JOANNE LAWS REPORTS ON IVARO’S ARTISTS’ ESTATES CONFERENCE.¹

A conference on the theme of managing artists’ estates was held at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), Dublin, on 23 November 2017. The genuinely fascinating and pragmatic event was organised by the Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO) – Ireland’s copyright collecting society for visual artists². In his opening address, Director of the RHA, Patrick Murphy, suggested that the Irish visual arts community urgently needs clarity regarding the legislation that surrounds artists’ estates. In the last year alone, five RHA members have passed away, raising pertinent questions about valuing cultural heritage and preserving artistic legacies. Since the mid-twentieth century, there has been a reliance on auction houses for documentation, yet even in the digital age, managing a lifetime of artistic material remains a difficult task. Murphy warmly welcomed the prospect of professional guidance across a range of subjects, including estate models, copyright law and the transfer of capital in relation to artists estates.

Reiterating the timeliness of the event, conference chair, Cliodhna Ní Anluain, introduced the first speaker, Henry Lydiate, by asking the all-important question: “where does art go?” Ní Anluain suggested that this inquiry is as much about material culture, as it is about legal frameworks, because it considers the extent to which artistic outputs are valued at the time of an artist’s passing. As an international art lawyer, business consultant and strategist with a life-long commitment to the arts, Lydiate has had dealings across the world, working with innumerable high-profile artists to put systems in place “before the trouble starts” – often before the art is even made. I am very familiar with Lydiate’s long-running ‘Artlaw’ column in Art Monthly and was enthusiastic to hear his expert insights.

Caring About Posterity

Lydiate delivered a vibrant keynote presentation on the patently vast subject of ‘Managing Artists’ Estates’, to a diverse audience at the RHA, comprising artists, relatives of artists, archivists, representatives of cultural institutions, trustees and administrators of artists’ estates. He commenced by outlining the tangled scenario of Francis Bacon’s estate. According to Lydiate, Bacon was not in the least interested in the commercial or bureaucratic aspects of being an artist. He refused to plan anything, was against any form of documentation and was “scared to death of signing anything”. When Bacon died in 1992, his companion, John Edwards, was named as the sole heir, while two executors were appointed: Bacon’s artist friend Brian Clarke and his long-time dealer, Marlborough Fine Art. Needless to say, having the gallery as executor was a huge conflict of interest and the gallery director was eventually removed, leaving Clarke the task of singlehandedly managing Bacon’s estate and identifying where all his work had gone. There was 40 years’ worth of documentation in his gallery, but Bacon had signed none of it.

While Bacon did not care about posterity, many other artists do. Lydiate directed the question to all living artists: “Do you care about what happens to your art after you die?” If so, the practical steps artists can take start with planning an archive, assembling a categorised inventory of work and leaving recorded instructions about your wishes. According to Lydiate, estate planning can often be viewed as an artist’s “last and potentially enduring creative act”. However, the inheritance of an artists’ estate can frequently leave serious problems for families, in terms of the legal, financial, administrative, commercial and artistic implications. Surviving family members inherit an artists’ lifetime of work, yet often they are not experts or gallerists and know very little about art. Lydiate gave the example of a previous client, the daughter of an artist, who had inherited a studio full of super 8 films. Her father had instructed her to “go and see Henry” after his death, who would advise her on the importance of preserving these works. The films were eventually gifted to the British Film Institute. Artists are living longer and there are many more artists in their 70s, 80s and 90s than before, fuelling the idea of legacy as something that needs to be addressed. According to Lydiate, “the melancholy truth is that the vast majority of artists often do not receive either market recognition or cultural recognition in their lifetime”. Given that many artists cannot afford to contribute to a market pension, some are using the strategy of “keeping back unsold works” to supplement their income in old age.

In terms of planning an artistic estate, it is best to establish a legal entity or a trust and to appoint carefully selected executors or trustees – not family or friends, as they may not have the skills to manage it. However, it is common to have a representative of family on the board. This arrangement can be conveyed to the family as “not wishing to burden them with this responsibility”, while emphasising the importance of consulting neutral and independent experts for advice (such as gallerists or critics who love the artist’s work). Executors should not have a professional relationship with the estate. Gallerists can monetise an estate, presenting a huge conflict of interest for executors. Lydiate gave the example of the Rothko Foundation, of which the director of the Marlborough Fine Art was also appointed as executor. Over 700 unsold Rothko’s were “sold” to the gallery for one tenth of their market value, resulting in a $9 million lawsuit subsequently being taken against the gallery by Rothko’s family. As highlighted by Lydiate, trust, openness and honesty are key to managing an estate, as is understanding the reputation and legacy of the artist. Good commercial galleries are beginning to address this issue. There are a number of ways that galleries can help by storing or preserving works belonging to an estate, as long as this is outlined in a contract.

In situations where the death of an artist is sudden or unexpected, it is important to have a will outlining the wishes for the artist’s estate. Andy Warhol died suddenly after a gallbladder operation went wrong, however his business advisor, Fred Humes, had previously made him write a will. All of Warhol’s money was given to his family in Philadelphia but his art went to a foundation, with trustees of the foundation named in his will. The foundation held unsold works, but had no money. They could not afford to flood the market with the work of an artist who had just died, so they had the brilliant idea of selling some of Warhol’s personal and domestic items – including his clothes, wigs and ephemera – which were auctioned at Sotheby’s for $110 million, providing the financial endowment for the foundation. The foundation later decided to open a museum.

As demonstrated by the example of the Warhol Foundation, it is possible to divide an artistic estate into portions, with different provisions being made for different assets. Tangible assets include: immovable assets (e.g. real estate); moveable assets (e.g. tools and equipment); and artworks. Living artists should consider whether artworks are finished or unfinished, for sale or not for sale, as it is difficult for a family to make these decisions afterwards. If an artwork is unfinished, it may be of scholarly interest to researchers. Intangible assets include: intellectual property rights; sale of unique or limited-edition objects; copyright (valid until 70 years after the death of the artist); resale rights; design rights/trademarks; and patents (as in the case of Yves Klein’s ‘International Klein Blue’). In addition, one needs to consider the length of time someone will manage an estate. An estate can’t go on “in perpetuity”, if it has no assets. The romantic sounding “sunset estates” do not go on forever; they have a fixed-term. Possible exit strategies might include donating an estate to an institution (such as a library, archive, museum, or university). Lydiate emphasised that managing an artists’ estate should not be driven by law; rather, law should be used as a tool to help create a legacy and manage it efficiently. 

The Global Art Market

As a niche subject, very few publications to date have addressed the issue of artists’ estates, aside from Lydiate’s regular Artlaw column (featuring in Art Monthly since 1976) and a 1998 publication, A Visual Artist’s Guide to Estate Planning, by New York-based arts and cultural heritage lawyer, Barbara Hoffman. However, according to Lydiate, interest in the subject has grown considerably over the last few years, attributable to many factors including: an increasingly industrialised contemporary arts ecosystem; a new business model that sees more galleries taking on artists’ estates; and the burgeoning global contemporary art market. Offering some statistics on the latter, Lydiate highlighted that between 2009 and 2016 – in the period following the recession – the global spend on art increased by 43% to $55 billion in 2016, half of which was spent on ‘Post-war and Contemporary Art’. Within this section, 41% was spent on works by living artists, with 85% of these works selling for less than $50,000. Based on these statistics, the strong implication is that these were investment purchases by young collectors, with the expectation that prices will undoubtedly rise considerably after an artist’s death, when no more work can be produced. This was evidenced in an example cited by Lydiate of Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Women of Algiers), which sold at Christies in 2015 for $179.4 million (having previously been bought in 1956 for $212,000). This was the previous record for a painting sold at auction, until Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) was recently purchased in New York for the spectacular sum of $450 million.

The next speaker was Oliver Sears, director of a commercial gallery in Dublin and advisor to art collectors. In assessing how we came to have a need for artist’s estates, Sears outlined a brief history of the art market which is over 5000 years old, yet for approximately 4800 years, works of art were simply commissioned. This was an artisan model; Kings, Pharaohs and princes of industry all commissioned artworks. It wasn’t until eighteenth century Dutch artists began to paint landscapes themselves (in the context of a confident trade nation), that and there was a proliferation of independent artists, beyond the artisan or master-apprentice model. In 2017 – exactly one hundred years since Duchamp’s urinal, Fountain (1917), which ushered a host of artistic movements including Futurism, Conceptualism, Surrealism and Pop Art, marking the apparent “end of art” – there is an incredible number of artists making work. When they die, we have to figure out what to do with the artworks that remain, raising a range of issues, not least the conflict that can occur between estate heirs and the problematic process of authentication.

Sears outlined his own experiences of dealing with the late William Scott’s estate, in trying to authenticate a piece believed to be Scott’s work. The process of “declaring what’s real and what’s fake” has massive implications for investment choices, and is further complicated by estates charging collectors to validate the work or include it in the archive. Sears cited Matisse’s estate – inscrutably managed by his secretary who had vast knowledge of his work, but never made money out of the estate – as the perfect scenario. There are many pitfalls and ways that an estate can actually damage the market. As recounted by Sears, Pierre Le Brocquy (son of the late Louis Le Brocquy and manager of his estate) worked hard to boost the artist’s profile and price-point, but became disillusioned during the economic recession. Sears suggested that he may have been better to purchase Louis Le Brocquy works at a reduced price during the recession, in the way that companies buy their own shares during dips in the stock market. The Oliver Sears Gallery represents the estate of the late Barrie Cooke. The gallery did not represent Cooke while he was alive, and his own gallery felt it would be a conflict of interest for them to manage his estate after his death. In managing the legacy of an artist of such “huge stature”, Sears began by examining the collection to assess valuable work and to identify ways to promote the collection. A major work by Cooke was since sold to the National Gallery of Ireland during an exhibition, and there are plans to take the collection to New York in the future.

The Irish Visual Arts – A Coming of Age?

Robert Ballagh has worked as a professional artist for over 50 years and has been associated with a number of artists’ campaigns. His first exhibition took place in 1967, at a time when “an artist was a very difficult thing to be in Irish society – now too, but more so then”. In 1980, he set up the Association of Artists in Ireland, meeting with civil servants to campaign for better conditions for artists, tax exemption and the introduction of the Per Cent for Art scheme. Ballagh’s case against the state in 2006 became a catalyst for the introduction of Artists’ Resale Right in Ireland – an EU directive given in 2001 to benefit the spouses of artists who died during WWI. To anticipate this legislation coming into law in the Irish context, IVARO was founded and a 2012 campaign was later launched to explain the filtering down of resale rights to the heirs. Ballagh is currently the chairman of IVARO. On the subject of his own artistic estate, he conceded that most of his artworks were made for commission, so there aren’t that many works to be accounted for in an estate. Ballagh will leave his archive to the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) for prosperity, comprising documentation pertaining to various commissions.

During the panel discussion that concluded the morning session, Patrick Murphy commented that he cannot think of another example in Ireland where a commercial gallery has managed an artist’s estate. He suggested that perhaps we, in the Irish arts community, are “on the cusp of gaining sophistication in that regard”, in “beginning to value our own heritage”. In response, Ballagh cited Leo Smith of the commercial Dawson Gallery who managed the estate of Jack B. Yeats and did a good job of boosting the collection value and profile. When asked for examples of best practice regarding the management of artists estates in Ireland, Patrick Murphy cited the late Tony O’Malley’s estate as being extremely well-managed by his wife, Jane O’Malley. Over the past 15 years, Jane – who is also a practicing artist – has developed a digital archive of O’Malley’s work and has mounted several retrospective exhibitions. After Jane passes away, two arts professionals (rather than family members) will be appointed to manage the estates of both artists.

Cliodhna Ní Anluain raised the issue of administration and how things are different since digitisation. Lydiate commented that, in recent years, there has been a huge shift within the arts ecosystem, driven by digital technology. Gallerists are reducing their overheads, shifting “away from bricks and mortar galleries and reaching out to a global audience with jpegs”. Online platforms allow smaller galleries or action houses to cluster together, ensuring that the buying and selling of art is now open to everyone, not just a closed niche community. Lydiate highlighted the fact that younger artists are embracing digital technology to authenticate their work, using alternative storage systems such as Blockchain to secrete information within artworks themselves, in a process akin to DNA.

Legal Frameworks & Financial Issues

Kicking off the afternoon session, several invited legal and business professionals offered pragmatic insights into the process of establishing an artist’s estate, while explaining some of the financial considerations, such as inheritance tax. Gaby Smyth provides business consultancy across artforms, including the visual arts and literature, and has worked with the high-profile estates of Irish poet Seamus Heaney and Welsh sculptor Barry Flanagan. Smyth wasted no time in outlining best-practice guidelines for establishing an artist’s estate: (i) It is imperative to get detailed, intimate and unambiguous instructions from the artist while they are alive; (ii) Get agreement or consensus from the family, where possible. Full unanimity is not always necessary, but it is important to make sure that everyone agrees to operate as shareholders. According to Smyth, it is important to “keep emotions out of it”; (iii) Seek professional legal advice. Professionals need to be carefully selected and once you professionalise the model, they are accountable to the family. Professional conflicts of interest should be wilfully avoided from the outset.

Using the Barry Flanagan estate as a case study, Smyth outlined how Flanagan had two years to prepare for his death after being diagnosed with motor neuron disease. In effect, Flanagan had “advance notice” that Heaney didn’t have, offering him the opportunity to “get things in order”. Flanagan interviewed a range of professionals in London to discuss his options and to talk through the various scenarios that might arise after his death. He wanted his artist’s estate to function as a commercial trading entity and he made provisions for how the stakeholders would be paid. A board of directors was appointed to ensure that the business would be run by professionals, with benefit accrued to the family. Flanagan outlined the parameters for future editions. He left instructions for sculptures to be cast posthumously until editions are complete and only declared editions would be stamped. This effectively produces a “living archive”, rather than just a body of work to be managed. It is a good example of an “in perpetuity estate”; in other words, if moulds are beyond repair, then manufacturing and trading ceases. At that stage, they will look at liquidating into a trust or gifting part of the collection to a public institution like Tate or the Henry Moore Foundation. Shareholders will be paid at that stage, and capital gains will be paid on the inheritance of the estate.

As chair of Flanagan’s estate, Smyth has no shareholding and therefore no conflict of interest, as he does not stand to benefit from any decisions made. In general, the family is kept outside the decision-making process, however they are consulted. The estate doesn’t have professionals onboard – they simply buy expertise on topics, such as legal advice, if and when they arise. Activities of the estate to date include: compiling a Catalogue Raisonné – a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by Flanagan; working with Flanagan’s gallery to digitise his archive; sponsoring PhD research; purchasing exemplary collections, such as a chess set that was recently sold at Sotheby’s; and building a body of work that will ultimately be housed in some public institution. Smyth conceded that they were lucky, because Flanagan was very astute, well-known, wealthy and had two years to “get his affairs in order”.

Chartered Accountant and tax consultant Donal Bradley offered specialist insights into a range of personal taxation policies, including artist’s tax exemption, sole trader options and tax breaks on pension contributions. However, his expertise on the subject of succession planning and gift and inheritance tax – also known as Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) – proved particularly illuminating. The tax-free threshold for a son or daughter heir is €310,000 (less for a grandchild or niece/nephew). After this sum, a 33% tax rate is payable. In offering advice on minimising CAT, Bradley suggested that inheritance could be “paid in instalments”, rather than leaving a lump sum. Up to €3000 can be paid tax-free each year, to multiple children or grandchildren. Bradley emphasised that it would be shrewd for artists to carefully structure their gifts, property and assets before death, to avoid passing on a significant inheritance tax. Another excellent suggestion would be to take out a life insurance policy, as these proceeds could be used to cover any inheritance tax due. But at the very least, making a detailed will is crucial, to put your plan into action.

In the subsequent panel discussion, Irish artist Dorothy Cross asked whether it is possible to give gifts to nieces and nephews over a series of years, or alternatively, to give one larger gift between them each year. Bradley confirmed that this approach is perfectly viable. Another attendee asked about the process of valuing a collection and calculating inheritance tax. According to Bradley, a professional evaluation is undertaken by consulting catalogues, galleries or auction houses, in order to assess any projected sales or cashflow. This information is then passed on to finance professionals who establish figures and predict how works might sell. The artist’s estate or family can challenge the valuations or present a case supported by “realised value”, evidenced through recent sales. You only pay tax when you sell an artwork or collection; until then, it is classed as an asset.

Frank O’Reilly from the Whitney Moore Law Firm reiterated some of these issues relating to taxation in Ireland and the legal rights of spouses when inheriting estates. He also discussed the EU Succession Regulation directive for resale rights and royalties, as well as offering valuable insights into the various estate models, making important distinctions between foundations and limited companies. According to O’Reilly, foundations have charitable objectives and can be developed in a style specified by an artist in their will. Foundations are set up by deeds of trust and trustees are necessary. The choice of executors/trustees is critical, and benefactors can also be one of the trustees. Foundations are more expensive to set up and maintain, as there are compliance costs involved. However, foundations are less scrutinised by tax – accounts need to be filed as charitable assets. If considering a trust model, gifting items to a public venue will ensure that they are free of tax. In contrast, a limited company is an ongoing trading vehicle. It is easy to set up, the rules are well-established, and the main objective is profit. If the aim is to create or manufacture extra editions or generate a higher profile for the estate, then it is often better to set up a limited company.

Leaving a Legacy

As library assistant at the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL), Katie Blackwood offered poignant archival perspectives on the importance of forward-planning regarding artists estates. NIVAL was started by NCAD librarian Eddie Murphy, with the aim of documenting all aspects of twentieth and twenty-first century Irish art and design. NIVAL does not collect artworks, rather it preserves supporting documentation from artists’ careers and makes these documents available to the public. Affectionately nicknamed “The Stasi” by one NCAD staff member (based on its seemingly secret institutional activity), NIVAL offers a primary source record of events, without making judgements about what may or may not be significant. NIVAL collects documentation that might not ordinarily be circulated in the public realm. Ephemeral events such as performances can be particularly difficult to document, so the archive has appointed several regional collectors, who attend exhibitions in different areas. NIVAL houses the most comprehensive library collection of published books, journals and catalogues pertaining to Irish art and design. The collection also contains ephemera files, outlining “the backstory of art” found in printed material such as press releases, invites, press cuttings, exhibition reviews, brochures, price lists and small-scale catalogues.

Documents pertaining to the behind-the-scenes running of various art organisations and festivals are also housed in the collection including: gallery plans, exhibition programmes, correspondence, letters, financial notebooks, administration, diaries, minutes from meetings and visitor books – all of which help to build the bigger picture of artist’s careers, exhibition programmes and artistic networks across different time-frames. NIVAL also houses Special Collections – archival material that originated from one source and is purposefully kept together as self-contained collections in the original sequence. Topics of interest include the evolution of catalogues – from black and white to glossy, and from DIY to digital.

In 1999, NIVAL acquired documentation relating to the Irish sculptor and former NCAD lecturer, Peter Grant (1915–2003), who set up the Institute of Sculptors of Ireland in the 1950s, long before the establishment in 1980 of the Sculptors’ Society of Ireland (now Visual Artists Ireland). Grant’s studio was donated to NIVAL, along with his tools, notebooks, unfinished sculptures, holiday photos and other ephemera. Irish artist Lillias Mitchell (1915–2000) set up the weave department at NCAD. The Golden Fleece award was set up under her instructions. Maquettes, research notes, textiles and audio-visual documentation pertaining to Mitchell’s work was donated to NIVAL in 2009. Irish painter Patrick Scott (1921–2014) also bequeathed his archive to NIVAL, which included a scrapbook of photographs and press cuttings. Irish critic and art historian Dorothy Walker (1929–2002) bequeathed 36 large boxes of material to NIVAL. Walker was a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), co-founder of the international exhibition ROSC, and interim director of the Irish Musuem of Modern Art (IMMA). The boxes contained a collection of Walker’s critical writings, minutes of meetings and correspondence with international figures such as Seamus Heaney, Clement Greenburg and Joseph Beuys, offering huge insights into Irish and international twentieth-century art. Walker organised everything before she died, and archivists and librarians like to keep things in a meaningful order, where possible. The Dorothy Walker Collection was catalogued and funding subsequently allowed for an exhibition.

Copyright Heirs

Marie McFeely is Images & Licensing Officer at National Gallery of Ireland (NGI), and is in charge of managing the gallery’s intellectual property. The NGI, which recently reopened its historic wings after a six-year refurbishment, houses a collection of 16,300 artworks, 25% of which are currently in copyright. These artworks are often used to promote the collection using approaches such as reproducing images on merchandise sold in the shop. According to McFeely, without legitimate rights and clearances, museums cannot fully utilise their collections. The museum has been given copyright on images by some artists as a form of donation and support. The NGI has traced the estates of over 300 artists – a process that involves tracking down copyright heirs, mediating on behalf of estates and developing a copyright database.

McFeely outlined the fascinating and complex copyright case of Irish painter, Paul Henry, which proved hugely problematic for the museum. Henry was married twice and died intestate, necessitating a widespread search for the rights-holders. The NGI began by examining the will of his second wife, Mabel. She named her two best friends in her will and those women stood to inherit Henry’s copyright royalties. The first friend died but her adult children live in Wicklow, so they were contacted, even though they aren’t related to Henry. The second friend named in Mabel’s will lived in Terenure. After scouring the cemetery and church records in search of her date of death, her will was found. She left her estate to two charities. McFeely emphasised that if making a charity the beneficiary of an estate or copyright, make sure that they want the burden. They inherit the copyright valuation, state it as an asset and pay inheritance tax on that sum. Finally, all parties were contacted, and they were shocked to learn that they are heirs to Henry’s estate. IVARO was recommended as an agency that could represent them and this arrangement has worked well, with Paul Henry being IVARO’s most commonly used artist. The case of tracing Paul Henry’s copyright heirs illustrates the often-complex scenarios that require NGI staff to act as detectives or interpreters of the testate. Copyright last for 70 years after an artist’s death. McFeely’s insights highlight the fact that an artist’s will is not necessarily for oneself; it is part of a bigger picture aimed at preserving cultural legacies and the life stories of artists for the future.

In fact, this notion of the ‘afterlife’ of an artist’s legacy underpinned the conference as a whole, providing an important point of convergence for the various legal, financial, archival and artistic perspectives. As stated by Ní Anluain, it is commonplace for writers to bequeath archival collections or estates to institutions like libraries or universities. However, to begin having these conversations suggests that there might be a coming of age within the visual arts community. Preparing your estate and “putting things in order” requires an administrative mind. Artists were advised that it would be in their best interests to start having these conversations with professionals in advance, and to contact representative organisations like IVARO, who are there to advise and support.

Joanne Laws is Features Editor of the Visual Artists’ News Sheet.

Notes

¹This is an extended version of an article that was published in the January/February 2018 issue of the Visual Artists’ News Sheet.
²The Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO) was established in 2005 with the support of Visual Artists Ireland, the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency and the Copyright Association of Ireland. IVARO collects and distributes royalties for the reproduction of visual works of art. The organisation is not-for-profit and is owned and controlled by the 1500 + artists and copyright heirs that make up the membership. IVARO also represents its members in relation to the Artists Resale Right. Information can be found at: ivaro.ie

Summary – Advice for Living Artists:

• Leave recorded instructions for posterity.
• Assemble a categorised inventory of artworks.
• Plan an archive – consider donating your artistic documentation and printed matter to a scholarly archive.
• Consider separating the artistic estate from other assets.
• Tangible assets include: immovable (e.g. real estate); moveable (e.g. tools and equipment); and artworks (are they finished or unfinished? For sale or not for sale? It is difficult for a family to make these decisions afterwards).
• Intangible assets include: Intellectual property rights; Sale of unique or limited-edition objects; Copyright (valid until 50 years after the death of the artist); Resale rights; Design rights/trademarks; Patents (e.g. in the case of Yves Klein’s ‘International Klein Blue’)
• Consider structuring gifts, property and assets before death, to avoid passing on a significant inheritance tax. Alternatively, you could take out a life insurance policy to cover any inheritance tax due.

Summary – Advice for Heirs and Estates:

• Get detailed and unambiguous instructions from the artist while they are alive.
• Get agreement or consensus from the family, where possible. It is not always necessarily to achieve full unanimity, but it is important to make sure that everyone agrees to operate without emotion, as shareholders.
• Appoint carefully selected executors or trustees – not family or friends, as they may not have the skills to manage it.
• Executor should not have a professional relationship with the estate. Professional conflicts of interest should be wilfully avoided from the outset.
• A representative of family can sit on the board.
• Seek professional legal advice – Professionals need to be carefully selected and once you professionalise the model, they are accountable to the family.
• Appoint independent neutral experts on a consultation basis.
• Foundations have charitable objectives and can be developed in a style specified by an artist in their will. Foundations are set up by deeds of trust and trustees are necessary. The choice of executors/trustees is critical, and benefactors can also be one of the trustees. Foundations are more expensive to set up and maintain, as there are compliance costs involved. However, foundations are less scrutinised by tax – accounts need to be filed as charitable assets.
• A limited company is an ongoing trading vehicle. It is easy to set up, the rules are well-established, and the main objective is profit. If the aim is to create or manufacture extra editions or generate a higher profile for the estate, then it is often better to set up a limited company.
• You need to consider the length of time someone will manage an estate – will it be in perpetuity or fixed-term?
• Plan an exit strategy, such as giving an estate to an institution (a library, archive, museum, university). Gifting items to a public venue will ensure that they are free of tax.
• Managing an artists’ estate should not be driven by law; rather, law should be used as a tool to help a legacy be created and managed efficiently.

Image credit:
Henry Lydiate at the Artists’ Estates Conference, Royal Hiberian Academy, 23 November 2017.

Source

MARK O’KELLY DISCUSSES ASPECTS OF PORTRAIT PAINTING IN IRELAND.

Early portraiture can be viewed as an historical instrument of class identification, patriarchal gaze and institutional hegemony. It could also be argued that, over the years, important significations of portraiture have been exploited and aesthetically challenged through the deconstructive approaches of key historical and contemporary Irish artists. This complex field has huge public appeal and carries immense prestige for artist and subject at the level of national identity, recognition and status.

The historical context for contemporary Irish portraiture and the breadth of current practice have been highlighted in a range of recent events: the Freud Project at IMMA; the reopening of the National Portrait Collection; and numerous high-profile portrait commissions by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), the National Gallery and the Hennessy Portrait Prize. The specific genre of portrait painting in Ireland has been largely sustained through the work of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). Such ongoing efforts to collect, exhibit and commission portraiture attest to the importance of the genre within many of this country’s most important institutions.

Irish portraiture has, by virtue of its practice, innovated the process of commissioning: practical fulfilment of criteria generally conveys the significance of the sitter’s esteem or office as part of a strategy to celebrate national life in general. At the same time, in a parallel postmodern development, the commitment to producing a likeness of the sitter has increasingly been dispensed with. The cultural context and the historical agency of the subject (portraiture itself), as a paradigm of political and social capital, have become the artist’s main frame of reference. In contemporary visual culture, pictures and portraits flatten out hierarchies of either fame or achievement and, in so doing, undercut linear approaches to the subject. Nowadays, the criteria determining achievement and notoriety are less clear cut. These conditions not only reprioritise the motivations behind choosing the subjects of portraiture but also drive practices of painting which utilise the image of the person to ends other than veneration and commemoration.

Archival Traditions

The commissioned portrait relates to the archive according to customs governing an index registrar of state. A good example is the commissioning of a portrait of every serving Taoiseach, producing a relatively simple customary requirement for the visual record of government. Reflecting the complexity of an evolving society, more complex commissioning criteria are now commonplace regarding the election of both sitter and artist. Consequently, in the field of portraiture today, public and private interests compete to register and authorise more socially inclusive and politically diverse figures of authority for commendation.

Historically significant and accomplished portrait paintings by Irish artists continue to convey a mastery of technical detail in describing the sitter’s likeness and the context of their achievements. Many officially commissioned portraits specify the accurate depiction of vestments, symbols of office and other regal insignia. Following in this tradition, Irish artists of rigour and commitment include Carey Clarke, James Hanley and Conor Walton – true image-makers in paint and perception who persist in innovation through distinct signature styles. Similarly, Mick O’Dea is a relentless portrait artist, but, in pursuing images beyond presidents and chairs, he has developed a more personal archive of portraiture. Through many projects of his own design, O’Dea has increased the circle of social inclusion in his eclectic and ever generous practice. O’Dea’s 2013 portrait of the artist Stephen McKenna (1939 – 2017) is a notably moving example of his ability to negotiate such paradoxes of affinity and affiliation. The painting gently acknowledges McKenna’s institutional legacy but primarily foregrounds his presence as an artist in a studio. Viewed from a similar moment of contemporary hindsight, Nick Miller’s affirmative portrait of the late Barrie Cooke (1931 – 2014) also provides an important historical record, not least in terms of friendships between artists. Miller’s Last Sitting: Portrait of Barrie Cooke (2013) conveys Cooke’s presence in a direct and uninhibited encounter and was awarded the Hennessy Portrait Prize in 2014.

By contrast, following the example of painters such as Lucian Freud, sitters often remain unnamed, the paintings testament to the artist as existential observer. However, Freud’s complex painting of Queen Elizabeth II is an exceptional work which contradicts this characteristic approach, driven to an extreme image realisation in his request that she suffer the duress of wearing the weighty crown of England for the duration of the sitting. It seems significant that 2016 – a year of Irish commemoration – saw the establishment of the Freud Project at IMMA. The portraits on show emphasise an Irish legacy to Freud’s oeuvre, much in the way that the transposition of Bacon’s studio to Dublin in 1998 reasserted an Irish dimension to post-war British figurative painting. In this way, the portraits themselves will no doubt deepen the dialogue surrounding the Anglo-Irish milieu depicted in Freud’s work, including familial histories, sporting achievements and other examples of cultural exchange between our neighbouring states.

In a survey of Irish portrait painting, globally accelerated and conflicting image-agendas are influential factors, especially when one considers the all-pervading presence of photography and digital imagery. In Colin Davidson’s 2015 painting of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel: In Abstentia, commissioned for the cover of Time Magazine, we can observe many complex factors at work. The influence of Freud on Davidson is evident in his equivocation of the immediacy and materiality of paint. This painting is also a significant cultural landmark and succeeds in addressing subjects wider in scope than the depiction of person and place, expanding the structural paradigm of Davidson’s practice as painter-auteur. It functions as a point of origin for widespread mediation and signifies the dividing/unifying paradox of the European project as perceived by a Northern Irish artist. The portrait manifests the gendered artistic and political identities at stake in the performance of painting. Davidson’s heroic artistic project becomes the embattled lens through which East-German-born Merkel’s stabilising presence comes to be globally visible.

Geraldine O’Neill was commissioned by the National Gallery of Ireland in 2015 to paint a portrait of the Hong-Kong-born fashion designer John Rocha. Rocha has lived in Ireland since the late 1970s and was awarded a CBE in 2002. In O’Neill’s full-length portrait, he is depicted informally in an interior setting that suggests a draped studio, consistent with O’Neill’s abundant paintings of brightly-coloured studio interiors, often warmly inhabited by family members. In this painting, O’Neill’s characteristically robust structuring of space and her use of a muted colour palette is attuned to Rocha’s minimalist sensibility. This mediates a conceptual alignment between divergent aesthetic agendas – linked to craft, surface and colour, as well as implied cultural transactions – that are highlighted through the depiction of Rocha’s materials.

Recent Commissions

Beyond the significant new portrait commissions by established Irish artists, younger artists are beginning to get a crack of the whip. The Hennessey Portrait Prize recently commissioned Gerry Davis – who won the 2016 award with his intimate portrait of fellow artist Seán Guinan – to make a portrait of All-Ireland championship hurler Henry Shefflin. The portrait was installed in the National Gallery – the first time a GAA player has ever been included in the collection. Davis is a forensically accomplished painter. In the two paintings cited, his range of focus, from close-up to infinite distance, conveys the ‘airspace’ inhabited by the subjects, lending a temporal poignancy of heroic melancholy.

Another artist who has made remarkable contributions to the expanded field of portraiture in Ireland is Vera Klute, who won the Hennessey Portrait in 2015. One of Klute’s most tender works is her official portrait of Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, commissioned by the National Gallery in 2014 in recognition of her life’s work as a campaigner for social justice. Klute was also invited to develop four new portraits for the RIA’s  ‘Women on Walls’, a commissioning project that sought to “make women leaders visible” through a series of new portraits. Klute’s sensitively observed portraits depict eminent historical Irish female scientists – the first female members of the RIA – elected in 1949 (164 years after The RIA was first established). 

Perhaps the most outstandingly original work of portraiture to be completed in recent years in Ireland is Blaise Smith’s group portrait, Eight Scientists (2016), also developed for ‘Women on Walls’. This painting has been the subject of much commentary and celebration, both for its technical accomplishment and the way in which it imaginatively communicates the spirit and personality of its subjects. Smith’s rationale behind the portrait was to promote notable achievements among leading female scientists in Ireland today. His composition is witty, original and skilful and is significant because it reinvents the genre of academic group portraiture according to our times. Each figure depicted in the painting appears to possess special powers, their dynamic research discoveries wielded bodily like magical totems, mythologising these female scientists as superhero archetypes – the ‘X-Women’ of Irish science.

Narrative Gestures

Aside from the conventional matrix of commissioning and the depiction of notable sitters, many Irish artists paint faces and figures as important central motifs of their practice. As in Freud’s works, the sitter is often unidentified and the historical model of the genre itself evoked for narrative and dialogical effect. Genieve Figgis is another prolific Irish artist who has become internationally recognised for her paintings, which make reference to the ‘big houses’ and landed gentry of imperial history. Anglo-Irish culture and literature frame Figgis’s work, pointing to familiar narratives of identity made ubiquitous through art and costumed period drama. Her work reimagines the art historical canon of portrait painting as a nightmare of darkly comic satires, in which Rorschach-style abstraction conjures figures of colonial whimsy according to the dictates of historical cliché. Her paintings appropriate from all manner of portrait iconology, subjecting the genre itself to a systematic evacuation of its contextual historical fetishes, biases and privileges.

Sheila Rennick is another iconoclast whose work addresses questions on how the human subject is approached in contemporary terms. In Rennick’s work, idiomatic likenesses and the durational process of optical analysis are dispensed with in favour of a gestural approach and palette, not unlike the aesthetic posture of Austrian painter and perpetual self-portraitist Maria Lassnig or the neo-expressionist Philip Guston. Characterised by freewheeling compositions, feckless improvisation and the abject application of thick impasto, Rennick’s loud and bawdy paintings are concerned with eliciting empathy for the marginalised subcultures she depicts. In her double portrait The Doggers (2014) – runner-up in last year’s Marmite Prize for Painting – the masked lovers return our judgmental gaze, in a composition reminiscent of a television screen, creating a fly-on-the-wall frame for deviant, alienated identities, made only partially visible to our world via broadcast media.

Mark O’Kelly is an artist who lives and works in Dublin and Limerick. He is a lecturer in Fine Art at Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD). His work is the outcome of a practice of research that explores the space between the photographic document and the cosmetic image.

markokelly.ie

Images used: Blaise Smith, Eight Scientists, 2016, oil on gesso panel; collection of the Royal Irish Academy; commissioned as part of Accenture’s ‘Women on Walls’ Campaign;  winner of the US Council/Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award 2017; image courtesy of the artist. Nick Miller, Last Sitting Portrait of Barrie Cooke, 2013; image courtesy of the artist and the National Gallery of Ireland. Geraldine O’Neill, John Rocha (b.1953), Designer, 2015, oil on linen; commissioned for the National Portrait Collection; image courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland. Shiela Rennick, The Doggers, 2014, acrylic on paper; image courtesy of Hillsboro Fine Art.

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ALISON PILKINGTON LOOKS AT CURRENT PRACTICES IN IRISH ABSTRACT PAINTING.

“We are all at present, far more divided, less empowered and certainly far less connected to the effects of our world than we should be. It is for this reason that I am deeply involved in the texture of a medium capable of universalizing so much lost intimacy.” ¹

The term ‘abstract painting’ is historical and, over time, the parameters of the genre seem to have collapsed. It could be argued that to write about abstract painting as if it were a genre that has some significant position within contemporary art, might be a somewhat redundant inquiry. The term itself has been debated and contested throughout the history of twentieth century art, with the traditional meaning of abstraction shifting considerably. To say that ‘abstract painting is alive and well’ in current Irish painting practices also seems an outmoded way of summarising what painters do with their material and medium. As described by Briony Fer in her book, On Abstract Art: “As a label, abstract art is on the one hand too all inclusive: it covers a diversity of art and different historical movements that really hold nothing in common except a refusal to figure objects.”²

In tracing the lineage of Irish twentieth century art through the lens of abstraction, it is clear that formalism has been a central artistic concern. Manine Jellet, Patrick Scott, and more recently Sean Scully and Richard Gorman, offer good examples. The ROSC series of exhibitions also had a significant influence on abstract painting in Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst appearing to have roots in the formal abstraction of the late 1950s, the practice of the late William McKeown continues to adopt a range of positions in modern painting, utilising elements of installation, abstraction and figuration. McKeown’s work invites the viewer to consider boundaries, both physical and non-physical. Implicit in his work was the artist’s attention to the apparatus of the medium of painting. Suggesting that material supports are integral to viewer engagement with his paintings, McKeown stated that “I want the sense that the oil is in the linen, rather than on the surface”.³

Within the current generation of Irish painters, formal abstraction still has a place, but it is blended with other ideas – beyond pure form and colour – coming from diverse fields such as philosophy, mathematical theory, science and music. Such interdisciplinary influence is evident in the work of numerous contemporary Irish abstract painters such as Ronnie Hughes, Helen Blake and Mark Joyce. These artists have embraced a kind of ‘soft formalism’, where personal interests converge with formal concerns around composition, colour and pattern-making. Helen Blake’s paintings focus on how colour and texture can literally weave a pattern, drawing the viewer into the surface of the painting. The handmade quality of Blake’s paintings leaves space for both accident and design. Pattern-making and structure are similarly evident in the work of Ronnie Hughes, as are his concerns for human and scientific systems. Among other things, Mark Joyce’s paintings make connections between music and colour theory, testing how colour interacts with composition and form.

The intersection of formal concerns with the physical act of mark-making can be further observed in the paintings of Diana Copperwhite and Damien Flood. Though their work could not be considered purely abstract, it “supports the position of the human hand”, to paraphrase American painter John Lasker’s descriptions of his own work.⁴ For Copperwhite and Flood, the gesture of the brush as it moves across the surface and the chance elements that emerge through this action, seem paramount. Furthermore, their work points to the waning importance of a clear division between abstract and figurative painting. The idea that ‘figuration’ and ‘abstraction’ hold conflicting positions within painting appears to be outmoded. It seems that the contemporary painter is no longer restricted either by the formal concerns of abstraction, or the narrative implications of figurative painting.

A more explicit form of deconstruction in painting is evident in the practices of Irish artists Helen O’Leary and Fergus Feehily. In expanding the definition of what makes something a ‘painting’, a blurring of boundaries between ‘object’ and ‘image’ is central to their work. Such ‘bricolage’ approaches to painting can be traced back to the montage works of Kurt Schwitters and other Dada artists.⁵ Attentive to the apparatus of the medium, Helen O’Leary explicitly investigates how paintings are built and the materials involved in their making. She recently stated that her new work “delves into my own history as a painter, rooting in the ruins and failures of my own studio for both subject matter and raw material.” O’Leary frequently disassembles the “wooden structures of previous paintings – the stretchers, panels, and frames”, cutting them back to “rudimentary hand-built slabs of wood, glued and patched together” making “their history of being stapled, splashed with bits of paint, and stapled again to linen clearly evident.”⁶ In contrast to the recycling of older paintings, Fergus Feehily assembles works from found objects and materials. As described by Martin Herbert in his review of Feehily’s 2011 exhibition at Modern Art, London: “Deliberation vs. accident; hard vs. soft; fixity vs. impermanence … There are many paths to the painterly.”⁷

Among recent Irish art graduates, notions of abstraction and figuration appear to be less prominent than engagements with the virtual world. There is a growing sophistication in understandings and navigations of virtual platforms for art making and how these can relate to painting. Such inquiries are evident in the work of emerging artists like Jane Rainey, Kian Benson Bailes and Bassam Al-Sabbah whose imaginary landscapes allude to the digital realm, comprising gliches, screen savers and software imagery. It strikes me that such work could not have been made before the internet. However, it’s not just the aesthetics of digital imagery that have influenced recent painting; the impact of digital tools on the construction of painting has also become increasingly evident. A recent exhibition at The Hole Gallery, New York, titled ‘Post Analog Painting II’ examined how “digital tools have affected our way of thinking” and explored the ways in which the “logic of Photoshop or structure of pixelation shapes a painter’s approach to color, form, light or texture, even when away from their laptops.”⁸

In the early twentieth century, British art historian Clive Bell proposed form and colour as the two principles of formal abstraction, stating that “to appreciate a work of art, we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space”.⁹ Writing candidly about the tensions between representation and abstraction, New York-based painter Amy Sillman asserted that “the real, like the body, is embarrassing: your hand is too moist, your fly is open, there turns out to be something on your nostril, somebody blurts out something that I wasn’t supposed to know, your ex-partner shows up with their new lover (and your work is uncool). But you’re stuck there. That tension is what abstraction is partly about: the subject no longer entirely in control of the plot, representation peeled away from realness”.¹⁰

For me, these paired statements create a spectrum of ideas that circulate within the complex sphere of abstraction. On one hand, Bell’s description prompts the reader to imagine cool and elegant abstract shapes that are vaguely familiar and comforting, while on the other, Sillmans’s words conjure a kind of brash, dirty abstraction with images that are risky and aesthetically challenging. Perhaps there is something between these two statements that highlights what is so compelling about abstract painting: it communicates something that is so intrinsically known to us, yet is almost impossible to fully articulate. 

Alison Pilkington is an artist who lives and works in Dublin.

Notes

1. Jonathan Lasker interview in Suzanne Hudson, Painting Now, Thames & Hudson, 2015.

2. Briony Fer, On Abstract Art, New Haven and London: Yale University, 1997, p.5.

3. Corinna Lotz, ‘Accepting the Blur’ in, William Mc Keown, IMMA Catalogue, 2008. p. 61.

4. Jonathan Lasker interview in Suzanne Hudson, Painting Now, Thames & Hudson, 2015.

5. Bricolage is a French term which translates roughly as ‘do-it-yourself’.  In an art context, it is applied to artists who use a diverse range of non-traditional art materials. The bricolage approach became popular in the early twentieth century when resources were scarce, with many Surrealist, Dadaist and Cubist works having a bricolage character. However, it was not until the early 1960s, with the formation of the Italian movement Arte Povera, that bricolage took on a political aspect. Arte Povera artists constructed sculptures out of rubbish, in an attempt to bypass the commercialism of the art world, effectively devaluing the art object and asserting the value of ordinary, everyday objects and materials.

6. Sharon Butler, ‘Ideas and Influences: Helen O’Leary’, twocoatsofpaint.com. October 2014.

7. Martin Herbert, ‘Fergus Feehily’, Frieze, October 2011.

8. Raymond Bulman, Post Analog Painting II, exhibition text, The Hole Gallery, New York, 2017. theholenyc.com.

9. Clive Bell, Art, London: Chatto and Windus, 1914, p.115.

10. Amy Sillman ‘Shit Happens: Notes on Awkwardness’, Frieze, November 2015.

Images used: William McKeown, Untitled, (2009 – 2011), oil on linen, 40.5 x 40.5 cm; Image courtesy The William McKeown Foundation and Kerlin Gallery. Fergus Feehily, Country, 2008 (left); North Star, 2008; courtesy the artist, Misako and Rosen,Tokyo and Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne.

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RAMON KASSAM PRESENTS A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN IRELAND.

The 1920s and 30s saw an extraordinary increase in the popularity and production of landscape paintings in Ireland. Paul Henry and Jack B. Yeats, who are currently being exhibited side by side in Limerick’s Hunt Museum, were two of the major protagonists of that era. In contrast, European painting at that time was in the throes of Modernism, producing aesthetic innovation after innovation, which was largely self-analytical and retreating into its own flatness. Such concerns seemed secondary for many Irish artists, which would suggest that motivations were being shaped by different factors. These artists did engage in self-reflexive processes, but did so with the aim of exploring identity politics, with landscape painting becoming an important vehicle. The case is usually made that the prevailing subjects and sensibilities in Irish painting emerged as a result of post-independence Ireland’s distrust of Modernism, as well as the conservative social values asserted by the church and state. However, the precedence placed on landscape as a subject can also be perceived as the result of the newly-formed, post-colonial position of Irish artists. In this way, painting the landscape can be understood as an act of repossession, a reclaiming of territory and culture.

In both amateur and professional ranks, it is probably safe to assume that landscape painting is the most popular, widely practiced, exhibited and collected form of visual art in Ireland. As a society, we seem to have inherited robust value systems pertaining to the genre. John Shinnors, Mary Lohan, Donald Teskey, Hughie O’Donoughe and many others continue to depict romantic and craggy environs that evoke emotive attachments to place. They remain some of Ireland’s most celebrated artists of the last few decades and this makes sense, because our cultural associations with landscape are a fundamental part of our national identity. This supports the idea that the distinctive conditions (political, social, topographical, etc.) of any place can encourage painterly approaches and methodologies that are particular to it. The influence that the dynamics of an environment have on the production or reception of art are always evident, but tend to be coded in the culture of landscape painting. Likewise, landscape painting can illuminate those very conditions that shape it. Many key Irish painters who engage with the genre today make works and exhibitions that reflect facets of contemporary Irish society and environment. A survey of some of these artists’ activities can illustrate the physical, social and psychological realities of our modern world.

Irish Landscape Painting:  A Walkthrough

To set the scene for this imaginary walkthrough of recent Irish painting which makes reference to landscape themes, I am suggesting that the reader visualises these activities and related materials as being archived together in a single building. I’m proposing the site of a recent project of mine as the location for housing this fictional archive. Last summer I had the privilege of participating in ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ – a two-week residency at Askeaton Contemporary Arts in County Limerick. The project I developed during the residency was a departure from my usual format of exhibiting canvases in a gallery context. In Askeaton, I intervened with the existing painted fabric of my workspace – a vacant commercial premises in the town – to create some propositional paintings. One of these works was a thin white stripe with embedded black tacks, painted on the edge of the facade along the gable end of the building. This gesture was intended to imitate the edge of a canvas and to recompose or re-imagine the face of the site in the context of a painted object or townscape. While not a requirement of the residency, the intention was to make some sort of re-presentation of Askeaton through the medium of painting, while making visible the existing surface quality of the building and town.

The first of four rooms in this setting for an imaginary archive focuses on artworks that reference the built environment. In our towns and cities, almost everything is painted, artificially shaped or has some form of pigment running through it. This is most explicit in our streetscapes, buildings, road signs, street markings, even in the cars we drive, the clothes we wear and so on. The surface qualities of these spaces, and their existing and changing aesthetic and formal languages, can highlight anything from the economic to the social status of a given site. Mairead O’hEocha’s paintings focus on arbitrary but inviting sections of these worlds, depicting civic and residential buildings and ad hoc monuments in the public realm, picking apart the visual elements that form our perception of these spaces. Even when her paintings are not directly referencing the built environment, they are always still construction sites in themselves. She rebuilds in oil and re-imagines her optical deconstructions in versed gesture and lyrical use of colour and substance.

In similar territory, Kathy Tynan paints the residue of the built environment through a lively shorthand style. Her depictions of residential areas and scenic details often feature brooding skies, as if capturing fleeting weather patterns might convey certain atmospheres of urban living. Colin Martin works across a range of media including moving image, and his paintings are imbued with an almost cinematic quality. His exterior landscapes depict undisclosed locations that appear to be socially or politically charged, while his domestic scenes convey the visual language of modern living and interior design.

Meanwhile, Eithne Jordan has developed quite a catalogue of painted scenes that survey an extensive range of Irish buildings and streetscapes, so much so that studying her oeuvre would familiarise any visitor to Ireland with the country’s architectural texture, even before their arrival. A series of gouache paintings presented in Jordan’s recent exhibition, ‘When Walking’, at the Butler Gallery (24 June – 30 July) depict the vernacular public and residential architecture of Callan, County Kilkenny, and the surrounding area. Her depictions of domestic buildings channel our associations with such spaces beyond a description of their architectural form and texture. They are painted portraits of individual properties that mirror the visual language of the Irish property website daft.ie. These small, near-tablet-sized paintings echo a new and common form of contemporary online navigation through landscape; one that many of us seeking living space have experienced.

In the next imaginary room, we stay in Kilkenny but turn our attention to the natural world. Bernadette Kiely’s paintings record areas around the river Nore in Thomastown to stunning effect. The sum of their material and ocular arrangements mimics natural ecosystems. Her paintings of the recent flooding events around Thomastown and surrounding areas cannot help but call to mind imminent global concerns around climate change. They trigger associations with the increasingly familiar RTÉ news footage from around the country documenting areas that are being severely affected by changing weather patterns.

If there is a frustrating aspect to encountering natural beauty in the landscape, it might be in our limited capacity to process it. Standing before it, we desperately try to soak everything up and commit it to memory. We take photos to store memories of these spaces and to share online. The technology available never quite seems to fully record these experiences, but through the perpetually-increasing capacities of virtual reality, it is getting better. In the early 2000s, Irish-based Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein made a series of large, hyper-realistic, panoramic-format paintings, which reflect his desire to retain his experiences of scenery around Tipperary and Waterford. The images he created might be some of the most intricately-detailed paintings ever made of the Irish countryside.

Now in the third room of our overview, we recognise that of course not all landscape paintings reference real-world places. There is a large contingent of contemporary Irish painters making images of ambiguous, unfamiliar and strange worlds. In this loose subset of landscape painting, artists get to more freely set the terms of the natural and narrative laws of the universes they create. For example, Micheal Beirne’s detailed paintings are intricately entangled. All the elements in his paintings, the terrain and its inhabitants, are familiar to us, but only in isolation. Coming together, they depict wild and bizarre scenes. Similarly, Gillian Lawler’s images feel even less familiar; the space between us and them feels vast,  either in time, distance or both. These sci-fi-like paintings of chequered architecture and topography present the conditions and contextual settings for some unfolding drama or melancholy. In a similar vein, Sean Guinan’s work retreats even further from the recognisable. It is hard to establish at times whether they are even spaces at all. The laws of physics in the worlds he creates can change from painting to painting. With a great flair for form and colour, Guinan creates dense, impenetrable impasto terrains, or at other times, crisp minimal vistas and territories full of vitality and confusion in equal measure. In spite of many of these artists moving away from the physical appearance of our world, their landscapes often seem to more acutely portray its psychological realities.

The final room in our imaginary archive highlights the ways in which Irish artists are addressing the tense and polarising political conditions of our times through landscape painting. Joy Gerrard’s paintings of protests from her 2016 exhibition ‘Shot Crowd’ at the RHA, feel stark and uncomfortably familiar. Huge monochromatic crowds move through cityscapes and seem just about ordered, but project the same threat of unpredictability and breakdown as the flowing ink used to depict them. In these works, technique, form and content converge to form hyper-mediated images that feel as if they exist on a knife-edge and are about to erupt.

Closer to home, the recent mobilisation of political resistance in Irish society has found its voice in mural paintings. Though not always considered part of the painting canon, murals, specifically those associated with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, are perhaps the most internationally-famous examples of Irish painting alongside our illuminated manuscripts. A work that activated discussion on the politics of public space was Irish street artist Maser’s Repeal the 8th mural, painted on the wall of Project Arts Centre. The mural was ordered to be removed soon after its completion by Dublin City Council on the grounds of apparent planning violation. When news of what seemed like political censorship of the mural broke, its distribution as an image accelerated online. As a result, it has become one of the defining images of the movement.

As a painting subject, landscape still very much has precedence within contemporary Irish visual art. The painters discussed in this text represent just a fraction of those making significant contributions to this ongoing discourse and ever-expanding archive. Collectively, these artistic inquiries offer insights into our current moment, through engagements with pivotal spaces and timely events, in Ireland and beyond.

Ramon Kassam is an artist from Limerick city. Paintings form the basis of his practice. His work combines the thematic of the artist’s workspace (canvas, studio, gallery and urban environment) with formal and conceptual references to modernist abstraction.

ramonkassam.com

Images: Joy Gerrard, Protest Crowd, Chicago USA, Trump Rally 1, 2016, 2017, Japanese ink on linen; 130 x 220cm; photograph by Ros Kavanagh; image courtesy the artist. Eithne Jordan, Street II, 2017, oil on linen, 97 x 130 cm.

Source

The 2016 Social, Economic and Fiscal Status of the Visual Artists in Ireland survey was undertaken in January 2016. The survey results are provided with the comparative data from 2011 and 2013. This year’s report will be the first year that specific attention is placed on gender and also the number of years that respondents have been a professional visual artist.  We have found that this latter area is more meaningful to visual artists than taking an age profile, though it is possible to use that breakdown for other analysis outside the remit of this report.

Ireland

Ireland’s GDP[2] averaged a growth of 6% between 1995 and 2007. This figure significantly reduced as a result of the collapse of the domestic property market and the construction industry. As a result of this collapse and due to the budget deficits experienced at the time, the government introduced a series of draconian budgets beginning in 2009.

As the decline continued the budget deficit of 2010 was seen to be the world’s largest deficit as a percentage of GDP. At the end of 2010 the government of the time entered into a loan arrangement with the EU and the IMF to recapitalize Ireland’s banking sector and avoid defaulting on its sovereign debt. The subsequent government intensified austerity measures in March of 2011 so as to meet Ireland’s EU-IMF bailout targets.

Towards the end of 2013 Ireland exited the EU-IMF bailout programme and in 2014 – 2015 the economic statistics show that there was a rapid upturn and GDP grew by approximately 5% per annum. “In late 2014, the government introduced a fiscally neutral budget, marking the end of the austerity program. Continued growth of tax receipts have allowed the government to lower some taxes and increase public spending while keeping to its deficit-reduction targets.”[3]

1.2    Arts Funding

During this period government funding of the arts sector was significantly reduced as the overall Departmental budget has seen an increase.

Figure 1: Annual Budgets – DAHG & The Arts Council

This represents a 27% increase in overall funding for the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht[4], and effectively a 28% decrease in funding for the core work of the Arts Council[5]. During the same period VAI has seen a drop of 37% in public funding, equating to an overall drop of 15% when taking into consideration funding from other sources and self-generated income through memberships, advertising, consultancy, and professional development.

The above statistics have a direct impact on the artistic opportunities for artists. They combine with a significant decline in other areas of work that artists undertake to subsidise their artistic income such as academia, hospitality industry, and other areas of general work and clearly show that during this period there has been a steep decline in the livelihoods of individual artists. Further analysis shows that the “make do” characteristic of visual artists has seen them adjust to the financial reality, and in 2016 whilst we see a small increase in areas of income such as Education and Outreach, we see that the overall incomes remain low, but the number of artists in arrears has shown a decrease.

Figure 2: Effects on Individual Artists’ Incomes

1.3    Work & Life

Artists have expressed simple aspirations. They wish to make work, have the work seen in Ireland and abroad, to be able to put bread on the table, and feel as if Ireland values them for their creativity.

In direct conflict with these aspirations, this report clearly shows that there is pressure on all artists to try and maintain their practice while at the same time gain income from other areas both inside and outside the sector.  Time, funds, and opportunities continue to be the main issues.

Artists who identify as unemployed dipped in 2013 but we can now see a 10% rise between 2013 and 2016. We surmise that the continued cuts across society of both work and opportunities to make a living are having a clear impact. Although 98% of visual artists work in their main area of practice, only 32% have the ability to make this a full time job. The reasons given continue to show that they cannot generate sufficient income from the sector.

We can see that there is an increase in the number of artists gaining income from Education & Outreach programmes with an average rise of 7% and in the median (50% mark) going from 0 to €60 between 2013 and 2016.

In terms of overall income (creative and non-creative work) we have seen an increase in the annual average with a rise from €16,767 in 2013 to €17,848 in 2016. However, the median shows that this increase is at the upper end of the scale as the median for 2016 is €9,000, a drop of €2,000 from 2013.

In terms of our benchmark of €10,000 we can see an overall increase in the number of artists earning less that this amount from 64% in 2013 to 76% in 2016. Taking the 2014 definition of the poverty threshold of €10,926, we see that 76% of visual artists fall under that amount.

Social Welfare continues to be an issue. We can see in this report that there has been a steady increase in artists being required to retrain for other jobs and a lack of understanding of the professional visual artist. Although spread across all levels of experience, we find it of great concern that 60% of the artists with over 30 years experience who applied to social welfare for assistance were placed in that position. There is also clear evidence in this report that artists who have a disability are at a double disadvantage as they fear for their disability allowance if the declare themselves to be an artist.

The Department of Social Welfare have outlined that artists are the concern of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and it has been impossible to arrange meetings to discuss the current situation faced by artists. Independent of this report Visual Artists Ireland’s submission to the 2025 consultation deals with this area in detail, and postulates that the primary need is for primary legislation that recognises the status of the artist in Ireland. From this the many issues that face artists could be solved through a recognised series of initiatives, including using the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht as a bridge to the other government departments who think in a similar manner.

1.4    Gender

The disparities between female and male artists continue to raise concerns. It appears from our results that in terms of income from creative work the median is equal for both sexes at €3,000. We can see the difference arise at the upper income levels when the income is an average of €6,867 for female artists and €8,327 for male artists. This difference continues in the area of exhibition making. The only areas that show a reverse of female artists achieving more than men are in Outreach & Education and other work.

1.5    Years as an Artist

One of the most surprising results from this year’s survey has been the income levels based on the number of years spent as a professional artist.  Support structures are mainly aimed at ‘younger generation’ artists and it is known that the number of opportunities diminish as artists get older.

Figure 3: Income based on Experience

We can see that there is a case for further investigation into how to support artists who are at a later stage of their career but are failing to make ends meet and who don’t have the same opportunities to augment their incomes.

1.6    Funding

We can see a significant shift in the funding structures. Although this report does not go into the detail about the levels of funding, the primary organisations that artists approach remain the Arts Council and local authorities. There is a dramatic drop in the number of artists who have been successful in gaining funding from the Arts Council, which is hardly surprising considering the budget cuts. There is a small drop in the local authorities’ figures. The third place to go to remains private individuals.  Local area giving has always been a consistent source for the visual arts, but we can see a 7% drop in the area of Per Cent for Art and a 6% drop in Private Enterprise. Other government departments remain static and there are small percentage drops across most other sources.

1.7    Artists Payment Guidelines

We can see the introduction of the Artists Payment Guidelines as a significant event that has taken until the financial year 2015 to have an effect. In 2006 Visual Artists Ireland, in partnership with the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild (IPSG) and the Association of Irish Composers (AIC), developed a programme highlighting the need for Payment Guidelines. Unfortunately the project failed to gain traction.

In 2011/2012, VAI created a new project to look at the realities surrounding artists being paid in a professional manner for the exhibition of their work and all of the other areas of work that they undertake in the sector. This combined with the 2008 and 2011 surveys on The Social, Economic, & Fiscal Status of the Visual Artist in Ireland provided the data required to set up a project that would fully investigate how such guidelines would work in a sector that has a wide variety of levels of public funding and also a large number of areas of work that would be directly affected.

Taking research from other representative bodies such as CARFAC, NAVA, and the Scottish Artists Union, and looking at the realities of visual arts organisations across Ireland, the draft guidelines were designed to take into account overall public funding and the turnover of organisations, events, and festivals. The final guidelines were presented to a number of organisations to validate and were then published. A presentation was made to the Arts Council and after a number of months a clause was put into funding letters to ensure that those funded by the Arts Council pay artists in an equitable manner. This has since become part of Objective Three of the new Arts Council strategy document.

With this lengthy history, we feel that 2016 is the first year that we can truly look at the impact of the Guidelines and also look at how equitable payments for artists have been implemented by organisations. Taking the background that there are reduced opportunities for visual artists to exhibit, and also that some organisations and events have moved from having a full exhibition programme to a number of full exhibitions supported by open-submission or competitions, we can see that there are still challenges ahead in assisting organisations to budget for balanced programmes. It is worth noting that in terms of the major open-submission events such as EVA and the Claremorris Open, we have seen a commitment to ensure that the professional artists that they work with are paid in an equitable manner. In the case of the Claremorris there is a commitment to removing the submission-fee which in many other situations is seen by artists as yet another fee that they have to pay with the majority failing to have their work shown. These administrative fees accumulate in terms of the number of applications in the year and it can be clearly seen, with low incomes, artists find that it is untenable to make many applications.

1.8    Other

Although it is not the typical way of presenting such a report, we felt that rather than fully summarising the responses which are the direct voice and needs of individual artists, we present them in this report with some redactions which might endanger the artist’s anonymity or might mention specific instances or organisations that might make them identifiable.

The report is offered as a continuance of our work in advocating on behalf of individual professional visual artists and we hope that we can build on this in our role as a member and mediator of the visual arts sector.

^[1] 126, Galway; The Crawford Gallery, Cork; EVA, Limerick; Highlanes, Drogheda; IMMA, Dublin; Solstice, Navan; Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin; and The Limerick City Arts Office

[2] Gross domestic product: The monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within Ireland. This is used to define the growth rate of a country, but excludes sustainability of the growth as it doesn’t cover stock as it focuses on flow. However, it is still a key economic indicator in the health of a country. On the expenditure side, household consumption is the main component of GDP and accounts for 44 percent, followed by gross fixed capital formation (19 percent) and government expenditure (17 percent).

[3] The World Factbook – updated on February 25, 2016

[4] Based on figures taken from Annual Reports on DAHG Website

[5] Based on figures taken from Annual Reports and Funding Reports on The Arts Council Website

The full report is available to Survey 2016 – ROI. You can purchase a bound print copy through lulu.com

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JAMES MERRIGAN ASKS WHY SEX AND ART DON’T ‘SWING’ IN THE IRISH ART SCENE.

I have been thinking a lot about sex recently and its relationship to art. One reason is artist Emma Haugh’s question “How do we imagine a space dedicated to the manifestation of feminine desire?” proposed in her recent solo exhibition ‘The Re-appropriation of Sensuality’ at Dublin’s NCAD Gallery (an edited version of the script performed during the exhibition is included in the March/April VAN).

Another reason is the forthcoming documentary on the artist Robert Mapplethorpe by American television network channel HBO. Mapplethorpe’s ‘smut art’ (artist’s own words) caused a political and cultural storm in the American cities of Washington D.C. and Cincinnati in the late 1980s/early 1990s when a grand jury issued criminal indictments against one art institution and its director for exhibiting Mapplethorpe’s touring retrospective of ‘sex pictures’. Art won out in the end, but the trial and the exhibition did question and challenge perspectives on the vices and virtues of contemporary art in the eyes of the public.

Anyone who has had a Mapplethorpe experience usually has a Mapplethorpe story to tell that involves some public discomfort. My Mapplethorpe story begins with art critic Dave Hickey, whose book The Invisible Dragon I posted to a printing company as an example of what I wanted to achieve for a publication I was working on at the time. In the book there are several explicit examples from Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio. I didn’t think that the images were pornographic in private, but releasing them into the public ether and removing them from the context of contemporary art, with my name on the envelope that sealed them in, made me feel uneasy.

The question of obscenity and censorship drags up Banbridge District Council’s treatment of artist Ursula Burke’s portrayal of gay sex in one of her Arcadian landscape paintings for an exhibition hosted by F.E. McWilliam Gallery, in 2014. There is no point in comparing Mapplethorpe’s flinch-provoking images of the BDSM scene in New York City with Burke’s impolite costume drama – all they have in common is that they caused public unease. What I want to highlight (if you haven’t already noticed) is that the aestheticisation of homosexuality threads its ways through the examples that I have supplied here. But this unconscious intent or fluke coincidence does help to pose provocative questions about sexuality and the contexts that inspire, legitimise and allow expression of sex as art.

If we are willing to admit it, all our art biographies are interrupted by embarrassing or uneasy moments in which sex, or some related taboo, is the author of our discomfort. Sigmund Freud refers to the original situation érotique as the ‘primal scene’, when the child walks in on their parents having sex, or when we remove lust and desire for the sake of mental preservation, making love.

I remember being seated comfortably in a dark lecture theatre, 16 years ago today, whilst a fidgeting lecturer projected Jeff Koons’s Made in Heaven (1989 – 1991) series of hyperrealist paintings and sculptures. The series portrays the Italian porn-star La Cicciolina copulating with Koons amidst a sickeningly tacky rococo neverland.

The in flagrante delicto of the whole situation caught me off guard as a young man among a female majority, especially how La Cicciolina’s spread-eagled crotch swallowed up my gaze. But the bubbling laughter of my female counterparts gave me permission to dispel the Catholic guilt of looking at this particular ‘top shelf’. Staring into Koons’s imagination in that dark lecture theatre 16 years ago we all became giddy kids who ordered the pink cocktail without really knowing what was in it, or the effect the alcohol would have on us afterwards.

When sex does enter the gallery, less naïve and more mature artists have a tendency to disavow it, which results in fetishised and ‘serious’ art objects that look like cocks and vaginas but are intellectually removed and emotionally concealed within a formalised shell. As mature artists we tend to violate rather than play with the idea of sex, or we express sex as a violation. For the young and naïve, sex is indistinguishable from love, romance indistinguishable from lust. The duality between the underground and the acceptable, private and public, cocks and flowers, plays out in the photographs of Mapplethorpe without prejudice.

Artists like Mapplethorpe also incite the phrase ‘in bad taste’. In a review from 2013 I called out artist Alan Phelan (a contributor in this very issue) for being verbally brazen and explicit for the use of the word ‘HANDJOB’ for the title of his solo exhibition at Dublin’s Oonagh Young Gallery. The general tendency in the art world is to place value in being discreet and ambivalent in your expression. As Susan Sontag writes: “Good taste demands that the thinker furnish only glimpses of intellectual and spiritual torment.”

Sontag is referring here to the language of art, concealment being the epitome of good taste. The language of art always manages to transform art objects into something high, or ironises them in the dialect of the low in an effort to raise them even higher. These are the lessons that we learn in art college as young art students: to conceal and preserve our modesty in order to affect a sophisticated response from the knowing audience who like things to register on the level of implicit rather than explicit.

To my mind sex doesn’t inhabit the gallery as much as it should because we simply grow up. Yes, we have those eternal teenager artists, the Young British Artists, who continue to fetishise sex well into their 40s. And there are the American artists Paul McCarthy and the late Mike Kelley, who look like the 50-something ‘metaller’ with the Black Sabbath T-shirt and scraggy-grey-dog hair that, sometimes, I envy. Generally, however, as we discover and experience more of the world and its hidden vices we become more secretive about those experiences and discoveries. Maturity and reputation is the great censor, whereas naïveté can be foul-mouthed because it’s oblivious to itself and the people around it.

When referring to Renaissance artists and the development stages of their creative identity, Ernst Gombrich calculated that 23 was the age when personal hubris was at its most frenzied sate. The confused 18 to ambitious 20-something year old college student is split between what Freudian psychologist Eric Erikson refers to as Ego Identity vs. Role Confusion and Intimacy vs. Isolation. It’s a mouthful, but what this simply means for the art student is the potential for a whole lot of psychosocial and psychosexual instability, the best ingredients, I think, for making art that is sticky and aromatic and all-round messy. Young art students, and the mature ones that never grew up, are at that fork in the road between occupational promiscuity as would-be artists and the hope of sexual fidelity in their forming relationships with the weird world and its things.

In a sense we are just a cocktail of naïveté as young art students, poking fun and poking fingers at art objects out of blissful ignorance. At a primal level we are just hands and saliva at that age, fumbling in the dark without a care, just an all-consuming need for discovery and desire. As an adult I look back on that naïveté, the anxiety of not knowing and just poking, as a powerful asset to being an artist, rather than the fugitive notion that we are only learning to become artists in art college.

Last year the whole hullabaloo over the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) student Shane Berkery, whose painted naked-portrait of then NCAD director Professor Declan McGonigle, was (to my mind) viscerally and politically limp. While upstairs, hidden away in the attic of the same NCAD degree show, and under the stairs at Dublin Institute of Technology, we got the ‘pink cocktail’ that I have been discussing here in the sexed-up and viscerally undressed installations of Luke Byrne (aka Luek Brungis) and Catherine Cullen respectively. For the reasons outlined above, this type of art never really graduates as a form of legitimate art-making in the Irish art scene.

As an art critic who has reviewed the Irish art scene inside and out over the last seven years, after repair after rupture after repair, I find the annual art degree exhibitions an antidote to the growing up, professionalism and conservatism that permeates the public and private gallery circuit. There is something to be said, then, about the importance of art colleges in this regard. With more and more artist-run spaces being trampled by yet another burgeoning era of gentrification in Dublin, the spaces where art is allowed to be a little messier and visceral will now be the responsibility of the art colleges to safeguard. More importantly,however, it is the responsibility of teaching staff in those colleges to foster and value the subversive, the visceral and the messy,
rather than dismissing it as just teenage kicks.

James Merrigan is an art critic at billionjournal.com.

Image: Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon.

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