New
spaces for new work
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Mermaid
Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow, Burke Kennedy
Doyle Architects
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Four new spaces for the visual arts have been announced recently.
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In
Belfast, the Upper Springfield Development Trust have
held their inaugural exhibition in their new gallery space.
Run of the Mill at the Top of the Rock, featured
artists from Conway Mill.
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THEarte
SPACE@THE MINT Henry Place (Off Henry Street), Dublin
1: the theatre/performance space now boasts a gallery.
The first exhibition, by Joanne Boyle, opened there on
August 28.
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In
Waterford, the Joan Clancy Gallery is still young. It
is also know as Danlann Shiobhán Uí Fhlannchadha, as it
is in the Ring Gaeltacht at Cunnigar Beach. Contact jclancy1@eircom.net
for further information.
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And
Bray, Co. Wicklow, welcomes an imposing new arts centre,
the Mermaid. Open to the public from August 31, it features
"an impressive, purpose designed gallery space for national,
international and local exhibitions," as well as theatre
and workshop spaces and a café/bar area.
The
Royal Dublin Society has shared out euros by the bucket. Jennifer
Cunningham of the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology shared
the Taylor Art Award of 10,000 euro with Yvonne Lee from the
Limerick School of Art and Design. Cunningham also won the
1,300 euro Higgins Travelling Scholarship. The RDS Printmaking
Prize of 2,700 euro was won by Michelle O'Brien, also from
LSAD. RDS Awards for craft have also been distributed. Ann
Fleeton took the top prize for the second time. A quilt she
designed sent her home 6,500 euro richer. NCAD graduate Emmet
Cullen took second prize and 2,750 euro. Annette Crump won
the new entrants prize and Jennifer Crean the graduate prize.
For more information, contact marketing@rds.ie
or info@rds.ie.
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Valerie
Connor, former Visual Arts Director of Project, Dublin,
is the new Commissioner for the Republic's contribution
to next year's Venice Biennale.
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Colm
Ó Briain is to be the next Director of the National
College of Art and Design, Dublin, replacing Noel Sheridan
who is retiring.
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The
Acting Director of the Sculptors' Society of Ireland,
Paula Campbell (former Visual Arts Officer of the Arts
Council of Northern Ireland) is moving on. Her replacement
will be artist and arts administrator Toby Dennett.
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The
former director of the Galway Arts Centre, Helen Carey,
has been appointed director of the soon-to-open refurbished
Collège Irlandais in Paris.
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Hilary
Robinson has been appointed head of the School of Art
and Design at the University of Ulster; this is a four-year
post, starting in September.
As
a results of Arthouse's unfortunate difficulties (see below),
CIRCA has moved to new premises. Our address is now: CIRCA,
43/44 Temple Bar, Dublin 2. Many will recognise this as the
former location of the Artists' Association of Ireland. Our
phone number remains the same.
In another CIRCA 'move' - and to reassure those who have noted
our preparations in that direction - it is CIRCA's policy
to bring out six issues a year as soon we possibly can. If
you have opinions, advice, etc., on the matter, let us know!
With this issue we are also making use of our new position
of Editorial Adviser for the second time. Suzanna Chan has
provided excellent advice for our review section, as well
as putting together our preview, See,
pages. We are very pleased with how this initiative is working
out - so much so that we are now inviting 'expressions of
interest' for future Editorial Advisers. See our ad here.
Arthouse:
killing the messenger
How could it have happened? Media reaction to Arthouse's closure
has been near-unanimous in where it has laid the blame, and
it's a very worrying story: Arthouse was launched ten years
ago as a forerunner, a messenger for the Republic's commitment
to new technology. And then it was slowly left to die.
The best analysis is probably that of Karlin Lillington in
the Irish Times of July 19. To extract part of it:
What
went wrong with Arthouse? Let's start with vision. While
Arthouse's various directors had a strong sense of what
they wanted to do with the centre artistically, neither
the Government, which funded its development along with
the EU, nor Temple Bar Properties, which oversees much of
its operations due to Arthouse's cultural quarter remit,
showed guiding initiative.
Financially, this left Arthouse floundering.
On the Government's side, this is particularly galling.
All during the 1990s, as the State built a reputation as
a technology industry centre, the Government and development
agencies trotted visiting executives and groups through
Arthouse, using it as a metaphor for Irish creativity and
the State's support of cutting-edge industry.
Lillington goes on to describe how Arthouse was a model for
Ars Electronica in Austria and for the Banff Centre for the
Arts in Canada. With very good reason, Lillington also worries
about the State's commitment to The Digital Hub, a sort of
Arthouse-writ-large:
If
over 10 years, the State and management groups such as Temple
Bar Properties couldn't get Arthouse right, what hope has
the Hub, with its similar aims and cast of characters? The
situation is appalling. Both Arthouse and the Hub should be
national flagship projects. They should serve as inspirational
shorthand for Irish vision on the artistic, enterprise and
research fronts, the products of real commitment, energy,
possibility and achievement.
Arthouse's
closure is a very sad result for staff in the centre, who
have striven against ridiculous odds to keep operating. It's
galling, too, that the visual-arts programme was coming right,
under the direction of Sarah Pierce - there was a strong,
professional exhibitions series and thriving artists' residencies.
It's 'the vision thing' that Arthouse's external masters never
came near to getting a hold of. It augurs very badly for the
future.
The
PS1 Award is the top award in the visual arts given out by
the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. It carries a studio
in New York, an apartment and a stipend, for a year. The award
for 2002-2003 goes to Declan Clarke. Artists in Northern Ireland
were very upset earlier this year when the Arts Council of
Northern Ireland decided no longer to send an artist to the
PS1 scheme. Meanwhile Brendan Earley has received the Banff
Residency Award.
This
year's EV+A prizewinners have been announced by curator
Apinan Poshyananda. They are Amanda Coogan, David Dunne, Niamh
McCann and Ciarán O'Doherty. The prizes this year take the
form of travel awards to visit Bangkok, Cambodia, Vietnam
and Singapore.
The
Arts Council of Northern Ireland has announced a major new
initiative in support of crafts, applied arts and design.
"The special initiative commits £500,000 of Arts Council of
Northern Ireland National Lottery Funds to establishing Northern
Ireland as an area of excellence in the production and exhibition
of crafts, applied arts and design," according to the press
release.
The
publication of MAKE magazine has being suspended indefinitely,
following the withdrawal of its grant from the London Arts
Board. Terrible news, given how important MAKE is for
the analysis, understanding and promotion of art, particularly
art by women.
A
few new or recent public artworks caught our attention:
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Vivien
Burnside: Dividers, Clarendon Dock, Belfast;
courtesy the artist
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• Vivien Burnside’s monumental Dividers monument
now graces Belfast’s Clarendon Dock. 8.3 metres high,
bronze with stainless-steel core and integral lighting, it
“makes reference to the power of simple, hand held instruments
and tools which were key to the designing, constructing and
planning that allowed circumnavigation from the Port of Belfast.”
There is also a series of eight bronze plaques associated
with the Dividers piece. The local community were invited
to participate in the design of their own plaques, which represent
history in the area.
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Rita
Duffy: Blood Drawing Project, O'Connell
Street, Dublin; courtesy the artist
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• The upper reaches of O’Connell Street, Dublin,
have been hosting Rita Duffy’s Blood drawing project
along the central hoardings, behind which ‘the spike’
is taking shape. Painting by numbers, designed by Patrick
O’Reilly and realised by the children of Rutland Street
Senior National Schools, is also part of this initiative.
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Martina
Galvin: Crossing the lines of fire, Fort
Tomkins, New York; courtesy the artist
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• Martina Galvin’s Crossing the lines of fire
at Fort Tomkins, New York city, makes ‘real’ (with
fishing line) the lines of fire from slits in the defensive
moat that surrounds the fort. She is one of four artists from
Ireland participating in the international Artfront exhibition
there which has about another three months to run. The others
are Alastair MacLennan, Aisling O’Beirn and Anna Macleod.
Venetian tans
For all those cursing the Irish ‘summer’: the School
of Art and Design at the University of Ulster has begun a
series of artists’ residencies at the Galleria Nuova
Icona in Venice, in conjunction with its director, Vittorio
Urbani. The gallery has had previous connections with Ireland,
having hosted and/or assisted the Irish Pavilion for the last
four Bienniales. Urbani, after a series of conversations with
Hilary Robinson, came up with the idea of the ‘Casa d’Irlanda’
where
…the resident artist will have the maximum of freedom.
He can either work on his artistic research, visit museums
or….just sunbathe. Nuova Icona will suggest and support
another artist to do a similar thing in Belfast next year.
This residency-project has to be considered within the frame
of the ‘Casa d’Irlanda’—a continuous
flow of Irish-related artistic and cultural events in Venice.
Wonder how much sunbathing the Italians will pack into their
visit to Belfast?
The first artist to take part in this project is Alistair
Wilson. Further details on the next series of artists residencies
can be obtained from the gallery, via nuovaicona@iol.it.
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Jo
Allen sketching; images courtesy the author
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It is with deep sadness that I inform readers of the death
of Jo Allen, on Wednesday 14th August. Many people will remember
Jo as a distinguished artist, writer, critic and teacher.
For many years she was also a Contributing Editor for CIRCA.
Born in the USA, Jo moved to Cork in 1980. She completed a
B.A. in Fine Art in 1985 at CCAD, where she had originally
been a model. In 1993, she and daughter Leslie moved to Barcelona,
where she worked towards an M.A. in Fine Arts, which was completed
at Winchester School of Fine Arts. Since 1986, Jo exhibited
regularly both in group and solo exhibitions. The most notable
shows include Recent Acquisitions, Crawford Municipal Art
Gallery, Cork (1989), Drawn and Quartered at City Hall, Cork
and the Kennedy Gallery, Dublin (1997), Dzukija in Lithuania,
following a residency (1997), Contemporary Irish Artists,
Soar Gallery, London (1997), The Figure Show, Korner Park
Gallery, Berlin (1998).
As an artist, Jo argued for the importance and relevance of
drawing and painting from the figure, in an era in which it
is sometimes considered critically outmoded. Having herself
once been an artist’s model, she experienced both sides
of working at the easel, which afterwards informed her own
aesthetic concerns. She liked to use familiar models, who
could do justice to her expressive use of colour and line.
Jo once described pieces of her work as “big, bad and
naked,” which aptly sums up her generous, fleshy, palpating
figures. However, there was also an intellectual dimension
to her work, as is evident in her large finished paintings.
Her excitement in her own practice spilled over into her teaching
career, which encompassed painting and art history, privately,
at CCAD and UCC. Her legacy is evident in Cork’s growing
figurative movement of which, in my opinion, Jo was the unacknowledged
founder. In her, many artists, myself included, found a generous
colleague, mentor and friend.
Jo Allen was on the way to becoming one of the great contemporary
Irish artists. I feel saddened that she did not live to receive
the recognition which she deserved, and which was surely imminent.
On behalf of all who were close to Jo, I would like to express
our deep love and gratitude for having known her. We miss
you very much, girl!
Suzy O’Mullane is a Cork-based figurative artist
and co-founder of Art Trail
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