace by the constancy of his output. Although he had said of his own work “academically, they are not great,” his practice eschewed the notion of ‘isms’ in favour of allegory and the “indivisible substance” of painted matter to construct a known, tangible world where Pompeian ruins lie apposite Donegal tweed; where the River Barrow hosts “Marie-Antoinette and her ladies playing at being dairymaids in the water meadows of Moneybeg”.3
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The core value at the centre of this retrospective is perhaps that which remained a central tenant throughout McKenna’s career as a painter. It is a show that represents a life’s inquiry, often in repeating fragments; something which only becomes apparent with a second visit or very particular attention paid to the accompanying gallery guide. One series (Night Festival, Crowd at a Fire with Water and Procession with Fire) depict figures grouped around bonfires and in an evening cortege with lit torches. They are also intense studies of light, reflection, figuration and flame, reiterating in painted matter what was crucial to the artist’s investigation: “I had been concerned with certain fundamentals of the human situation, or human activity, in spatial contexts, which were essentially landscape in character.” Stylistically, they look to be painted simultaneously or at most, weeks apart. More careful analysis reveals that these works bracket a timespan of thirty years. Another simple trio looks initially to group small flocks of fluidly rendered birds with a casual, unframed study (St Johns Point) placed elegantly below it’s own evolution into a Tuscan town square (Pitigliano with Bird Flock). These nestle a fluttering avian silhouette against intense blue (Birds and Trees). This little trinity demonstrates McKenna’s edict that painting is a “life’s craft”. Between the brisk study and the intricate Italian townscape, these small canvases span a quarter of a century. There is an exquisite poignancy to the group show, titled ‘Legacies’, which accompanies ‘A Painter’s Life.’ Housed in the Link Gallery, the exhibition features work by six contemporary artists: Adam Bohanna, Eithne Jordan, Stephen Loughman, William McKeown (1968–2011), Isabel Nolan and Mairead O’hEocha, whose practices were directly influenced by Stephen McKenna’s technique, advice and friendship. These artists benefited not only from practical resources and advice from McKenna (recipes for painting the sky; “if stuck for something to paint, paint a tree”) but from the unapologetic tenacity of an artist who painted and believed in painting. It was said in conversation at the exhibition launch that the constancy of his own constructs was matched only by the constancy of his personal making – that he was someone very much at peace with his work. This confidence is apparent in his legacy, with his seminal curation of ‘The Pursuit of Painting’ at IMMA in 1997, to his adherence that the work must happen everywhere – if not within meticulously kept studio hours, then fixed at the open window of a hotel in a European Port. The references to mythology and paradox – humourous, in that one could make a painting of a paradox – all form the scaffold upon which his work hangs. The foundations themselves are apparent in the ‘Legacies’ exhibition with Stephen Loughman’s precise trees, Adam Bohanna’s sumptuous Boy with Stick and Isabel Nolan’s canvas donkey, Pompeii, staring into its pool of goldfish, which a heron in the gallery grounds is rumoured to be fond of eating. Christina Mullan is a writer and researcher based in Galway. ‘A Painters Life: Stephen McKenna (1939–2017) Works from (1958–2016)’ and ‘Legacies’ continue at VISUAL Carlow until 19 May. visualcarlow.ie All photographs: ‘A Painters Life: Stephen McKenna (1939-2017)’, installation view, VISUAL Carlow, 2019; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, copyright and courtesy of VISUAL Carlow
Notes 1 Adrian Searle and Linda Schofield, Unbound: Possibilities in Painting; Hayward Gallery, London, 3 March to 30 May 1994 (London: South Bank Centre, 1994). 2 This expression was recalled by Emma-Lucy O’Brien during her talk on McKenna in VISUAL on 9 February. She had visited the artist in his studio, while they were planning the exhibition. 3 T.F. O’Sullivan, Goodly Barrow: A Voyage on an Irish River (Lilliput Press, 2002), quoted in Stephen McKenna, The Barrow Book (Carlow Local Authorities: Carlow, 2004).
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Biennial
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Eva Rothschild, 'Kosmos', installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2018; photograph by Andrew Curtis
The Shrinking Universe JONATHAN CARROLL INTERVIEWS EVA ROTHSCHILD ABOUT REPRESENTING IRELAND AT THE 58TH VENICE BIENNALE.
Jonathan Carroll: Your biography is the perfect antithesis of Brexit: you were born in Dublin; studied at University of Ulster, Belfast; live in London and have an MA from Goldsmiths; and you are being brought to Venice by Void Gallery in Derry, with a curator from Dublin. Is it good timing for such a European endeavour? Eva Rothschild: We were not alone in being anxious about getting everything transported to Venice before the initial Brexit date. The Scottish, Welsh and British pavilions were all installing early, to avoid any difficulties. There is nothing in the show that directly relates to Brexit – I don’t make work that has a narrative in that way. It is interesting to be working in Northern Ireland during this pivotal moment in UK-Irish relations. Living in the UK, it is very important for me to identify as an Irish artist. JC: The selection process for the Venice Biennale is very competitive and involves a lot of partnering between commissioner, curator and artist. Can you give insights into how your team came together? ER: I have wanted to do Venice for ages but hadn’t realised you had to apply for it. As part of the open-call process, curators and commissioners nominate artists who they want to work with. Mary Cremin and I had wanted to work together for some time, and then she was appointed Director of Void in Derry. Mary is a force to be reckoned – a dynamic yet calm person who can deal with anything and has great curatorial flare. You also have to ensure that there is some sort of institutional support, to coordinate and provide structures to make the project happen. A big issue, of course, is additional funding.1 JC: One of the Arts Council’s main criteria for Venice artists is the capacity to bring their practice to another level – were you asked to “think big”? ER: I am nearly 50 and have been working as an artist for 25 years. I suppose if you want me to do a project, you know it will probably be sculpture, though this is not the same as making a show for a small commercial space or doing an architectural project. In any instance, you take into account the context of the exhibition. Showing in Venice is like doing the most public exhibition you can imagine. There is an expectation that the work will demonstrate a scale and ambition not suitable in other contexts. As a sculptor, I feel that a lot of internationally recognised contemporary Irish art is quite narrative-based, or very much to do with time-based media. I felt it was important that my work stayed true to a sculptural core, so that is very much how I approach the pavilion, to emphasise physical sculptural engagement. It is worth noting that the Irish pavilion is situated as a continuation to the main Venice Biennale exhibition – curated this year by Ralph Rugoff – unlike the standalone national pavilions located in the
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Giardini. It’s the only remaining artworld show organised around national identity. The history and longevity of the Venice Biennale and the positioning of the pavilions echoes the colonial structure that is now eroded. The Irish pavilion is sort of in the ‘post-colonial’ section – it’s a good place to be. JC: Can we expect something of the scale of your 2009 Duveen Commission, Cold Corners, for Tate Britain? ER: It is within the idiom of my work, but I have considered the architecture of the space and the flow through of people. I was warned that nothing can prepare you for the crowds coming through during the first few days. The four main sculptural elements I will be showing are very demanding, in terms of their physical requirements. That is one of the great advantages of showing in the Arsenale – there are not that many floors in Venice that can take concrete blocks or heavy sculptures. The location could not be better, in terms of access. This space is also quite rough and ready, so the work needs to be robust and coherent enough to deal with those kinds of conditions and to hold its own. My work is either episodic or made up of multiple elements – although you see it arranged in one way, it allows for the possibility for it to be shown in different ways. I am very interested in how people view a room of sculptures that is also populated by other people – they give a kinaesthetic sense of scale and possibility in relation to the objects. We all have the experience of going to these blockbuster exhibitions and peering over people’s heads, trying to catch a glimpse of the rarefied artwork. That’s not an ideal situation but I think with sculpture, you get to see how people look at things, how they comport themselves in relation to the object, and how they arrange themselves in their modes of looking. I am interested in spectatorship, especially in a spectacular situation like Venice. I am very aware that the time people give to an artwork is miniscule. Within these few seconds, there is a desperation to find the language to go with it, so a search for the panel and title ensues. To counteract the tendency for the Irish pavilion to become a corridor, I have included seating in the exhibition, to encourage people to stay a while. I’ve also added a sort of forced interaction with the work, by creating barriers which corral the visitors. You can’t just walk past the work; you have to circumnavigate it in some way. JC: Perhaps there will be some sort of relief for the viewer, after they’ve come through this heavily curated narrative section, to find ‘stuff in a room’? ER: Yes. Viewers will have encountered many shows within the Arsenale, by the time they get to the Irish pavilion. And that is what it comes down to – it’s ‘stuff in a room’, stuff you are not going to find anywhere else. I think when you talk to sculptors who are very involved in making, there are lots of things that inform their work but usually they are overridden by the desire to see something exist, or to force the material to do something. So, there is a tendency to place the idea above the object, but for me, the object is key. I think there is such a divorce from materiality now, that I feel very privileged every day to be actually dealing with ‘stuff ’ rather than screens. I squash something into a box, or I saw something in two, or I make a mould. That is what I would prefer to do all day – I like physicality, I like the sense of labour, the sense of work. If I wasn’t doing this, I would rather be doing something physical than something chair-bound. JC: Can you discuss the significance of titles within your work? ER: I find titles are very important. Titles direct the language-functioning part of the brain towards creating meaning for the visual. People also view the title as a kind of crutch, so I think it is important that I design that support. I suppose I am continuing my authorial role through the titles of the works. I hate when works are untitled. In the process of developing this exhibition, I changed the title of an artwork, which was problematic, as the catalogue essay had already been edited. However, this amendment was important to me, as the work is settled now, whereas it felt a bit unsettled before. JC: There is a certain pressure on artists to be relevant to the current moment, but your work maintains a certain detachment that insulates it from this need to continually comment on the present. In your press release for Venice, there is mention of allowing for “contemplation of the material legacy” of both “present and past civilisations”. Is it important for you to avoid time-specificity within your work? ER: One of the weird things about doing something like Venice is the level of discussion prior to the opening and the drive to fit things into a series of subjects. These things inform the work, in that they form my view of the world, but the work itself is not illustrative of these things. I would be very much of the Susan Sontag ‘Against Interpretation’ kind. I do want the work to float free of those things, but that is not to say that my own concerns are not the concern of the work. There isn’t usually the drive to sort of shoehorn the work into a narrative, in the same way as there is when doing something like the Venice Biennale. JC: The Irish Pavilion usually returns to Ireland after the biennale closes in late November. Where will it be shown? ER: Having studied in Belfast, I have a strong link to Northern Ireland and was very keen to show at the Void Gallery in Derry. Then we will be showing in VISUAL Carlow and somewhere in Dublin – as yet, we have not decided on a venue.
Middle: Eva Rothschild, 'Iceberg Hits', installation view, Modern Art, Vyner Street, London, 22 March - 5 May 2018
Jonathan Carroll is a curator and writer based in Dublin. Eva Rothschild is an artist who currently lives and works in London. The 58th Venice Biennale will take place from 11 May to 24 November 2019.
All photographs by Robert Glowacki © Eva Rothschild, courtesy the artist & Modern Art, London; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Kauffman Repetto, Milan; 303 Gallery, New York and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich
Notes 1 Eva has produced a series of prints and sculptures to help fund the final project.
Top: Eva Rothschild, Border, 2018, painted concrete, wood, foam, polystyrene, 172 × 242 × 32 cm
Bottom: Eva Rothschild, Tooth and Claw (detail), 2018, aluminium, polyurethane, fabric, glass beads, jesmonite, fibreglass, paint, plexiglass, MDF
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Art Writing Award
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Michelle Doyle, Distance from Stone, 2018, HD Video, 10 minutes; film still courtesy the artist
Rock the Casbah LILY CAHILL, WINNER OF THE VAI/DCC ART WRITING AWARD 2019, REVIEWS MICHELLE DOYLE’S SOLO EXHIBITION, ‘OBEDIENT CITY’, AT A4 SOUNDS GALLERY, DUBLIN.
I RECENTLY HOSTED a visiting American friend. Spending the majority of their stay in suburban south Dublin prompted the query as to why the fashion is for graveled driveways as opposed to grass. This was one of the only notable differences between the modern metropoles of Dublin and Boston, apparently. Having never paid any particular attention to such ubiquitous assemblies in the past, I couldn’t speculate as to my fellow citizens’ preference for large gatherings of pounded stones surrounding one’s abode. The zealous tourist prompted pause for thought: What can stone stand for? Grass can grow anywhere, and concrete is a mutt. Gravel, however, consists of stones that are mechanically, uniformly, crushed and filtered. The multitudes of our suburban stones were standing for our citizenly civility: “The Obedience of the Citizens Produces a Happy City”.1 No undergrowth here. Michelle Doyle’s ‘Obedient City’ at A4 Sounds Gallery (13 – 23 September 2018) announced itself, per its press release, as “a visitor centre of the minerals, obstructions and energy of public works”, showing “how the true essence of Dublin … can be packaged” via the supposed ‘museumification’ of OPW sites and the general privatisation of Dublin city’s infrastructure.2 With over half of Dublin’s rental units reportedly shortterm occupied by site-seeing tourists during a national housing crisis, this is hard, core, matter Doyle’s digging up. From a DIY punk background, Doyle has predominantly, and often collaboratively, worked via less materially driven formats – such as pirate radio, social media and through the distribution of zine publications, badges and online sound and video works. Having completed a three-month residency at A4 Sounds in Dublin’s north inner city, the artist has taken a departure with the culminating solo exhibition. She presents mainly sculptural works and one large video projection, with the exhibition scheduled to coincide with Culture Night 2018 – an event (amusingly described by Doyle during her artist’s talk as “a purge”) of note to an artist invested in the facilitation and distribution of heritage – heritage being the variable packaging or parentage of culture(s). Or vice versa, depending on the target audience. In the exhibition, Doyle mimics ‘visitor experience’ methods and tropes utilised by heritage sites and museums with theatrical flourish. There’s a neon lit Vitrine and even a Gift Shop – which fittingly sells things that don’t appear to have much to do with the show. Works such as Death Masks, The Monument (towering, comical, columned), and various objects inside Vitrine (plaster casts of indents in the city’s streets, like Telecom Éireann logos and other reminders of bygone publicly owned resources) are made of materials ranging marble, plaster, clay, sand, stone and granite. The three Death Masks are splayed on the wall, their foreboding faces anguished, drooped, stretched, sagged
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and delicate in their distortion. The video, Distance From Stone, features the ever-popular dulcet tones of a ‘deep-voiced wise man’ guiding our visual journey, comprising Dublinia scenes to our freshly churning incinerator (described by Doyle as the “best monument of all time”) and later populated by the wobbling visage of another exhibited mask, superimposed and floating mythically, though troublingly, and pointedly, somewhat meaninglessly, over an internet-sourced mystical sky. The stars of the show – two glamorous, glittering, Pebbledash Masks – hit the high note from their wall mounts, though one had no mouth, thusly rendered unable to proclaim or protest. This particular po-faced player, silently fretting its hour on stage, prompted the exhumation of that most famous corpse – one so concerned with heritage and distinction, the specificities of location, that it killed him. Indeed, Macbeth’s moving forest would not shock today in this global village: “We just can’t see the wood for the trees because, in actuality, Birnam Wood has moved – Welcome to Dunsinane! With a new accessible location, better facilities, a bigger car park and easier access to freshly built Neolithic houses!” 3 With an ‘outsider’ element always present, this ‘trickster’ persona is a vital part of Doyle’s work. The artist effectively sprinkled ‘Obedient City’ with stardust, knowing that a glint in one’s eye can be the best magnifying glass. Nearly a century ago, a roving pack of women – “a kind of 1930s Pussy Riot” – rallied to the “new cause” of protecting rural England from the “tentacles of development”.4 Whilst raising money for the National Trust, ‘Ferguson’s Gang’ employed props, masks and aliases (such as ‘Bill Stickers’ or ‘Granny the Throttler’) and then proceeded to stage-dive official ceremonies, bestowing their endowments. Like those before her, Doyle knows that, for better or worse, the medium is the message. She spoke of an “Obedience, not only to the city, but to history itself ”. What, or who, lies under graveled foot as we, with our civic civility, represent and animate a repackaged past at surface level? Shakespearian fool? Doyle delights in the role of tragic town crier in an era’s national farce. Lily Cahill is a writer and co-editor of Critical Bastards Magazine based in Dublin. She is a graduate of IADT and NCAD and is currently studying radio production. The DCC/VAI Art Writing Award was devised to encourage and support emerging and experimental art writing in Ireland. The previous winners are: James Merrigan ‘The New Collectivism’ (2011); Joanne Laws ‘Commemoration – A Forward-Looking Act’ (2013); Rebecca O’Dwyer ‘Attentive Festivalisation’ (2015); Sue Rainsford ‘Serpents and Clay’ (2017). Notes 1 According to the exhibition press release, this is the motto of Dublin City appearing on its Coat of Arms. 2 ‘Museumification’ can be defined as “transition from a living city to that of an idealised re-presentation of itself, wherein everything is considered not for its use, but for its value as a potential museum artifact”. See: Michael A. Di Giovine, The Heritage-scape: U.N.E.S.C.O., World Heritage, and Tourism, (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009). 3 For more on new-build Neolithic houses, see Will Self ’s Guardian article ‘Has English Heritage ruined Stonehenge?’, 21 June 2014, in which he states: “each era cannot help but seek out a past that it finds inspiring – or at least congenial.” theguardian.com. 4 Charlotte Higgins, ‘The battle for the future of Stonehenge’, 8 February 2019, theguardian.com.
Top left: Michelle Doyle, Obedientia Civium Urbis Felicitas, 2018, polymer clay Top right: Michelle Doyle, Death Mask, 2018, plaster Bottom: Michelle Doyle, The Monument (left) and Each Stone Placed with Intent (right), 2018, mixed media assemblage; all photographs by Kate Bowe, courtesy of the artist
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Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Residency
Permission To Be Puzzled (And To Think)
A Shared Sense of Purpose
JULIA MOUSTACCHI DISCUSSES THE BENEFITS OF VISUAL THINKING STRATEGIES FOR IRISH GALLERIES.
DENIS FARRELL DESCRIBES THE EVOLUTION OF THE LODESTAR SCHOOL OF ART
VISUAL THINKING STRATEGIES (VTS) is a constructivist, enquiry-based methodology which aims to educate audiences on the process of looking at artworks. The method was originally devised in the US in the 1990s by the Museum of Modern Art’s former Education Director, Philippe Yenawine, and the behavioural psychologist Abigail Housen. Research on VTS began when Yenawine and Housen realised that MoMA visitors were not retaining what the museum taught them, “even immediately after an experience”.1 What visitors needed was “not answers, but permission to be puzzled and to think”.2 VTS was created for that very purpose. In practice, VTS takes place through group sessions, with trained facilitators guiding discussions around an artwork. The facilitator uses only three questions: What’s going on in this artwork? What do you see that makes you say that? What more can we find? These questions were found by Abigail Housen to trigger the most responses from participants, during her research into the field of Aesthetic Development. The facilitator also paraphrases the participants’ responses and interpretations, in order to build discussion within the group. Having been widely used in the US for the past 20 years, VTS has proven its efficacy in allowing museum audiences to dig into artworks by encouraging a safe, non-judgemental space for discussion. Alongside these benefits, other cognitive and behavioural effects have been noted by researchers, such as enabling young students to develop critical thinking skills, by learning to back up their remarks. Participants also learn to focus, to listen to one another, and to respect diverging opinions. They develop the faculty of admitting diverse interpretations and they familiarise themselves with the idea of multiple possibilities. VTS was first brought to Dublin by Dublin City Council’s Assistant Arts Officer, Liz Coman, who discovered the method through her MA in Museum Studies in John F. Kennedy University, California. She started implementing VTS within the Arts Office programme, and local schools became interested in developing VTS with their students. I asked her about the technique, to better understand the use of VTS in the gallery context.
Julia Moustacchi: To what extent is VTS used in Dublin? Liz Coman: In 2014, The LAB Gallery and Dublin City Arts Office began testing VTS with neighbourhood schools. Today, our work continues to support VTS through two programmes: ‘VTS Neighbourhood Schools’, whereby teachers are mentored by the trained VTS coach Claire Halpin; and ‘Permission to Wonder/ Erasmus+’, a three-year European project. The LAB and Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane are now also proposing monthly VTS sessions for adults (through their ‘Wonder Club’ programme). The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), have included the key principles of VTS in their new Visual Arts
Junior Cycle Curriculum and are now piloting VTS training with us, along with Yoon Kang O’Higgins (The Programme Director for VTS in the US). Over 80 educators (early years, primary, secondary, art museum professionals and teaching artists) have been trained through the NCCA/Dublin City Council pilot training. JM: Why do you think VTS is beneficial in a gallery context? LC: As an arts educator, I see the museum as a place of learning for a range of publics, providing the opportunity for discussion, exchange and debate; it is a safe space to practice thinking about the world. In that sense, VTS is a very useful tool for museums and galleries. Many gallery educators would have an enquiry-based approach already, but training in the VTS methodology instils the necessary rigour to discuss the work while maintaining a totally neutral approach. JM: What are the benefits of VTS for gallery practitioners, audiences and artists? LC: When we started out, myself and Sheena Barrett (Curator at The LAB) knew that we wanted local children to engage with the work of Irish contemporary artists being shown in The LAB. VTS offers us that bridge, whilst also supporting ways for children to think and feel authentically about art, through structured and respectful forms of debate. Being facilitated to look at something complex and perplexing – without judgment and with other people in the group feeding on your ideas – can be a fascinating and enjoyable experience. Irish artists who have tested VTS – such as Helen Barry, Claire Halpin, Emer O’Boyle and Bridget O’Gorman – have been interested in how VTS offers a critical framework for audiences to explore their work. It has provided them with a better comprehension of how viewers respond, and this has informed their practice. JM: What is next for the development of VTS at the Arts Office? LC: A conference in Dublin is scheduled for April 2020 which will share the results of ‘Permission to Wonder/Erasmus+’. Our current focus is on figuring out supports to enhance individuals’ VTS practice and to share our experience of VTS with interested networks. Our work in VTS so far is based on a strong sense of friendship, so supporting each other to figure out the next step is what we will continue to do.
Julia Moustacchi is a French independent curator based in Dublin. She is the author of ‘The Gift of Sight: Why You Cannot VTS on Your Own’, Site Specific, January 2019. Notes 1 Philip Yenawine, ‘Visual Thinking Strategies: Learning How to Teach With Art’, Utne Reader, November 2013. 2 Ibid.
LODESTAR SCHOOL OF Art is part residency, part alternative art school, that brings together guest artists and participants from around the world to work alongside one another for a relatively short, and therefore rigorous, period of time. The idea grew out of a perceived necessity to advance painting as an important, relevant and evolving discipline. Lodestar welcomes all kinds of painting, but is not for the amateur or academic painter. It is for artists who want to push their work beyond what they already know. In the spirit of generosity, we wanted to create a relaxed and professional space which would accommodate likeminded people willing to work very hard. Each year, we assemble a coterie of painters, art critics, writers, makers and thinkers whose practices progress painting as an art form. Lodestar launched in 2014 at Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, home to a small group of Benedictine Nuns who welcomed us with open arms. They provided us with the old classrooms as studios and free reign of their extensive grounds. Sister Maire Hickey OSB Mother Abbess understood Lodestar as an experimental project, while recognising and trusting our sincerity. In 2014, we welcomed New York artist Chuck Webster and Squeak Carnwath from California (who describes painting as the “queen of the arts”). John Yau (poet, critic and editor of the online platform Hyperallergic) gave a stunning lecture on the work of Jasper Johns. At Lodestar, Chuck and John completed a collaborative body of painting and written word, which will soon be exhibited in New York. Louise Scovell, a London-based academic and former Yale University classmate, gave a lecture on pornography in art. We were also joined by gifted Irish artists Alice Maher, Dermot Seymour and John Brady, as well as the art historian Aisling Molloy. In light of a resurgence of women painters at the forefront of contemporary practice, it is a great honour that we also count as friends of Lodestar Suzan Frecon, Brenda Goodman and Dana Schutz, presently exhibiting in New York. Each of these artists brings enthusiasm, compassion and a shared respect for painting and for teaching. From time to time Lodestar is held in a different venue to encourage international participation and to allow returning artists to experience new environments. The venues we choose tend to be removed from cities and surrounded by acres of natural habitat. Lodestar 2015 was held at Château de Faverolles – a magnificent compound of forest and fields, deer and wild boar, on the borders of Champagne and Bourgogne in eastern France – where sun-filled days allowed us to have our meals outside. The session culminated in a public exhibition of our worksin-progress which attracted a huge response from inhabitants of surrounding villages. That year we were honoured to welcome Millie Thompson from the Royal College of Art in London; French painter and sculptor Francis Gury; New York-based artist Glenn Goldberg;
and the renowned art critic Barry Schwabsky. Since 2017, Lodestar has taken place in the magnificent Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick, with writer and former Glenstal Abbot, Mark Patrick Hederman; Irish poet Mary O’Malley; and New York-based painters Sharon Horvath, Judy Glantzman, Michael David and Danielle Tegeder contributed to the conversation. With a careful looseness we have created a space for risk-taking. Participants focus on a chosen body of work to develop individually in an environment designed to allow reflection, discussion and, if desired, individual or group critique and even collaboration. Both guest artists and participants are allocated studio spaces. There are no themes. We do not run workshops or classes, unless a guest artist particularly wants to offer a demonstration or is asked to share a specific technique or method. The only scheduled daily event (besides meals) is an evening talk by each of the guest artists. At both Kylemore and Glenstal, the nuns and monks often sit in on these talks and very much enjoy their breadth and scope. We also take a daytrip halfway through the session, allowing everyone a moment to catch their breath. Lodestar is a hybrid residency/studio intensive that welcomes artists at all stages of their careers, as long as they are committed to the work. Swiss artist Victorine Müller describes Lodestar as “further education for professionals,” noting that this is something seriously lacking for mid-career artists. “When I first applied, I was not looking for a ‘summer camp’ or workshops. Lodestar provides a unique opportunity to meet artists from all over the world who are great at mentoring each participant at their particular point or stage in their work.” Müller came to Lodestar to develop drawings, in a departure from her figurative sculpture and installation practice. The new work she developed during Lodestar 2014 was exhibited in Zürich the following year. So far, it has attracted artists from Mexico, Switzerland, Israel, England, France, Germany, Ireland and the US, who have each brought different ways of working. Lodestar is privately-run and not-for-profit, funded through the fees of attending artists. There is a simple application process, which allows us to communicate how Lodestar works and what to expect. One participant describes the atmosphere at Lodestar as having “a great sense of shared purpose and acceptance.”
Denis Farrell is a painter and founding director of Lodestar School of Art. This year’s session takes place at Glenstal Abbey from 4–16 August, with an application deadline of 15 June. Fees cost between €1,745 and €2,220. lodestarschoolofart.com
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
Art Education
Footwork VISUAL ARTIST KAREN HENDY REFLECTS ON HER RECENT RESIDENCY AT SIAMSA TÍRE, WHICH COMBINED MARKING MAKING WITH TRADITIONAL IRISH DANCE.
Karen Hendy, Transcendence I, 2019, peat and charcoal on paper, 120 × 800 cm, dancer Anne O’Donnell; photograph by Madeleine Webber
SITUATED IN TRALEE’S town centre, Siamsa Tíre is one of the busiest arts centres in the country and is home to the National Folk Theatre of Ireland. The building, which was officially opened in 1991, is unique in its structure and style, drawing on the iconic elements of Irish architecture and the design of prehistoric Irish ringforts. The building has a large theatre which includes a 350-seater auditorium and a dedicated exhibition space, where the work of Irish and international artists is displayed. The building is also the location of a unique residency programme, set up a few years ago to support artistic practice and to foster local community engagement. The open call for this three-month residency is advertised each year in March. Successful applicants are expected to attend the residency during the summer months, focusing on their artistic practice as outlined in their proposals. Resident artists receive a stipend and materials allowance, along with access to a large studio space. Artists are asked to participate in the educational programme and tend to give public presentations on their practice towards the end of their residency. They may also exhibit work developed during the residency in the gallery space. To conclude the residency, artists are asked to participate in events for Culture Night in late September each year. I have been working as a visual artist since 2006 and my practice has become increasingly concerned with environmental issues, as evident in the recycling project I developed for Electric Picnic, Stradbally, in 2013 and a large-scale triptych I installed for the opening of Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre in 2015. Residencies have formed an integral part of my professional art career, including long-term residencies with Laois County Council and short-term stays at the Cill Rialaig Project (Kerry) and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Monaghan), as well as a fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation (Mayo). These provided me with focused development time for my own work that ran alongside community-based projects, as well as various corporate and private art commissions I was working on throughout Ireland and the UK. The work I developed during these residencies was shown in exhibitions in the Dunamaise Arts Centre, the gallery space of the Ballinglen Arts Foundation and during the
Skibbereen Arts Week, as well as in various group exhibitions in Ireland, UK and Europe. After moving from West Cork to the Iveragh Peninsula and taking up a studio in the Dromid Gaeltacht in County Kerry in 2016, I became aware of the open-call for a residency at Siamsa Tíre in Tralee. As well as offering an ideal opportunity to integrate into the vibrant artistic community in Kerry, the residency also gave me a chance to investigate the region’s folk and heritage traditions as possible contextual and material influences. However, I felt that the outcomes should be of benefit to the organisation, as well as my own practice. I envisaged the residency as a vehicle to explore how the moving body occupies space. Providing historical inspiration – which was further enhanced by working with artists from different artforms – was German artist and choreographer Oskar Schlemmer’s visionary exploration of a Gesamtkunstwerk.2 Schlemmer’s comprehensive approach – including his creative practice in theatre and set design – was particularly relevant for this residency. I spent the first week of the residency in the theatre’s comprehensive archive, researching approaches that would suit my environmental research. A concurrent exhibition marking the fifty-year history of the theatre also provided insights into the complex and colourful background of the National Folk Theatre and its unique focus on the music heritage of South west Kerry. Following an opportunity to observe dancers during the initial stages of the residency, I chose to focus thematically on somatic expression to explore cultural traditions.2 Folklife traditions often rely on an interconnectedness between human culture and the natural environment. Early on in the residency, I started introducing materials that are present in the Kerry landscape – including peat, sand and charcoal – as a ground for dancers to perform on. Fusing traditional dance with this vernacular material palette resulted in an unconventional series of performance-based drawings. The repetitive marks made by the continuous dance steps produced exciting, complex visual patterns. After a first series of experiments using the different materials, I decided that I would focus on the steps of the ‘Blackbird Dance’, incorpo-
rating the regional ‘Munnix’ style, as it was taught by the travelling dance master, Jeremiah Molyneaux, during the 1940s. The three main dancers of the theatre group – Jonathan Kelliher (Artistic Director), Anne O’Donnell (Training and Development Officer) and Joanne Barry (Repertory Director) – devoted considerable time to the project and by the end of the residency, we had collaboratively completed a series of scrolls using different dance steps on a variety of materials. The performances were also documented through video and photography. I have since been successful in securing some funding from Ealaín na Gaeltacht and Kerry County Council to further expand and develop the project. My residency at The National Folk Theatre subsequently led to a collaboration with sculptor Holger Lonze, for a new stage design to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Folk Theatre. Our stage design embraced a contemporary approach, combining visual elements from the Minecraft video game, as expressions of virtual and abstract landscapes, with projections of time-lapse drawings and photographs. Donegal-based artist Conor O’Grady took on the 2018 residency at Siamsa Tíre, focusing on social issues in the surrounding area and working with found objects and drawing. Siamsa Tíre is actively involved in the greening programme and is very conscientious of environmental waste and carbon footprint. In keeping with these concerns around sustainability and ongoing efforts to ‘green’ the building, the thematic focus for this year will be the environment. Karen Hendy is a Kerry-based visual artist, working in a range of media in response to the natural environment. karenhendyartist.com
Notes 1 As an influential Bauhaus Master of Form, Schlemmer taught a variety of creative practices, ranging from drawing, painting and sculpture, to marquetry, design and choreography. He strived to combine these in a singular artwork – known as the Gesamtkunstwerk – most notably in the Triadic Ballet, for which he created the choreography, costume and set. 2 Somatic expression is a method in the performing arts that combines contact, voice, movement and stillness.
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Public Art Roundup
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
ART OUTSIDE OF THE GALLERY
John-is-this-your-cup-of-tea?
Water Building I
Artist: Fairland Collective Title: John-is-this-your-cup-of-tea? Site: Saint Joseph’s Nursing Home, Shankill, Dublin Commissioning body: Age and Opportunity / Bealtaine Date advertised: 5 September 2018 Date carried out: November 2018 to January 2019 Budget: €6,250 (artist fees) / €1,000 (materials) Project partners: Saint Joseph’s Nursing Home
Artist: Tanad Williams & Andreas Kindler von Knobloch Title: Water Building I Site: Kiwanasato, Kikugawa, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan Commissioning body: Grizedale Arts with travel assistance from The Arts Council of Ireland Dates sited: October to November 2018 Budget: ¥50,000 / €4,000 Project partners: The village of Kiwansato, Grizedale Arts, Motoko Fujita
Description: John-is-this-your-cup-of-tea? was a socially-engaged art project developed by Fairland Collective for Saint Joseph’s, Shankill, commissioned by Age & Opportunity. It began as a residency proposal to create a multisensory teahouse – a spectacular space full of colours and smells, that would celebrate the everyday ritual of drinking tea. The project was developed collaboratively, allowing different levels of engagement according to participants’ interests – from simply sharing tea together, to more intensive engagement through workshops and one-to-one sessions in making. As Saint Joseph’s is dedicated solely to dementia care, John-is-this-your-cup-of-tea? was designed to work with people in every stage of dementia by focusing on stimulating the five senses and an extra one – an unknown hidden sense. In line with Fairland Collective’s philosophy of making, a series of simple workshops in ceramics, flower arranging, and printing led to the collaborative creation of objects. The new tea-drinking space is warm and vibrant, filled with curious cups, coiled tea caddies, dried flowers, naturally-dyed fabric hangings and hand-decorated linens. All the pottery on display was made with residents, volunteers and staff through workshops and conversations, and brought together by the collective.
Description: Water Building I is a public artwork made by Tanad Williams and Andreas Kindler von Knobloch, which was created as part of ‘The 10 Year Expanded Dream of Kiwanasato’ – a project which invites various artists and professionals from all over the world to help preserve working methods of the rural Japanese tradition. In an attempt to counteract the gradual migration of its people to the cities, and away from the traditional production and construction techniques, Kiwanasato are actively inviting artists from any discipline to help work and grow the village. Water Building I was built in four days with recycled materials from the village of Kiwanasato. The building is set in Seiruyen, a neighbouring valley and is designed to provide a place to wash for the farmhouse it sits next to. The building is made from materials ‘harvested’ from a soon-to-be-demolished farmhouse in the village. By taking apart the farmhouse and reusing parts of it, those involved got the chance to see how the building was constructed. There is a long practiced tradition of relearning techniques through the restoration and reconstruction of ancient buildings in Japan, most notably Buddhist Temples that often need repairs centuries after the original build. The work was built with the help of Tom Phillipson and Simon Athersmith as well as Takeshi Hyatsu and students from the Kingston College Architectural MA.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
110 Skibbereen Girls
Artist: Toma McCullim Title: 110 Skibbereen Girls Site: Skibbereen Hospital Campus, Cork Commissioning body: Uillinn: West Cork Art Centre Date sited: August 2019 Budget: €11,000 Project partners: Cork County Council, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre and HSE Cork / Kerry Community Healthcare Organisation, Quinnipiac University, Australian Embassy, Skibbereen Heritage Centre, Cork Education and Training Board, Famine Heritage Project funded by the West Cork Municipal District Creative Communities Scheme, Cork Arts and Health, the National Lottery Description: In 2018, artist Toma McCullim worked with the residents, staff and visitors of Skibbereen Hospital Campus on a collaborative art project to create a bronze public sculpture for the hospital grounds. In this year-long project, people working and living on the campus grounds were invited to take part in walks, talks, workshops and discussions about 110 girls who left Skibbereen Union Workhouse to travel to Australia, as part of the Earl Grey Assisted Immigration Scheme. The project took place across the campus involving everyone in the research of the girls’ stories. Beeswax sheets for honey hives were chosen as a medium for lost wax processes, which allowed them to work in the permanency of bronze. Spoons were chosen for their special resonance: as a symbol of food; as anthropomorphic shapes; and as one of the objects allocated to each girl on her journey. The sculpture is set into the boundary walls at the arch of the former doorway leading into the women’s section of the workhouse. Through contacting the Australian Embassy, a large slab of Australian sandstone was donated. The action of standing on the stone and touching the bronze spoons lets people be active participants in a kind of ritual, which McCullim thought of as a type of ‘Famine Lament’.
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Opportunities
Funding
Open Calls
NEXT GENERATION AWARD
LUAN GALLERY 2020 PROGRAMME
Applications for the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Award 2019 are being received. The purpose of the Next Generation Artists’ Award is to support a group of promising artists across all disciplines at an early but pivotal stage in their career. The award is available in the following art forms: visual arts, architecture, arts participation, circus, dance, film, literature (English & Irish), music, opera, street arts, spectacle, theatre, traditional arts and YPCE. Joint applications and interdisciplinary applications are welcomed. Recipients of the Next Generation Award will receive €20,000. The recipients will also take part in a collective week-long residential programme in Spring 2019. For full information on the application criteria for the award and to apply, visit the Arts Council of Ireland website. It should be noted that you can only apply for the Visual Arts Bursary Award or the Next Generation Award and not both.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2019
GRANTS, AWARDS, OPEN CALLS, COMMISSIONS
NCAD STUDIO AWARD
Deadline Thursday 16 May, 5:30pm Tel 01 6180 200
Deadline Monday 13 May, 5pm
Email awards@artscouncil.ie
Email info@luangallery.ie
Email Sarah Durcan, durcans@staff.ncad.ie Philip Napier, napierp@staff.ncad.ie
Web artscouncil.ie
Web athloneartsandtourism.ie/opportunities
Web ncad.ie
Web cairdefestival.com
VISUAL ARTS BURSARY AWARD
TBG+S AWARDS
BLACK CHURCH PRINT CABINET AWARD
ZURICH PORTRAIT PRIZE 2019
Deadline Thursday 13 June, 5:30pm
Deadline Friday 17 May, 5pm
Tel 01 6180 200
Tel 01 671 0073
Deadline Monday 20 May, 5pm
Tel 01 661 5133
Email awards@artscouncil.ie
Email info@templebargallery.com
Email info@blackchurchprint.ie
Email info@ngi.ie
Web artscouncil.ie
Web templebargallery.com
Web blackchurchprint.ie
Web nationalgallery.ie
Applications for Round 2 of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary Award will open on 14 May. There are two strands to this award. The purpose of ‘Strand 1: Visual Arts’ is to support professional artists in developing their artistic practice. It provides artists with the time and resources to think, research, reflect and critically engage with their artistic practice. Similarly, the purpose of ‘Strand 2: Curators’ is to suppport curators, in order to give them the time and space to think, research and reflect on thier practice. Applicants can apply for funding of up to €15,000 in order to support their practice. Applications must identify and recognise themselves as professional practicing artists or curators. Individuals currently in undergraduate and postgraduate education, and Áosdána members in receipt of a cnuas are not eligible to apply. For full information on the application criteria and to apply for the award, visit the Arts Council of Ireland website.
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios have announced three significant open-call awards for artists. New this year, TBG+S are offering Six Year Membership Studios, which are designed to give a significant period of time in TBG+S to two established artists. Successful applicants will have exceptional track records in active practices and can demonstrate a real and present need for longer-term subsidised studio space. In addition, Three Year Membership Studios are also on offer for mid-career artists who have an established artistic practice. Four separate three-year memberships are available under this award. TBG+S have also partnered with International Studio & Curational Programme (ISCP), New York, to offer a fully-funded three-month residency for a visual artist, including living and materials stipends. The residency will take place between October and December 2019. All artists based in Ireland and Irish artists based abroad are eligible to apply. The Arts Council of Ireland is supporting this opportunity.
The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) are accepting applications for their 2019–20 MFA Fine Art Studio Award. The successful recipient will be based at NCAD’s postgraduate facility, the Annex on James Street, Dublin 8 from September 2019 to May 2020. Applications are welcome from artists across a range of contemporary art practice including painting, moving image, print, media, digital art, sculpture and expanded practices. The award consists primarily of the use of a studio and facilities at NCAD with some opportunities to contribute to the MFA Fine Art programme and the postgraduate community at NCAD. For full information on the application criteria, visit NCAD’s website. For further information, contact Sarah Durcan (MFA Fine Art programme leader) or Philip Napier (Head of School of Fine Art).
CAIRDE VISUAL 2019
Open submissions for Luan Gallery’s 2020 programme are now being accepted in response to the theme of ‘Queer Migration’. Queer Migration is broadly imagined as the movement of members of the LGBTQ+ communities from rural Ireland to urban centres, which explores issues of acceptance, oppression, values and community mindsets. In light of how this “age of migration is centrally implicated in the construction, regulation, and reworking of sexual identities, communities, politics, and cultures… and how sexuality constitutes a dense transfer point for relations of power” (Eithne Luibhéid Queer/Migration: An Unruly Body of Scholarship), Luan Gallery are inviting artists to submit artwork that responds to the concerns inherent in this concept. Potential subthemes of Queer Migration may include: migration, loss, grief, growth, healing, adaptation, identity, transition or temporality. Applications should include: Cover letter, Artist CV and statement, Exhibition proposal, Images, Links to audio visual or film works (if applicable). Artist fees will be paid to successful artists and Luan also offer stipends towards travel and accommodation.
Deadline Friday 17 May, 5pm
Black Church Print Studio, Dublin, is currently inviting proposals from Third Level Fine Art undergraduates (2nd, 3rd, 4th Years inclusive) to respond to, and exhibit their work in an experimental exhibition space – Black Church Cabinet – in the heart of Temple Bar. Black Church Cabinet is a niche, vertical vitrine situated at street level. With a wide incidental audience, the space is highly visible and offers a great opportunity for showcasing new talent in the centre of Dublin’s cultural quarter. The selected artist exhibits their work for up to six weeks in Black Church Cabinet, with a further six weeks use of the Studio facilities for developing their specific work. As a self-directed project, the selected artist is responsible for the installation of their work while receiving support of the Black Church technical team. Marketing, mediation and communications support will also be available. A further €100 production bursary will be awarded to cover material and technical costs. For a full brief on the application process, visit the Black Church Print Studio website.
Entries are now being accepted for Cairde Visual Open Submission Exhibition 2019, which runs at The Model, Sligo (6 July – 18 August 2019). Up to three pieces may be submitted by a single artist. The work submitted must not have been exhibited in Sligo before. Submission fees: one entry €10, two entries €15, three entries €20. Photographs must be submitted electronically: JPEGs must be high quality and must be clearly labelled with the title of the piece and artist name; one JPEG image for 2D pieces and two to three images for 3D pieces. Drop in or post completed entry forms together with the applicable entry fee to Cairde Visual c/o The Model, The Mall, Sligo. Successful artists will be notified via email.
Deadline Sunday 26 May Email cairdevisual@hotmail.com
Submissions are now being accepted for the Zurich Portrait Prize 2019. Applications are welcomed from artists working in all media. The winner of the Zurich Portrait Prize will receive a cash prize of €15,000, along with a €5,000 commission to create a work for inclusion in the National Gallery of Ireland’s National Portrait Collection. There will also be a €1,500 prize awarded to highly commended works. The prize aims to showcase and encourage interest in contemporary portraiture, while also highlighting the evolution of the National Gallery’s National Portrait Collection. The shortlisted artworks will be exhibited in the gallery from 5 October 2019 to 12 January 2020. Details about the rules, terms and conditions of the Zurich Portrait Prize, including FAQs, can be found on the website.
Deadline Thursday 20 June
lifelong learning Spring/Summer 2019
Republic of Ireland
Northern Ireland
Dublin City
Belfast
SUSTAINING YOUR PRACTICE
in association with Bealtaine Festival Date/Time: 7 May. 09:45 – 13:30. Location: RHA School. Places/Cost: 80. €10 / €5 (VAI members / RHA member / student / unwaged). COSTING AND PRICING YOUR WORK
with Patricia Clyne-Kelly Date/Time: 16 May. 10:30 – 16:30. Location: Visual Artists Ireland. Places/Cost: 12. €100 / €50 (VAI members).
Limerick BEING CREATIVE: TOOLS IN HOW TO MAINTAIN CREATIVITY AND OVERCOME BLOCKS
with Miriam Logan Date/Time: 13 May. 10:00 – 16:30. Location: Ormston House. Places/Cost: 12. €120 / €30 (VAI members in Limerick, Clare & Tipperary) / €60 (All other VAI members).
Roscommon VISUAL ARTISTS CAFÉ
Date/Time: 4 Jul. 10:30 – 14:00. Location: Roscommon Arts Centre. Places/Cost: 30. FREE / €10 (non-VAI members not based in Roscommon).
ROI Bookings and Information To register a place or to find information on any of our upcoming Lifelong Learning events in the Republic of Ireland, visit: visualartists. ie/professional-development-_
Lifelong Learning Partners
GET TOGETHER 2019
Date/Time: 14 June. 09:30 – 16:00. Location: TU Dublin Grangegorman. Cost: €50 / €25 (VAI members). This year’s Get Together takes its theme from the belief that we, as artists, must always have the right to ‘Experiment’. As a verb, a noun and an imperative, ‘Experiment’ poses a challenge for us to re-examine ourselves and our work through different eyes. We all experiment, try things out, fail, succeed or change through experimentation; perhaps we may even realise that the place we find ourselves in fits just fine. Looking at our own artistic career, we can observe many occasions when we have experimented, either with new concepts, materials or modes of working. Whether we find historical context, new artistic intention, or simple convergence with likeminded artists, one thing is very clear: experimentation is at the core of what we do. Through listening and discovering how fellow artists find ways to include experimentation in their working methods, we can gain the confidence to make time, to try things out, and to look at our ongoing work through a different lens. Speed Curating will return to this year’s Get Together, as will the ever-popular Clinics, where recognised experts will be available to discuss a wide range of issues on a one-to-one basis. All of this will surround the Visual Artists Café, where arts organisations and artist’s support agencies will gather to provide information about their services, while catching up with friends old and new.
NI Bookings and Information To register a place or to find information on any of our upcoming Lifelong Learning events in Northern Ireland, visit: visualartists.org.uk/booking
OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN PUBLIC PROGRAMMES
with Sara Greavu Date/Time: 4 May. 13:00 – 17:00. Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 20. £20/£10 (VAI members). VISUAL ARTISTS HELPDESK/ PROJECT CLINIC
Date/Time: 15 May, 12 June, 17 July, 13 Nov. 11:00 – 16:00. Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 7. £5/£2.50 (VAI members). FINANCES & TAX FOR SELFEMPLOYED ARTISTS
with Louise Gorman Date/Time: 7 May. 13:00 – 17:00. Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 15. £20/£10 (VAI members).
PEER CRITIQUE: PAINTING
with Ronnie Hughes Date/Time: 7 Aug. 12:00 – 17:00. Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 6. £20/£10 (VAI members). ACNI: INFORMATION ON SIAP FUNDING FOR ARTISTS
with Joanna Johnston Date/Time: 3 Jul. 11:30 – 13:00 (TBC). Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 15. FREE. BELFAST OPEN STUDIOS 2019
Date: 19 October. Location: Citywide.
Fermanagh & Lakelands
PRICING YOUR WORK
VISUAL ARTISTS CAFÉ: INTRODUCING THE LAKELANDS
PEER CRITIQUE: APPROACHES TO SOCIALLY-ENGAGED PRACTICE
Ards & North Down
with Louise Gorman Date/Time: 8 May. 13:00 – 17:00. Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 15. £20/£10 (VAI members).
with Sara Greavu Date/Time: 25 May. 12:00 – 17:00. Location: Belfast (Venue TBC). Places/Cost: 6. £20/£10 (VAI members). FUNDING & APPLICATIONS
with Sara McAvera Date/Time: 3 June. 11:00 – 16:00. Location: VAI Belfast Office. Places/Cost: 6 (TBC). £20/£10 (VAI members).
Date/Time: TBC June. 13:00 – 17:00. Location: Waterways Ireland HQ. Places/Cost: Unlimited. £10/FREE (VAI members).
VISUAL ARTISTS CAFÉ: INTRODUCING THE CREATIVE PENINSULA
Date/Time: TBC June. 13:00 – 17:00. Location: TBC. Places/Cost: Unlimited. £10/FREE (VAI members).
Fees VAI members receive preferential discount of 50% on fees for all VAI, training and professional development events.
Tell us about your training needs! If you are interested in training please do get in touch with us directly or forward an expression of interest in a topic/s through the Lifelong Learning web page. We often repeat workshops when there is a strong demand for a topic.
VAI Show & Tell Events VAI will schedule Show & Tell events during 2019 and invites interested artists, groups, venues or partners to get in touch if interested in hosting a Show & Tell. E: info@visualartists.ie
Artist & Tutors Panel Visual Artists Ireland has an ongoing open submission process for artists and arts professionals interested in being part of an available panel of tutors contributing to the VAI Lifelong Learning Programme. For details go to our training registration page and click on Register for the Artists’ Panel.