C95 News Bits

Lights, camera...

After a generous equipment grant from The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, CIRCA is now calling for proposals for web-based video projects, to be hosted at recirca.com. Our equipment, which can be used in producing the video piece, includes a new Mac dual-processor G4 and a Sony TRV20E digital camcorder. Our software includes Adobe Premiere, Flash 5 and Dreamweaver. More here.

If interested, please send us in an outline of your idea by post or e-mail.

Bamboo polled

Back at the start of November we launched a poll on our website to do with Dan Shipsides' installation, Bamboo Support, the Nissan-prize-winning temporary art installation in O'Connell Street, Dublin. Our question was simple: How do you feel about Bamboo Support: does it work?

We had 46 replies and lots of comments (see here). Views were unusually polarised. Normally, surveys produce the bell-shaped curve statisticians are so fond of: a peak in the middle, tapering off towards the sides. We got the reverse: opinions tended to be strongly in favour or strongly against. There was no appreciable effect of whether the respondent was an artist or not, debunking an expected insider-versus-average-punter difference in reaction to the installation.

Meanwhile, a survey our CIRCA's readership is underway and we'd welcome your views on all aspects of the magazine. Click here.

For peat's sake

Remember Tom de Paor's briquette structure, N3, discussed in the last issue of CIRCA? We failed to mention at the end of the article on the Venice Architecture Biennale that the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon was the principle funder of de Paor's participation in the event, with a grant to Artworking of IR£21,260. Bord na Móna's sponsorship also deserved a mention. Our apologies.

A book and a film on N3 are due to appear some time around now.

Watching agawp as two catastrophes unfold

photo of Project by Salvatore Caminiti

What is more or less the nomenklatura of the visual arts in Ireland - and others further afield - put its name at the end of last year to a petition expressing grave concern about developments at Project. Project is the reincarnation of the Project Arts Centre, Dublin's leading space for radical, innovative art over the last two decades and more (see the article on Project, CIRCA 78). Project reopened earlier this summer, in totally renovated and enlarged premises. It headlined Jaki Irvine's Somewhere near Vada (see our review, CIRCA 93).

The petition reads:

Petition to The Board of Project Arts Centre, and The Arts Council of Ireland

We, the following signatories, have learned that Valerie Connor's contract at Project as Visual Arts Director is not to be renewed come January 31st. As members of the arts community we strongly disagree with the decision to terminate both Valerie's role and the senior programming position of Visual Arts Director in Project. We object to the downgrading of the Visual Art profile of this publicly funded space. Valerie Connor is a highly talented artist, writer and curator. She has worked on many notable art projects and has significantly contributed to the artistic and intellectual development of Project and the Irish arts scene.

A total of 147 signatures were gathered; their names can be found at here.

On December 19, the Board of Project issued a statement: "The Board of Project asserts its commitment to the visual arts. Discussions concerning appropriate structures for the implimenation of visual arts policy and programming are ongoing."

Daniel Jewesbury's show, Mirage, which ended December 20, was the last scheduled visual-arts event at Project. This year is still blank.

An Irish Times article about the Project situation on January 11 of this year was scathing enough, but it was nothing to the relentless investigative terrier-work that appeared in the January 18 issue of The Phoenix. That article begins:

Only six months into the Project's new state-of-the-art £3.5 million building and everything's gone pear-shaped for its new artistic director, Kathy McArdle. Her decision to axe the visual arts director raised the hackles of Ireland's finest artistes. The exodus of four senior members of staff, including the general manager, since moving house hasn't helped matters. So has McArdle gone and crashed her brand new car?

The Irish Times weighed in again on February 6. This time it was an extended opinion piece by Dorothy Cross and Willie Doherty, no light-weights on the visual-arts scene in Ireland.

Project has just released its programme for February and March; it mentions no visual-arts activities. There is also a major twist in the tail: Valerie Connor is now back in the employ of Project, but a Project spokesperson was (on February 12) unable to state what her post is and whether or not she is the Visual Arts Director.

(See also Aidan Dunne's column on page 13 of this issue and also the Dublin II review on page 56.)

Watching agawp as two catastrophes unfold, part 2

No sooner had the Project fiasco surfaced than word got out of major trouble at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The first reliable reports were to the effect that Director Declan McGonagle was taking the Museum to court on December 1 of last year to prevent IMMA from advertising his post.

According to the Irish Times, the recently appointed head of the Board of IMMA, Marie Donnelly, wanted to see more 'blockbuster' shows at the museum, whereas McGonagle is known to be more interested in accessibility for all. The Times reported that, "Ms Donnelly is a leading socialite and charity fund-raiser. As chairwoman of the Irish Hospice Foundation, she edited the Whoseday Book in 1998, which raised £2 million...She and her husband, Joe, are regarded as Ireland's only serious collectors of international art. She is a member of the international board of the Tate in London."

Subsequent reports in the Irish Times were widely taken to mean that McGonagle's position at IMMA was safe. Apparently this was far from the case. Into this brew then came a letter to the Board of IMMA and to the press from Mark Francis and Jonathan Watkins, directors respectively of fig-1, London, and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. They stated they were "not prepared to continue as jurors...unless...assured that the current dispute about the position of the Director is satisfactorily resolved."

Nonetheless the shortlist for the Glen Dimplex award did appear shortly thereafter. The names are: Cremaster-master Matthew Barney (see our interview with him, CIRCA 92), grunge-photographer Richard Billingham, heightened-kitsch painter Elizabeth Magill (see Belfast II review, this issue) and sound-artist Susan Philipsz (interviewed in CIRCA 88). One of them is in line to win IR£15,000...assuming there are any jurors. According to Watkins they decided to continue with the selection of the shortlist for the sake of the artists and the museum; they may yet decline to participate in choosing the winner.

The opacity of the IMMA situation increased with subsequent reports in the Irish Times: "...simple nonrenewal of [McGonagle's] contract would not necessarily affect his status as director," the Times reported on December 16. It went on: "According to sources close to the museum, Mr McGonagle's contract, thought nominally based on a five-year term, is unusual: while terms and conditions are negotiable, his continuance in his position as director is not."

Significant figures continued to line up on McGonagle's side. Perhaps most important of these, for the Museum's profile, were Lochlann Quinn of Glen Dimplex and Gerard O'Toole of Nissan, Nissan being the sponsor of the Museum's other high-profile art event, beside the Glen Dimplex. The Irish Times also carried a letter of support from Gordon Lambert, a major donor to IMMA (see analysis of IMMA donations, CIRCA 85).

The question remained: if McGonagle couldn't be dismissed, what was the Board's chair up to in seeking to advertise his job? The row still runs, although a report in the Sunday Business Post of February 11 stated that McGonagle had been given a five-year contract. One thing is certain: the cack-handed handling by IMMA's board has badly hurt the Museum and through it the standing of art in Ireland.

(See also Aidan Dunne's column in this issue; on pages 16-17 you will find a 10-year 'report card' for IMMA. Please also see the online ArtNews for updates on the Project and IMMA situations.)

Better qualified to administer

University College Dublin has announced that it will be offering, for the first time, MA and MLitt programmes in Cultural Policy and Arts Management from September 2001. This initiative is, they say, in response to "strong demand for higher standards of education in the sector...increasing professionalism in the cultural sector...the substantial growth of publicly funded arts provision and the growing awareness of the social and economic importance of the arts." More from artsadministration.studies@ucd.ie or anne.kelly@ucd.ie.

Fun with figures

With what is probably impressive speed for this sort of thing, the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon published its Annual Report for 1999 last November. By their nature these tend to be dull affairs, but it's possible to pull some interesting figures out of the mass of information. Some examples:

• Members of Aosdána receive, if their income is low, an annual cnuas award, currently worth IR£8,700. A total of 103 members (55.7%) claimed this award in 1999, out of a total listed of 185. Visual artists are the largest sector of Aosdána, but apparently also the poorest: 60% (51 of 85 members) claimed the cnuas, whereas 52.4% (43 of 82 members) of the literature sector claimed and 50% (9 of 18 members) of the music sector.
• Although visual artists make up 45.9% of Aosdána, Arts Council spending on the arts is directed in a much different direction. Only 7.5% of the expenditure went on the visual arts, whereas 29.1% went on drama. 6.6% of expenditure went on administration.
• There are (in 1999) 31 full-time and 6 part-time staff members. If you take part-timers as half full-timers, then the average cost of each staff member was IR£29,959. The premises on Merrion Square cost an annual IR£209,332, of which IR£145,452 is rent. Rent on No. 70 is due to be reviewed this year.
• But perhaps the most interesting piece of information in the report relates to the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Act, the Report states, "anyone may apply for access to information that is not otherwise publicly available. This includes: access to official records held by the Arts Council; the right to have personal information held by the Arts Council corrected where it is inaccurate, incomplete or misleading; and the right to be given reasons for decisions taken by the Arts Council (from 21st October 2000) that directly affect them."