Autumn 2004- Update
C109 More Space in Derry Two exciting developments along the Foyle: • The Context Gallery has doubled its exhibition space by opening a second gallery. The new gallery is intended to showcase emerging fine and applied artists from Ireland and beyond. The development has been made possible by funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Context has already programmed a selection of video work, community projects and painting for the next six months. The new gallery has been specially designed to maximise light and space, with three windows running ceiling to floor, high interior ceilings and original wood panelling.  | | The old City Factory, to be home to the Void Art Centre; photo courtesy Void | • We reported in CIRCA 105 that the arists' grouping Void, set up in response to the closing of the Orchard Gallery, was to open a new space in the old cathedral school. Things have turned out slightly differently, hopefully for the better. Some time between November and January, the VoidArt Centre will launch in the basement of the old City Factory, Patrick Street, Derry. Void will have two galleries and six to eight artists' studios. Built in 1861, the factory once employed up to 800 people, making shirts. Newtown Castle, which houses the Burren College of Art; courtesy BCA The Burren College of Art (BCA) is a phenomenon among art colleges in Ireland, set as it is in the wild, barren Burren, far from any major city. Despite what may seem an unpropitious location, BCA has thrived. In July of this year BCA celebrated its tenth anniversary. The College was founded by Mary Hawkes-Greene and Michael Greene, and current lecturers include the photographer Anne Curran and painter Tom Molloy. BCA has recently been accepted into the American Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), one of only six colleges to have been included outside the U.S. Burren ten years old The Burren College of Art (BCA) is a phenomenon among art colleges in Ireland, set as it is in the wild, barren Burren, far from any major city. Despite what may seem an unpropitious location, BCA has thrived.  | | Newtown Castle, which houses the Burren College of Art; courtesy BCA | In July of this year BCA celebrated its tenth anniversary. The College was founded by Mary Hawkes-Greene and Michael Greene, and current lecturers include the photographer Anne Curran and painter Tom Molloy. BCA has recently been accepted into the American Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), one of only six colleges to have been included outside the U.S. Northern Ireland is going to Venice Hugh Mulholland, the director of the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast, has been appointed as the curator of the presentation from Northern Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2005. Northern Ireland's presence there, at one of the world's most prestigious visual-arts events, will be under the aegis of the British Council Northern Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. According to Mulholland: This is an exciting opportunity to showcase the very best of Northern Irish artists to a wide international audience. It presents us with the opportunity to prove that which we have long known; that work produced here is current, challenging, emotive, poetic, and on a par with anything happening globally and well-deserving of this international platform. Mulholland is expected to announce very shortly his selection of artist(s) and venue(s). CIRCA uploads 'Artists/Ireland' recirca.com now hosts an ever-expanding database of links to websites that deal with art by artists in, from or having to do with Ireland. The database is in its first phase, but already boasts over 2,000 artists and 3,000 websites. We are in the process of making it searchable by keyword. Go to recirca.com/artists . National Irish Visual Arts Library's (NIVAL) database is Launched  | | Screenshot of the search page of NIVAL's artists' database; see ncad.ie/nival | Since 1999 the National Irish Visual Arts Library (assisted by Heritage Council, Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Arts Council of Northern Ireland funding) at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, has been compiling a database of the some 3600 Irish artists represented in its collection of files. Now NIVALhas launched its database on the web. The database offers a brief bibliographical outline of each artist and provides basic information on the artist's work, past exhibitions and awards. This database is available to anyone with internet access at Triarc too, not forgetting Iris It's not an online resource, unlike the above, but it's a significant one nonetheless. In May Trinity College Dublin officially launched triarc (Trinity Irish Art Resource Centre), whose objective is to provide a centre for excellent in the researching of art made in Ireland. The world's largest image archive of Irish art is held at triarc. Crossing Boundaries symposium organised to mark triarc's début, James Elkins of University College Cork announced the formation of , a new international journal of the History of Art. Due to appear in May 2005, it will showcase material of a serious historical nature which also has contemporary resonance; it will deal with both Irish and international art. Submissions are being requested; visit imagehistory.org for more information. Big names for IMMA conference The Irish Institute of Modern Art (IMMA) is to host a major international symposium, Curating Now, which focuses on curating contemporary art in public museums and galleries. The conference takes place 10 – 12 November this year. Curating Now will present ten of the world's leading international curators:Daniel Birnbaum, Director, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; Iwona Blazwick, Director, Whitechapel, London; Paolo Colombo, Curator, MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle arti del XXI Secolo, Rome; Douglas Fogle, Curator Visual Arts, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Brenda McParland, former Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Ivo Mesquita, Curator, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paolo; Fumio Nanjo, Deputy Director, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Curator of Contemporary Art, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Kevin Power, Deputy Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and James Rondeau, Curator for Contemporary Art, The Art Institute of Chicago. Programming, acquisitions and purchasing policies are among topics to be discussed, articularly in their relationship to artists, arts practice and the audience for art.  | | Rita Duffy: Dreams, 2004, installation shot; courtesy the artist | For further details and bookings contact Aoife Ruane (+353 (0)1 6129900 / ed.comm@imma.ie. CIRCA is one of the sponsors of Curating Now. Belfast's largest-ever artwork? One of the largest-ever art installations to be placed in Belfast was unveiled in June on the new Lanyon Quay's building. The work consists of a grid of very large metal panels containing portraits of forty children from the city, plus five 'dream boxes' which glow at night, and the translation of the word 'dream' into thirty-two languages. The piece, Dream, was developed by Rita Duffy in response to a Laganside Corporation public-art brief. The work has not been without generating some controversy. In broad daylight an artist added blood oozing from the noses and mouths of some of the children, before being stopped.  | | Rita Duffy: Dreams (detail), 2004, courtesy the artist |
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