The Board of Design & Crafts Council Ireland has announced the appointment of Rosemary Steen to the position of Chief Executive Officer. Ms Steen is currently an Executive Director at EirGrid and has a wide range of business experience across a number of sectors. She will take up her position in mid-February.
Design & Crafts Council Ireland (DCCI) is the national agency for the commercial development of Irish designers and makers, stimulating innovation, championing design thinking and informing government policy. Its vision is a world where Irish designers and makers are recognised and valued for enriching Ireland’s economy, culture and … Read the rest
Northern Ireland artists will be showcasing their talents in India this year as part of a number of international opportunities developed by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to raise the profile of local artists abroad.
Visual artists Eleanor Wheeler and Kathryn Graham have been selected to undertake working residencies at the prestigious Sanskritti Cultural Centre and Ramgarh Shekawati, India, to immerse themselves in the artistic community and develop new work.
While later this month, poet Stephen Sexton and director and Executive Producer of the Lyric Theatre Jimmy Fay, will represent Northern Ireland at the Jaipur Literature Festival, the world’s … Read the rest
The Arts Council is holding a series of conversations on Culture Night in the New Year, which will take place in Dublin, Cork and Galway.
Culture Night has expanded to towns and villages across Ireland since its origins in Temple Bar in 2006 by Dublin City Council. In 2019 it was reported that 4,000 free events reached 400,000 people across Ireland, making it one of the most recognisable and anticipated national dates in the Irish cultural calendar. Culture Night will reach its 15th year in 2020 and is due to take place on Friday 18 September.
Following the recent … Read the rest
The Arts Council is delighted to announce that it has added 19 new works to its Collection which will be seen by audiences across the country. The artists whose work has now been added to the Collection are Sven Anderson, Eamon Doyle, Rachel Fallon, Ruth Le Gear, Marielle MacLeman, Vukašin Nedeljković, Séamus Nolan, Miriam O’Connor, Doireann O’Malley and Vagabond Reviews.
These art works will be added to the over 1,100 works of modern and contemporary Irish art in the Collection and mark the latest additions to the Council’s long history of purchasing excellent and ambitious works of art that reflects … Read the rest
The Arts Council is delighted to announce the recipients of the 2020 Visual Artists Workspace scheme.
This scheme offers grants up to a maximum of €40,000 towards the running costs of visual artists’ workspaces. It aims to support sustainable artists’ workspaces throughout the country to provide the best possible working environment for visual artists and, where feasible, to enable a level of subsidy for the artists working within them.
Next year studios in Cork, Clare, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Louth, Mayo and Waterford will receive grants totalling €260,000 to maintain vital facilities and provisions for Visual artists.
In total, 18 studios/workspaces … Read the rest
The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan TD, has published Ireland’s first ever national cultural policy framework, Culture 2025 – A National Cultural Policy Framework to 2025.
Culture 2025 sets the direction for Government policy across the cultural sector, including the arts, the Irish language and the creative, heritage and audiovisual sectors. It details the Government’s aspirations for these areas and how these aspirations can be achieved. You can read the policy here.
Central to Culture 2025 is the recognition of the value of culture and creativity to the individual and society, the need to support creative … Read the rest
Following the passing of pioneering American conceptual artist, John Baldessari, last week, we are republishing an interview, originally commissioned by Jason Oakley for The Visual Artists’ News Sheet’s July/August 2006 issue, on the occasion of Baldessari’s Honorary Doctorate award by NUI Galway at Burren College of Art in 2006.
“Young artists are the future of art; you have to listen to their ideas; get into an interchange. What I had to offer was advice on getting to where they wanted to be faster. I found I cared.” – John Baldessari (1931–2020)
“In retrospect I can see some method in the … Read the rest
The January – February 2020 issue of The Visual Artists’ News Sheet is out now.
The first issue of 2020 introduces Visual Artists Irelands’s new discursive programme, ‘VAN Chats’, which aims to further emphasise our publishing activities through a series of public talks and events. Following a screening event at Project Arts Centre organised by VAI, Lívia Páldi interviews artist Kader Attia about his research and practice. Also in this issue, Joanne Laws interviews Kunstverein Braunschweig curator Raoul Klooker, ahead of group critique workshop and talk on queer artistic practices, which takes place on 7 February at Visual Artists Ireland’s … Read the rest
FOLLOWING A SCREENING EVENT ORGANISED BY VISUAL ARTISTS IRELAND, PROJECT ARTS CENTRE’S LÍVIA PÁLDI SPEAKS TO KADER ATTIA ABOUT HIS RESEARCH AND PRACTICE.
Lívia Páldi: The legacy of colonialism, specifically French colonialism, is one of your main artistic concerns, with an extensive inquiry that builds around the concept of ‘repair’. How do you reflect on a decade of work exploring the concept’s genealogy, as well as its political, aesthetic and architectural expressions?
Kader Attia: It didn’t start as strategic research, rather was born out of my various interests. If I had not become an artist, I would probably have worked … Read the rest
JOANNE LAWS INTERVIEWS CURATOR RAOUL KLOOKER, AHEAD OF HIS VAI EVENT IN FEBRUARY.
Joanne Laws: Perhaps you could begin by discussing your background and training?
Raoul Klooker: I first studied Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic for two years but changed my major to History of Art and added a second minor, History of African Art. At the time I was working in a queer activist group that was based in the student union’s building. While in the final year of my BA, I co-curated a group exhibition on queer genealogies in contemporary art at nGbK in Berlin. Before working … Read the rest