AENGUS WOODS INTERVIEWS JOHN DALY ABOUT THE THIRTY-YEAR EVOLUTION OF HILLSBORO FINE ART. 

Aengus Woods: Tell me about your background and how you came into the world of visual arts. 

John Daly: I’m from Dublin – my family have lived in the same house since 1882, and I have collected art since I was about 15. Most kids were trying to buy motorbikes, but my parents wouldn’t let me, so I bought a rare print at auction in Christie’s. That was the first artwork; it was by Victor Pasmore, an English artist. I don’t know what possessed me. We had no art in the house, and my parents had no interest really. I am very academic and if I like something, I aim to read every book by that person, and I do the same with art. I first learned about modern British art and that became my collecting focus. I read all about the artists, and their lives were fascinating. 

AW: How did Hillsboro Fine Art get started? 

JD: Well, Hillsboro is actually the name of my house. It’s a big old house and I would use the downstairs for exhibitions. I’d open on a Friday evening and weekends for a month or two, before changing shows around. I did the first solo show in my house with Terry Frost. We would meet people in London in the Arts Club and places, and he’d say, “Oh, do you not know John? You know, he’s got the best gallery in Ireland!” He was so supportive. And all of these guys, like Howard Hodgkin, because they’re so polite, they would say, “Oh, yes, that’s right, I remember him now!” And so, they all gave me their work, but I was showing it in my house! I first moved the gallery to Anne’s Lane, then later to Parnell Square, and kept up the relationships with those important international artists. Once you get the trust of one artist, particularly if they are already well-connected, then that trust spreads. 

AW: Which gallery shows have stood out in your memory over the years?

JD: When I started, a lot of the big artists, like Basil Blackshaw, Patrick Graham and Gwen O’Dowd, were already showing with other galleries. I knew a lot about postwar British art and so I approached Terry Frost first and he introduced me to Anthony Caro. I asked him to do a show, and then also John Hoyland. The art world at that level is a small one. The major international sculptors and painters all know each other. So, if they saw your enthusiasm and passion and knew it was financially okay to give you work, it would all be fine. At that stage, I began to attract artists from other galleries. John Noel Smith would have been one of the first. He had exhibited for years in another gallery, but he was living in Berlin at the time. There’s also Michael Warren. I had already collected quite a bit of his work before I even met him, but later he became one of my closest friends. 

AW: Michael sadly passed away in July 2025. Tell me more about your history with him. 

JD: We both had a very international outlook on art. He was unusual for his time, in that he studied in the Brera Academy in Milan. When Michael went there, he was hoping that Marino Marini would be his tutor, but unfortunately Marini left just the semester before. Nonetheless, Michael ended up with Luciano Minguzzi as his tutor. All this just told me that Micheal wanted to pitch himself against these people and not be confined to a small parochial environment. I appreciated that.  

AW: How, then, do you understand the role of the gallery? Is there a distinction between nurturing younger artists and showing more established figures? 

JD: The reason for first bringing in the more established artists was to let people know I was serious about what I was doing. It’s not necessarily a commercial thing. I mean, it has to somehow pay its way, but the word ‘commercial’ is a misnomer for most galleries in Ireland. It’s more about showing work that you believe in. When selecting younger or newer Irish artists, you’re picking them on the basis that they can sit comfortably beside the best of what is out there already. Artist Gerald Davis once advised me to only show work that I love, because I’ll probably end up with most of it! And that’s true, in the sense that I don’t show anything that I wouldn’t want myself. 

AW: Are the collectors an important part of the equation?

JD: Oh, very much so. Most of them have become lifelong friends. We’d be in each other’s houses, and they would ask advice, not just about work from my gallery, but in other spaces or at auction. The main eight to ten galleries in Dublin are all serving the function of showing art that they believe in. Most of the galleries have a mix of Irish and work from elsewhere. But having the personalities of each of those people gives a different curatorial flavour to each gallery. 

AW: What are your plans for the future of the gallery? 

JD: Onwards and upwards! Some galleries have a group of 20 artists, and they just show them in rotation forever and that’s fine. But I like to inject a bit of something into it to keep myself interested. So, I will always be looking for artists. In a way, the previous exhibition, Karl Weschke ‘Painting Order Out of Chaos’, is probably the most important one I’ve done. Weschke has become a bit forgotten about, but he was a friend of Bacon and Auerbach and there are eight of his paintings in the Tate. I usually try to show at least one big international name each year. And I collect things as well with the idea of putting together thematic shows. I did that with Cecil King. I gathered a body of his work over the years, and then during his retrospective in IMMA, I exhibited those pieces. Similarly, when IMMA had their Alex Katz exhibition, I did a show with him here. I went to his studio and then carried the entire show in a plastic bag through customs – those are the fun bits!

This is a crazy vocation. You don’t do it for the money, because you’d be disappointed. However, you end up meeting the most wonderful people. Every day is different. Even though one could say I am very tied to the gallery, it’s changing all the time; every month there’s a new exhibition. Every month for 30 years – that’s an awful lot of shows. The other thing that people don’t realise is that it’s quite tough physical work. I’m not getting any younger, so at some stage, I’m going to have to only show miniatures! 

Aengus Woods is a writer and critic based in County Louth. 

@aengus_woods

John Daly is Director of Hillsboro Fine Art and current Chair of the Contemporary Art Gallery Association (CAGA).

hillsborofineart.com

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IRENE FITZGERALD CHRONICLES THE EVOLUTION OF BELFAST’S QUEEN STREET STUDIOS OVER FOUR DECADES.  

In May 1981, the Art & Research Exchange (ARE) in Belfast, founded in 1978 by Christopher Coppock and Anne Carlisle (who also established CIRCA art magazine), invited the artistic community in Northern Ireland to discuss forming an artist’s collective.¹ At this time, there was no studio provision or art suppliers in Belfast, no real gallery accessibility for non-established artists, and little support for graduates. Over a hundred artists responded to the invitation, leading to the formation of the Artists’ Collective of Northern Ireland. 

It was the outcome of conversations within the collective, that focussed people’s attention on the need for artist workspaces, and a small group of individuals committed themselves to signing a lease. Damien Coyle spearheaded the search for premises, and in 1984, studios on the fourth floor of a former printer’s building on Queen Street were opened, funded by a grant from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI).

Today, Queen Street Studios (QSS) operates on Bloomfield Avenue in East Belfast, maintaining its original name. We provide 47 self-contained studios, ranging from 147 to 744 sq. ft., with excellent natural light, double-glazed windows, and electric heating.² An annual bursary offers free studio provision for a Belfast School of Art graduate. Additionally, a limited amount of storage space is available to rent, and we have a communal workshop and equipment for member’s use.  

QSS also manages two gallery spaces, primarily showcasing early and mid-career artists who are generally selected via open calls or through partnerships. Over the last year we hosted 22 exhibitions but have pared back to 13 shows this year to better align with our staffing capacity. Currently, Gallery 01 features Eimear Nic Roibeaird’s solo show, ‘Seek the Fair Land/ Tabhair ar ais an Oíche Aréir,’ while Gallery 02 has a group show, ‘What do we Want?’ curated by Olivier Cornet, which addresses geopolitical themes and includes works by Jill Gibbon, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Tom Molloy, and QSS artist Gail Ritchie. Both exhibitions continue until 5 September. 

Notably, on 26 September, QSS will launch its 40th Birthday Programme with ‘We are QSS at 40,’ a large-scale exhibition curated by Eamonn Maxwell that will run until 12 December. This show is not meant to act as celebration of the past 40 years of QSS but seeks to acknowledge the many great artists who have helped create the organisation and to highlight the huge talent that exists in the current membership. Maxwell notes: “It’s going to be an eclectic show with an unusual hang, but that makes it really exciting for me as a curator. Being from County Antrim, it’s nice to be working with artists who live and work near where I hail from. Spending time in QSS over the last few months, meeting the artists and considering the exhibition spaces, has been deeply rewarding.” The exhibition will feature participatory events, including Open Studios (26 October), artist talks, workshops, school visits, and professional development opportunities. An archival display will document the evolution of QSS over four decades, to include photographs, posters, historical material and more. 

QSS is governed by a voluntary Board of Directors, supported by two part-time employees (Board Secretary and Membership & Development Officer) and a freelance digital media consultant. The board meets every six weeks and includes four studio artists and four external members with expertise in management, law, and finance. We use Arts & Business NI’s Board Match Programme for recruiting non-member trustees, and artists can nominate studio members to the board. This governance structure ensures that QSS remains artist-led while benefiting from diverse professional insights and experiences.

Throughout 2024/25, our operations will be funded by ACNI’s Annual Funding Programme (£32,014) and BCC’s Cultural Multi Annual Grant (2024-2026, £10,000 per annum). These funding streams will help cover our core operational costs. Despite these supports, securing funds for non-ticketed venues like QSS remains challenging. The introduction of Belfast City Council’s Artist Studios Organisational Grant in 2022 was significant and has since helped us to deliver studio-specific projects and to diversify our funding sources. For example, our 40th Birthday Programme is kindly supported by BCC’s Arts & Heritage award and the Esmé Mitchell Trust.

Although we have been around for 40 years, uncertainty of tenure persists. The owners of our current premises have recently applied to redevelop the site into apartments and although a short-term lease extension might be possible (our current lease expires on 31 March 2025), relocation is inevitable. This issue is widespread; Jane Morrow’s PhD thesis highlighted the precarious nature of studio tenancies in Belfast, with all of the 17 organisations she consulted having tenancy agreements of fewer than three years in 2019.³ By 2022, two studio groups had closed. A recent review found that only one organisation had secured a lease of any great length, and many were operating on month-to-month rolling contracts. This instability hampers future planning and incurs significant relocation costs, which are particular burdens for our sector.

Yet, affordable studio provision is vital for retaining NI’s artistic talent and supporting the wider visual arts sector. Notably, 86% of our members have previously studied at Belfast School of Art. During 2023-2024, 62% of our studio-holders exhibited across the city (excluding QSS galleries) and 34% showcased their work in other galleries in Northern Ireland, providing numerous opportunities for cultural engagement. Moreover, 18% of QSS artists contributed to third-level arts education in Belfast. 

At present, we are developing a three-year strategic plan, dependent on securing a stable, suitable location. Amid our landlord’s redevelopment plans, our priority is to lease a building that meets our needs, aiming for a permanent home in the long-term. We will also focus on enhancing staff capacity to better support our artists to reach their full potential. Reflecting on the work of the Artists Collective of Northern Ireland and the establishment of CIRCA Art Magazine, editor Michaële Cutaya wrote in 2016: “The needs of artists, it seems, are not so different from the 1980s: they are still underfunded, struggling for workspaces, and yearning for sustained critical engagement with their work.”⁴ These words resonate today. However, we hope that by our 50th birthday, we will have a different story to tell: one of stability, growth, and continued support for the vibrant artistic community in Belfast.

Irene Fitzgerald is Board Secretary at Queen Street Studios (QSS) in Belfast. 

queenstreetstudios.net

Notes:

¹ Christopher Coppock ‘A.R.E. – Acronyms, Community Arts and Stiff Little Fingers’, Vacuum, No. 11 (Belfast: Factotum, 2003) 

² Current QSS artists: Alana Barton, Mollie Browne, Reuben Brown, Gerard Carson, Majella Clancy, Pauline Clancy, Niamh Clarke, Hannah Clegg, Daniel Coleman, Susan Connolly, Amanda Coogan, Mary Cosgrove, Jonathan Conlon, Ian Cumberland, Alacoque Davey, Catherine Davison, Gerry Devlin, Craig Donald, Dan Ferguson, Joy Gerrard, Kathryn Graham, Angela Hackett, Karl Hagan, David Haughey, Ashley B Holmes, Frédéric Huska, Sharon Kelly, Gemma Kirkpatrick, Rachel Lawell, Naomi Litvack, Clement McAleer, Terry McAllister, Mark McGreevy, Meadhbh McIlgorm, Sinead McKeever, Michelle McKeown, Sharon McKeown, Grace McMurray, Tim Millen, Kate O’Neill, Darcy Patterson, Jane Rainey, Claire Ritchie, Gail Ritchie, Yasmine Robinson, Duncan Ross, Anushiya Sundaralingam, Vasiliki Stasinaki, Jennifer Trouton, and Kwok Tsui. 

Associate/subletting artists: Rebecca Dawson, Clare French, Amy Higgins and Charlie Scott).

³ Jane Morrow, ‘Precarious people, places, and practices: Mapping, mediating, and challenging the instability of artists’ studios in Belfast (2018 – 2022)’, PhD Thesis (unpublished), University of Ulster, 2022.

⁴ Michaële Cutaya, ‘Is CIRCA an Artists’ Magazine? Part I’, CIRCA Art Magazine, 2016 (circaartmagazine.net)

Source

JONATHAN BRENNAN INTERVIEWS DEIRDRE ROBB ABOUT THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF BELFAST EXPOSED.

Jonathan Brennan: Deirdre, you’re a well-known figure in the Northern Irish arts scene, but for readers further afield, could you offer a few words of introduction? 

Deirdre Robb: I am Chief Executive Officer of Belfast Exposed, and I do a lot of the curatorial work – as well as making teas and coffees when necessary! After studying at University of Ulster, I worked in a community organisation called Arts for All in North Belfast. It was very challenging, but I really loved it. I then progressed on to Belfast City Council, then Arts Council Northern Ireland, where I worked for ten years. I loved it but always thought if there was ever an organisation I would move for, it would be Belfast Exposed, because it has always been so much more than a gallery. When the director position came up, I immediately jumped at it.

JB: How did Belfast Exposed get started? 

DR: It was formed in the early 1980s by a collective of local photographers, both amateur and professional, who were sick of the world media painting a very singular and sensationalised picture of Northern Ireland at that time, and Belfast in particular. Convened by community activist, Danny Burke, they were a grassroots group, documenting the daily lives of working-class communities, who knew there was more to the city than bombs and guns. Their first exhibition was in October 1983 at Conway Mill (on the nationalist side of Belfast’s main Peace Wall) and was simply called ‘Belfast Exposed’ – a nod to the analogue photographic process, while also implying that normally unseen parts of the city would be revealed. 

The exhibition later travelled to Dublin, where it inspired Seamus Heaney to write them a letter, commenting on the “powerful, democratic feel running through these photographs.” Belfast Exposed later became an arts organisation, and they started running training programmes. There would have been a lot of unemployment around at the time, which aided recruitment for the paramilitary groups. Photographers like Frankie Quinn would say that if he hadn’t had photography as his channel, he probably would have ended up in one of those groups. In short, it was very much about doing a really positive thing within and across communities. In 1998, international Magnum photographer, Eve Arnold donated an exhibition (that would have cost thousands of pounds) to support their activities. It really showed the potential of the organisation and where it could go.

JB: Four decades on, how is Belfast Exposed run and funded?

DR: We currently have eight staff – soon to be nine – and we are funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council, and different trusts and foundations. I have been through an MBA (Master of Business Administration) which has really helped me transform the organisation. And we have affordable rent, which makes a massive difference. We’ve got two floors, which includes the main gallery downstairs, where we present international and archival exhibitions. Compiled over the last 40 years, the Belfast Exposed Archive is a substantial collection of over one million negatives and slides, from both professional and amateur photographers, which is held in trust for the community. 

The second-floor gallery is a more experimental space for emerging artists and early-career artists, but also for established artists wanting to try something new. We show work that can be classified as contemporary art but also documentary photography, with strong narratives that link to social issues, and themes that people can connect with. We recently celebrated Belfast punk icon, Terri Hooley, who was photographed by Stuart Bailey, with ‘Visions of Hooley’ in the Studio Gallery (4 – 27 April). Continuing downstairs in Gallery One until 25 May is the exhibition ‘Ukraine: Searching for the Normal’ by Cathal McNaughton, the only Irish Pulitzer Prize-winner. In Gallery Two, ‘Our Archive: 40 Years of Belfast Exposed’ continues until 1 June. 

We’ve always had a strong community practice across Northern Ireland and beyond, working with groups like Wave Trauma that supports those who have been impacted by The Troubles. Our work in mental health began largely with our Community Engagement Manager, Mervyn Smyth, and has been growing, especially since the pandemic. Covid affected everyone, so I feel we should incorporate mental health into everything we do; this has included, for example, our major ‘Healing Through Photography’ conference last year. 

JB: Your 40th anniversary programme is already underway. Are there any forthcoming highlights you’d like to share?

DR: We are having exhibitions continually throughout the year to acknowledge current and past practitioners. One significant highlight is the forthcoming Vivian Maier exhibition, ‘The Self-portrait and its Double’, which will run from 3 October to 21 December. This will be the first of its kind in Ireland, and so is a bit of a coup. Her story is amazing, but I think she’s of specific interest because she is someone who never seemed to fit into the world but used her camera to navigate her own identity. Alongside this exhibition, there will be a public programme looking at identity and the self. 

The Belfast Exposed 40th Anniversary Gala will take place at Belfast City Hall on 6 June. That will bring in as many other artforms as possible, while acknowledging and celebrating some of our founder members, like Danny Burke and Sean McKernan, female photographers including Helen Sloan, and international figures who cut their teeth here, such as Donovan Wylie. Tickets are £100 per person with a three-course meal, entertainment, drinks reception, prizes and awards to be presented on the night. Tickets are only available via gala@belfastexposed.org or by calling +442890230965. 

There will be an open call for photographs of dogs! We’re going to have a boudoir where people can come in and get their dogs photographed, creating accessibility for those who’d never dream of coming into a gallery, as well as an environmental project around Lego which will be very hands on. 

JB: Beyond this year – what does the future hold? Keep doing what you’re doing?

DR: Yes, but you must evolve. One of the exhibitions we’ve got planned is in partnership with Bradford 2025, the first ever City of Culture to go pan-UK. This collaboration is also going to be about working with artists to help elevate their practice with international opportunities. We will continue to work collaboratively with Source, Photo Museum Ireland, and Belfast Photo Festival, with an ongoing focus on sustainability and our work in mental health. Soon, we plan to introduce high-quality yet affordable collectible photobooks. I guess my wish is for Belfast Exposed to be seen as a centre of excellence internationally for our training programmes, and how we support and facilitate photographers. We do much of this work already, but I would like to expand to a much bigger scale. 

Deirdre Robb is Chief Executive Officer of Belfast Exposed. 

belfastexposed.org

Jonathan Brennan is an artist based in Belfast.

jonathanbrennanart.com

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The sound of hammering echoes from a Georgian house in the village of Killeagh, County Cork. Passers-by stop to pull a book from the free library. In the evening, a glowing circle appears above the river. Inside the house, artists from Ireland and abroad meet for dinner. 

This is Greywood Arts. Nestled at the foot of Glenbower Wood, just beside the Dissour River, we aim to position creativity at the heart of East Cork. We are passionate about creating a warm and welcoming space where artists and the community can come together to explore creative processes, to learn and to grow. We do this by hosting artists-in-residence from all over the world, organising community art projects, programming cultural events and offering educational workshops. Our hope is that participants discover a sense of belonging, broaden their perspectives, and deepen their sense of empathy.

Five years ago, Greywood Arts opened its doors as a multi-disciplinary residency space. Located in the main house, it is an artist-run space that attracts those working in the visual, literary and performing arts. We welcome as many residents from Ireland as we do from abroad. We accept applications for our self-funded Creative Process residency on a rolling basis. We frequently support individual artists’ grant applications that include a residency with us, and we are working to broaden our own funded opportunities. We anticipate an open call for a funded residency co-hosted with the National Space Centre this summer. The visual art studio has drafting table and sink, with high ceilings and wooden floors. The Big Studio suits many visual artists, as well as performers, and our cosy writers’ room overlooks the river and is perfect for desk-based creatives. Residencies range from three nights to three months, and we love to support engagement between visiting artists and the local community. Once a week, we have dinner with all of the residents. Outside, two goats and a flock of hens preside over half the old walled garden, alongside newly planted fruit trees and raised beds.

In November 2022, we launched a spectacular light installation at our annual Samhain parade. Villagers carried willow lanterns made during workshops facilitated by Caoimhe Dunn, a member of ISACS (Irish Street Arts, Circus and Spectacle Network). Then, with everyone gathered on the bridge, Circle of Light (2022) was illuminated. Created by VAI member artist Aoife Banville, it brightens the darker winter months; it is a small yet powerful way to lift our spirits and remind us that our community is strong and united in difficult times. 

Last November we partnered with the nearby National Space Centre (NSC) to deliver the first Space Fest – a celebration of art and science for Science Week. We hosted accomplished filmmakers Valerie Van Zuijlen (NE) and Emilia Tapprest (FI) who further developed their docu-fiction work, Our Side of the Moon (2022). This story of ‘moonbouncers’, who communicate by bouncing satellite signals off the moon, explores the complexities of modern technology, connection, synesthesia and embodiment. Emilia filmed a stunning movement scene beneath the NSC’s 32-metre satellite dish with Japanese Cork-based dancer, Haru. The exhibition also showcased photographic works made by nearly 100 young people, who learned about morse code and how light travels, during workshops with artist and educator, Róisín White. 

We have a busy spring ahead as we grow by leaps and bounds. In April we plan to launch a new multi-disciplinary network for artists in East Cork and West Waterford. We understood how many artists live in the region, often isolated and unaware of each other. We piloted the project last autumn with the support of both Cork County and Waterford City and County Council arts offices. Members will have access to monthly meetings, half of which will be salon-style sharing events. These will be complemented by talks, workshops and skill sharing. The artists involved in the pilot connected immediately, sharing support and building collaborations. In May, they will have an exhibition and event at Greywood Arts during the May Sunday Festival, which will travel to the Old Market House Arts Centre in Dungarvan later in the year. 

May Sunday has been Killeagh village’s festival day for nearly 200 years. Music and dancing on the local landlord’s estate became an annual tradition that shifted to the village centre in the 1920s. The festival had lapsed since 2001, but many locals told us how much they missed the celebration. In 2018, we invited a small team of artists to research the festival and capture local memories, to create a new offering. We moved the festival back to its point of origin, which is now the community owned Glenbower Wood. In 2021 we created a pandemic-safe art trail throughout the wood with the support of Cork County Council. This year, we are once again incorporating an art trail into the festival, thanks to support from the Arts Council’s Festival Investment Scheme. It will run for two weeks, from 29 April to 14 May, featuring both local artists and four more selected by national open call. 

Our most thrilling endeavour this spring is the opening of a new venue, The Coach House at Greywood Arts. For the past year we have been overseeing the renovation of a derelict outbuilding into studios for local artists, an arts education space and a flexible 50-seat event and exhibition space. Supported by LEADER, Cork County Council, and a Fund It campaign, it will be a perfect community resource for the small village. 

Jessica Bonenfant is Artistic Director of Greywood Arts. 

greywoodarts.org

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Solas Nua is a multi-disciplinary arts organisation that presents Irish arts in Washington, DC. Founded in 2005 by Linda Murray, originally as a theater company, its first production, Disco Pigs, introduced Enda Walsh to Washington, and was later remounted Off-Broadway at 59E59. Solas Nua is not bound by four walls, but rather works in a multitude of site-specific spaces, each carefully chosen to suit the content of the work. This nomadic style allows the organisation to be versatile and flexible, and, while at times challenging, bringing work to unlikely locations lends a certain fluidity. 

Work has been presented in partner theatres, galleries, bookshops, bars, churches, car parks, a floating pier, the great outdoors, a swimming pool and of course the boundless virtual space of the digital realm. Not being burdened with the weight and responsibilities of a venue certainly had its advantages during the countless lockdowns of the pandemic.

While mostly known for its site-specific theatre programming – led by Artistic Director of Theatre, Rex Daugherty – in recent years Solas Nua has expanded into more multidisciplinary work, becoming known locally for commissioning, producing and presenting work in all disciplines throughout the year. The Capital Irish Film Festival (CIFF), produced by Solas Nua, has been running almost as long as the organisation. CIFF is an annual event that brings together viewers and filmmakers to celebrate new Irish film. 

The visual arts programme, run for many years by Irish visual artist and curator Jackie Hoysted, has had major exhibitions at many galleries, including recently at the Katzen Museum at American University. Recent work includes exhibitions with Alice Maher and Aideen Barry, curated by Tina Kinsella in 2019, and Brian Maguire in 2020. Visual artists in residence have included Nevan Lahart and Sean Lynch. The literature programme has brought writers and poets such as Jan Carson, Kevin Barry, Lucy Caldwell, Sally Rooney and Anne Clarke to DC, and collaborations have been undertaken with the Stinging Fly, Tramp Press, Poetry Ireland, Holy Show, and Fallow Media.

I joined Solas Nua in 2020 as Executive Director. I’ve been pleased to lead the team through a big moment of change, which was of course made more challenging by the pandemic. The organisation had been voluntarily led by a hard-working board who did everything from fundraising to programming. I was asked to restructure the organisation and since 2020, the board has focused mostly on governance; we have doubled our budgets and have rebranded; we now have 2.5 staff and are just about to hire a contractor to run the film festival; and we now have a longer-term programming vision and strategy. 

On the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s great modernist novel, Ulysses, our programme considers the profound influence that great early-twentieth-century works continue to have on contemporary Ireland, and the many artists that call Ireland home. This year’s programme touches on themes of movement and place throughout. In a newly commissioned work, Yes and Yes (2022), choreographer Liz Roche explores themes in Ulysses through dance and the body; issues of immigration arise in a modern-day retelling of The Playboy of the Western World; and the exhibition ‘The Space We Occupy’ considers our place and tenuous relationship with Earth. 

I’ve heard more than once from Irish visual artists living and working in the US that they feel increasingly disconnected from the Irish arts sector and have few formal connections with their Irish peers in seeking opportunities to show their work at home. Shipping costs are exorbitant and not many funding streams are available to bring work in the opposite direction – from the US to Ireland. Knowledge and understanding of the Irish visual arts sector in the US are still developing; the perception remains that the performing arts and literature are the dominant art forms in Ireland. As a curator and director of an organisation, I’m interested in finding ways to keep lines of communication open for artists in Ireland and Irish artists living in the US, through residencies, partnerships, exchanges and of course, funding opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic. 

From 2020-22 I was visual arts curator-in-residence at the Irish Arts Center in New York, bringing two new shows to the US. ‘The Space We Occupy’ (featuring artworks by Neil Carroll, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Colin Crotty, Katie Holten, Fiona Kelly and George Bolster) was the inaugural exhibition in the new Irish Arts Center building, representing the depth and breadth of contemporary visual art being made in Ireland today and by the many Irish artists who call the US home. At the time of writing, Maud Cotter’s solo exhibition, ‘a consequence of ~’ has just opened. It presents a body of work developed from 2015, through exhibitions in Limerick City Gallery of Art, The Dock, and the Hugh Lane Gallery.

While there is no dedicated gallery space at the new Irish Arts Centre, most of Maud’s work is installed in their stunning new flexible theatre space. If this large black box space can be offered annually to the visual arts, it promises to be a really valuable opportunity for artists to present their work in New York, outside of the white cube and with support from a long-established arts organisation and the Irish government. While Maud’s show is opening in New York, ‘The Space We Occupy’ is on its way with Solas Nua to Washington, DC, to occupy the spectacular Whittle School and Studios (9 – 31 July 2022). Formerly used as the US headquarters of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat), the building is known for its futuristic, high-tech, environmentally conscious and energy saving architecture. 

It’s important that not only does Solas Nua present work in diverse and interesting spaces, but that we also offer opportunities to make new work, through residencies and commissions. Earlier this year we launched the Norman Houston Project in memory of Northern Ireland Bureau’s former Director, Norman Houston, who died last year. This two-pronged project offers an award to a short film from Northern Ireland at CIFF, plus a residency and commission of new work to an artist selected from an open call. As recipient of the 2022 commission, visual artist Niamh McCann, is currently spending six weeks in DC, and we eagerly look forward to her return next year to present the commissioned work. 

Miranda Driscoll is Executive Director of Solas Nua.

solasnua.org

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Kate Antosik-Parsons: I was hoping we might be able to talk about IMMA’s mission to connect with audiences, and to provide a space in Ireland for contemporary life and contemporary art to come together. Could you tell me about that, and how it feeds into IMMA’s 30-year anniversary?

Annie Fletcher: For me it has been extremely interesting to come back to Ireland and take on the mission of being the director of this museum, understanding that actually, IMMA always did that. There was something urgent and resonant about the radical mission of IMMA from its inception in 1991, in relation to placing artists at the centre of the museum. Right from its beginnings, IMMA did this in relation to the artists’ work programme and how it privileged engagement and learning as equally valid and well-budgeted as any exhibition programme. All of that led me to have a sense that IMMA was truly one of those very contemporary sorts of museums, one that understood that it should be not only civic, but also a catalyst for thought. There was fantastic progression in the 1990s around art being this space to reflect, what it means, and how to connect both globally and locally. IMMA has always pioneered that sense of resonance and presence. That is unusual for a museum, because museums collect, of course, and privilege the archive. I think we are now understanding more and more, especially when archives are cut off from us, just how urgent and deeply political that notion of enunciating our own history is. I suppose all those things lead me to think that museums are full of potential to be connected to everyday life.

KAP: In this moment that we’re living in, amidst the pandemic, being able to connect, and sometimes maybe not connect, is so present right now in our everyday lives. This strikes me as important from an institutional perspective, in being able to connect with audiences. How can we reimagine those kinds of spaces where people are having these conversations around art?

AF: We’ve understood the importance of culture and the intimacy of culture, as an imaginative space, as a space of communication, and as an imagined force of society to think ourselves differently, or even just to cohere or give ourselves some respite. It has been a real learning about what culture is and does for us in these spaces. I was never in doubt about that potential, but it was really profound to understand that massive pivot we were all doing with the pandemic. At IMMA, it was even more exacerbated because we were suddenly repurposed to be this temporary mortuary. On many levels as a nation that was a profoundly shocking moment, and a very serious and a very civic one. Suddenly we were being prompted to think how best to lead, culturally. What does it mean in this moment to deeply and structurally enact the politics of the civic? We made several real shifts, including to share the grounds, to collaborate with the Abbey, Poetry Ireland and others, including The People’s Pavilion (June-Sept 2020) and IMMA Outdoors (Spring-Autumn 2021). There was something important about the idea that the grounds were for everybody, and that people felt safe outside. I reallocated budgets, putting about a third of our exhibition budgets into outside programming on every level and created different cross-functional teams across all departments. It allowed us to do a deep dive into what it all means and how we can best serve the public.

KAP: When it came to planning the 30-year anniversary exhibition programme, how did that unfold?

AF: When I came to IMMA, I had a strong sense that I wanted to recalibrate the importance of the collection. That is not to say it hasn’t always been treated rather wonderfully, but I thought it would be interesting for the 30-year anniversary to use every part of the exhibition space for the collection. At IMMA, we have very precise and innovative departments like Temporary Exhibitions, Collection, Engagement and Learning. I thought about bringing them together on this because there are so many wonderful colleagues within IMMA that have such a deep knowledge of the collection. There was an importance there, in terms of breaking silos down around certain expertise that allows particular programming to happen. I thought that it would be exciting to create these cross-functional teams that might consider the collection anew. 

KAP: Where does the title of IMMA’s 30th anniversary exhibition, ‘The Narrow Gate of the Here- and-Now’, come from?

AF: It was me grappling with this idea of the 30-year anniversary, and what that means. I was trying to think about using the collection to talk through those 30 years – in particular this idea of resonance and currency with the public. It taps into this endless presentism of capitalism, neoliberalism, and the art worlds that can reside in this endless ‘newness’, which is very ahistorical. There is a certain fetishisation of that newness that I find quite problematic. One of the fundamental problems, of course, is the fact that we named this thing ‘contemporary’ art. There is a kind of a madness to the idea that this art is always expected to be resonant, but there is also the fear that it may become outdated or less relevant. In his accessible 2009 essay, ‘Comrades of Time’, Boris Groys was thinking about what it means that we have named everything in the last 30 years ‘contemporary’(e-flux.com). How can 30 years be endlessly contemporary, and what are the inadequacies of our language to think about that? I was reading that essay and talking to the curators about these ideas. I asked them if they could make an exhibition across their departments that would look at the last 30 years to tell a story of Ireland in that global contemporary, whatever that whirlwind of the ‘contemporary’ is. The aim was to slightly blow up that endless idea of living in the present, and to say that the ‘here-and-now’ is actually a very narrow gate, straddled by expansive pasts and futures.

KAP: ‘The Narrow Gate of Here-and-Now’ is divided into four chapters: Queer Embodiment; The Anthropocene; Social Fabric; and Protest and Conflict. How did this episodic format come about? 

AF: As with most of my work, I ask questions and try to begin a discussion. I knew I wanted to work with the collection for the 30-year anniversary and wondered if people had thematic suggestions around how to do that. I had given them the title of ‘The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now’ and I wanted them to think about this idea. Our colleague, Karen Sweeney, came up with a beautiful parsing of subject matters. She created an interesting narrative that created a kind of elasticity of thought or framework for us to think our way through the last 30 years; that was our starting point. Then these cross-functional teams tried to look at the collection and think how to make different displays. It was about trying to get the curators – Johanne Mullan, Seán Kissane, Claire Walsh and Georgie Thompson, who I think did a brilliant job – to dare to narrate and make stories happen. That is not to say that these are the ‘official stories’, and I would hope that is clear, that we can engage, we can suggest, we can create ‘what-if’ scenarios, which is what artists do too. It is trying to imagine another possibility, and these are ‘chapters’ or narration of the last 30 years that try to reflect on what we have all been through. I hope that this gives the public a sense of the potential of the collection.

KAP: Last year IMMA received €600,000 to acquire works by artists living in Ireland. This included performance works like Alastair MacLennan’s Bled Edge (1988) and Amanda Coogan’s Yellow (2008). I was just so intrigued by this idea of collecting performance art – what can you tell me about this?

AF: I think it is sometimes best to ask the simplest questions, like what is important to the national collection? And what is the essence of the artwork? Sometimes within performance, a destruction of the work itself is implicit in its own method of making, but does its erasure mean that it’s not an important part of the national archive? We have seen this happen with feminist work of the 1980s and 1990s, and indeed within many marginalised communities, there is a struggle to piece together archives of neglected works. Certainly, that is the job of the national museum. We can get into dialogue with the explosion of the market and the idea that objects are extremely expensive or fetishised in some way – all of which is fine. But materiality is not the only criteria, surely, if we are truly understanding how artists have worked. It is part of the bigger dialogue that other institutions and networks like the Van Abbemuseum, L’Internationale, the Tate and others are also engaged with. For me, those are very exciting conversations, like how do we think about Intellectual Property? How do we understand collecting Jesse Jones and Sarah Browne’s The Touching Contract (2016), a collaborative performance that the artists have never seen themselves? It means thinking quite carefully about how it is collected. While there are a lot of things that many people can collect, perhaps it is up to a national institution like IMMA to deeply invest in these very important and complex works. That seems like a good use of our time and resources.

Annie Fletcher is Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

imma.ie

Dr Kate Antosik-Parsons is a contemporary art historian and a Research Fellow in Social Studies at Trinity College Dublin who writes about embodiment, gender and sexuality. 

kateap.com

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The annual Golden Fleece Award is a prestigious independent prize operating since 2002 through a charitable bequest left by weaver, painter, sculptor and teacher, Helen Lillias Mitchell (1915-2000). The award resources visual artists, designers and makers, from or resident on the island of Ireland, to innovate and develop their work at a critical point in their career. 

Initially geared towards craftspeople and those who work figuratively in the visual arts, the criteria were expanded beyond these limits in 2018. The competition is now open to artists working across all forms of the visual and applied arts and crafts, culminating in one or more major awards and, where deemed appropriate, additional prizes. While the size of the fund varies from year to year, it generally totals around €20,000, distributed by its board of trustees on the basis of input by an advisory panel.

To mark the award’s twentieth year – and to acknowledge the challenging backdrop arising from the global pandemic – the decision was taken to increase the 2021 prize fund to €50,000, comprising five awards of €10,000. Thanks to a recent additional bequest by the estate of engineer and artist, Seán Mulcahy, a further award of €10,000 has since been added, resulting in six prizes and a total fund of €60,000. This amplifies the trustees’ fulfilment of Lillias Mitchell’s wish “to give artists a ‘boost’ in times of particular need”. 

The winners will be drawn from a recently announced shortlist that, once again, represents practitioners from a range of disciplines. These are Aideen Barry, Bassam Al-Sabah, Fiona Byrne, Izzy O’Reilly, Jennifer Hickey, Laura Fitzgerald, Lorna Donlon, Maria McKinney, Sinead O’Dwyer and Tamsin Snow. Online alternatives to the usual in-person award ceremony, held in late March, are under review, and will be announced on the website (goldenfleeceaward.com).

The legacy enshrined in the Lillias Mitchell trust fund reflects a life spent highly engaged in the fields of art and craft, as well as a comment made by a friend of hers that “everything she did was of lasting value”1. Born in Dublin and displaying early artistic talent, Mitchell was instructed in painting by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats2. From age eleven she was taught by Lilian Davidson, and then by Dermod O’Brien at the RHA school. She took sculpture courses at the National College of Art and, from 1937, spent a year in Switzerland studying sculpture and modelling in clay. In 1940, she won second place in the RDS Taylor Art Award for a piece entitled St. Patrick Struggling in his Soul for Peace.

From that year, and throughout her life, Mitchell was an exhibiting member of the Watercolour Society. In a fortuitous twist, having moved to North Wales in 1943 to give instruction in clay modelling, she found herself teaching weaving under the direction of Ella McLeod, a renowned figure in the field. Upon returning to Dublin in 1946, she and her friend, Morfudd Roberts, established a weaving workshop in Lower Mount Street, which they called the Golden Fleece. Hand-lettered text from an emblem Mitchell developed for the initiative has been incorporated into the recently redesigned Golden Fleece Award logo. 

In 1951, Lillias Mitchell was supported by the Minister for Education, Richard Mulcahy (father of recent award benefactor, Seán Mulcahy) to open a weaving department at the National College of Art, where she taught until her retirement. She attended a summer craft school in Sweden to purchase looms and study spinning and weaving techniques, travelling also throughout Donegal, Connemara and Kerry to research the methods of traditional spinners, dyers and weavers. Favouring natural fibres and dyes, Mitchell disseminated her accumulated knowledge through a number of published books. In 1975, she founded the Irish Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, which continues to promote these crafts through regular workshops and demonstrations. 

Maintaining a lifelong involvement with the Royal Dublin Society, especially its arts and crafts programmes, Mitchell founded an eponymous award in 1987, which for many years formed part of the textiles category of its National Crafts Competition (now the RDS Craft Awards). In recognition of her wide-ranging contributions to the arts, she was made an Honorary Life Member of the Society in 1993 and an Honorary Member of the RHA in 1995.

Amassing a rollcall of over one hundred shortlisted applicants and winners over its first twenty years, the Golden Fleece Award has provided many timely supports to creative practices. In the spirit of Lillias Mitchell’s legacy, they form a diverse group that includes visual artists, weavers, jewellers, ceramicists and woodworkers, all of whom continue to be promoted across its platforms. 

The most recent Special Award winner, Kathy Tynan, was also shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize, while Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, the 2020 Main Award winner, was a runner-up to represent Ireland at the 2022 Venice Biennale. Other past recipients include the inaugural awardee, textile artist Helen McAllister (2002), known for her intricately embroidered shoe forms, mixed-media artist Suzannah Vaughan (2004), painter Clive Bright (2005), and furniture designer and maker Stevan Hartung (2009). 

After the first decade of its operation, during which a single prize was awarded each year, the categories of Commendation, Merit and Special Award were introduced. Among the first to receive a Merit were visual artist Sean Lynch (2012) and jewellery designer Eily O’Connell (2013), while early Commendations went to sculptor Rachel Joynt and visual artist Bridget O’Gorman (both 2015). The inaugural Special Award winner was multidisciplinary artist Fiona Mulholland (2017). 

Applications are accepted online from August to November each year and assessed by a panel of experts drawn from relevant fields, each serving for three years. The 2021 panel comprised: Angela O’Kelly, chair, jeweller and Head of Design for Body and Environment at NCAD; Declan Long, art critic and co-director of MA Art in the Contemporary World at NCAD; Catherine Marshall, art historian, curator and editor; Ann Mulrooney, a creative industries leader; and Audrey Whitty, Head of Collections and Learning at the National Museum of Ireland.

Susan Campbell is an independent visual arts writer and researcher.

Notes:

¹Nancy Larchet, quoted in ‘Weaving the Past Alive’, The Irish Times, 17 November 2001.

²Elizabeth Corbet Yeats (1868-1940), also known as Lolly, was co-founder of the Dun Emer Industries arts and crafts co-operative for women (est.1902). She was sister to Susan (Lily) Yeats, William and Jack Butler Yeats.

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JONATHAN CARROLL INTERVIEWS ANNA O’SULLIVAN ABOUT THE RELOCATION OF THE BUTLER GALLERY.

The Butler Gallery is moving to a new location after 44 years. The newly repurposed Evans’ Home is the most important addition to Ireland’s visual art infrastructure since the opening of VISUAL in Carlow in 2009. Anna O’Sullivan, Director of the Butler Gallery, who has spearheaded this development, spoke to me about the exciting move and the many challenges involved.

JC: Could you detail your efforts to make the move to the Evans’ Home, a former disused alms house?

Anna O’Sullivan: The journey to realise a new home for the Butler Gallery has been a long one. It has always been a long-term goal of the executive and its board to secure a permanent home for the gallery and its collection. While the Butler Gallery had a great experience in Kilkenny Castle for 44 years, there was never going to be space to facilitate the hanging of our collection. In 2004, a feasibility study was contracted by Butler Gallery, Kilkenny County Council and the Heritage Council to consider different sites around Kilkenny City. In 2005, I moved back to Ireland after 23 years working in the arts in New York City to take up my post as director. I had input on the feasibility study before it was delivered. Following a funding application to the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Butler Gallery was awarded €2 million. This significant grant was our seed money and calling card to raise further funds.

In 2008, the Butler Gallery was given the Evans’ Home by the local authority to develop and relocate. This building is located right in the centre of Kilkenny City, behind the Carnegie Library, and overlooks the River Nore. This move to a building of great heritage value promises to hugely increase our offer, allowing us to expand our organisation’s output and sustainability for the future. We will be combining the histories and stories from the Evans’ Home site, with the long and rich history of the Butler Gallery. It is an important milestone for Kilkenny that this long-forgotten building is being brought back to life and transformed into a welcoming cultural space for the city’s inhabitants and visitors to enjoy.

Kilkenny County Council and the Butler Gallery went through the process of Public Procurement with 77 expressions of interest and shortlisted seven renowned architectural firms. The highly-regarded McCullough Mulvin Architects were appointed as Design Team leaders in 2009. The firm commenced design work and surveying in 2010 and there followed quite a few years of Part 8 Planning and two archaeological digs. The project was further delayed due to a change in administration in both the Kilkenny County Council and Fáilte Ireland. In 2017, the Council received a hard-won grant of €1.14 million from Fáilte Ireland towards the capital build. Various companies tendered for the job, which was eventually awarded to Mythen Construction Ltd. Sod turning happened in May 2018 and construction and refurbishment began in June 2018 with an opening date scheduled for 2020. A further €3 million came from Kilkenny County Council, without which this project would never have been realised. The Butler Gallery is in the midst of a three-year Fundraising Plan to raise an additional €250,000. We have raised over €115,000 towards the fit-out of the building and continue with our plan to raise necessary funds for staffing and programming into the future.

JC: I attended one of the fundraising events where you auctioned artworks, donated by artists with connections to the Butler Gallery. Can you discuss the initiative of including your ‘artist alumni’ in your fundraising plans?

AO’S: The Butler Gallery has continually sought to be a platform for presenting the best of Irish art today and our artist alumni have played an important part in this development. We don’t exist without the work of these artists, so I did a call out to past exhibiting artists and those who have had a strong association with the gallery over the years, for some much-needed help. We offered various commission options to the artists in the event of a sale, or to donate the work outright to our New Build Fundraising Campaign. I knew that this was going to be a very special ask on our behalf and was hugely gratified and moved by the response and generosity of so many of the artists we have worked with over the years. Many of these artists would have had their first major solo exhibition at the Butler Gallery and were really supportive in wanting to help out. In 2019, we did a September sale at Whyte’s Auctioneers in Dublin and a November sale in Kilkenny Castle and both proved of immense assistance to our campaign. In addition, we were successful in getting through to the Tier 1 level of the RAISE initiative run by the Arts Council of Ireland. Through this, we have gained a Development Director for the first time in our history. Rebecca Reynolds has been with us since April 2019 and has been a great addition to the team in developing our fundraising and marketing plans and activities, including our corporate sponsorship outreach, expanding our Friends Programme and in helping us to develop a more robust and sustainable earned income stream.

JC: The Butler Gallery is known for its bespoke solo exhibitions which suited the particularities of the space in the medieval Kilkenny Castle, or as you describe it on your website, “a contemporary space within a non-contemporary setting”. Now with the move to a space ten times the size, what curatorial challenges will you be faced with?

AO’S: We continue to be a contemporary space within a non-contemporary setting. The overall building is 1,000m² and the Main Gallery for temporary exhibitions is 100m² with a height of almost 6 metres. We now have a separate Learning Centre and Digital Gallery to facilitate our additional programming needs. We have seven galleries on the first floor which are dedicated to highlighting works from our collection of important 20th century Irish art and The O’Malley Collection. We are honoured to have been entrusted to caretake the artworks of Kilkenny-born artist Tony O’Malley, donated to us by his wife, Jane O’Malley. The extra space reduces our challenges, in accommodating our extensive programme. The main gallery space can be separated with four individual moveable walls. This was something I fought hard for from the start, as I wanted this space to be as flexible as possible for artists. I also wanted us to be able to recreate some of the intimacy we have had in the basement of Kilkenny Castle. We will continue our Open Submission process and hope to advertise for exhibition slots in our 2022/23 programming before the end of the year.

JC: Can you mention the opening exhibitions and any plans for showcasing the permanent collection?

AO’S: Our opening exhibition is entitled ‘The Bloods’, by the renowned photographer Amelia Stein, who has been photographing the Defence Forces of Ireland for several years, focusing on the men and women of the James Stephens Barracks here in Kilkenny. In addition, this body of work pays tribute to one of the Evans’ Home previous uses as a military barracks. It will act as an important opening exhibition for the Butler Gallery and for the people of Kilkenny. This exhibition is followed in late October by our third collaboration with Kilkenny-based Cartoon Saloon, ‘Wolfwalkers: The Exhibition’, based on their new animated feature, which will be released during this time. This interactive and immersive exhibition will highlight the strengths and messages of the Wolfwalkers film, whose story is based in medieval Kilkenny and includes core working drawings and backgrounds. We had two other exhibitions planned for this opening year, but what with delays in sign-off for getting into the building and COVID-19 lockdown, they have had to be postponed until 2021.

The Butler Gallery Collection has flourished over the decades and reflects the broad character of art collecting in Ireland since the gallery’s establishment in 1943. The Collection consists of artworks purchased, donated or on long-term loan, including work by Louis le Brocquy, Evie Hone, Paul Henry, Mainie Jellett, Patrick Scott and many more wonderful Irish artists. Having a home for these works and being able to rotate the collection in seven galleries – four for the Butler Gallery Collection and three for The O’Malley Collection – is very exciting for us. I know that our longstanding supporters will be very keen to see the collection in its new setting. Our first collection exhibition will revisit beloved favourites, showcase new acquisitions and introduce new long-term loans. This selection reflects the broad character of the collection itself and embraces a variety of genres from painting, drawing and printmaking, to photography and media works.

JC: Do you have plans for the grounds that surround the Evans’ Home?

AO’S: We are fortunate to have such great outdoor space and the gardens will play a significant role for the gallery, especially in our current COVID-19 scenario. We have an archaeology garden, a sculpture garden, a children’s garden, a wildflower garden and a small orchard for visitors to explore. The garden as a whole follows a simple, elegant, bee-friendly scheme and all the planting will become established over the coming months. With its outdoor seating area, our café offers visitors a place to enjoy views of medieval St John’s Priory at their leisure. From the first-floor windows of Butler Gallery you can see the iconic landmarks of medieval Kilkenny: Kilkenny Castle, the Medieval Mile Museum at the former St Mary’s Church and the burgage plots of the merchant city. The sculpture garden includes works by Janet Mullarney, Alan Counihan and Ani Mollereau. This garden will be ever-evolving, with additional sculptural works added over time. So, as you can see, there are lots of plans afoot, with Butler Gallery offering something for everyone with an interest in the arts and heritage.

Jonathan Carroll is an independent curator based in Dublin.
carrollartspeak.wordpress.com

Anna O’Sullivan is Director of the Butler Gallery.
butlergallery.ie

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AIDAN KELLY MURPHY INTERVIEWS MARYSIA WIECKIEWICZ-CARROLL ABOUT THE RATIONALE AND EVOLUTION OF BERLIN OPTICIANS GALLERY. 

Aidan Kelly Murphy: Launched in late 2018, Berlin Opticians is an Irish gallery with a primarily online presence, supported by periodic physical exhibitions. What were the origins of the gallery?

Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll: The rationale for Berlin Opticians dates back to 2015 and conversations I had with a number of artists about the need for another commercial gallery in Dublin. There was this group of artists who graduated around 2009 and into a period when everything seemed to collapse; and while there were opportunities to show work in DIY spaces, there wasn’t that link to the commercial sector, to facilitate the sale of work. Around this time, everything started to change; places like Broadstone Studios closed, and from there it snowballed, with more and more studios and galleries closing. This all fed into those conversations around creating another gallery, which could create new opportunities to show and sell work – this was very important from the start. 

AKM: How did the lack of affordable space in Dublin influence the decision to proceed with Berlin Opticians?

MWC: In 2015, I was still tied to the idea of a physical space. But then I began to realise that it was impossible to move forward with a traditional approach, as a permanent physical space in Dublin was unattainable. The sustainability of the project was a significant factor, as was where to focus my energy. If you have a permanent gallery space in the city, it costs a lot of money, and 90% of your energy will go towards sustaining it. For me, a curator’s role is to care for the artist, so a major incentive was to showcase artists while supporting them in a way that would see the money going back into their pockets.

AKM: How were the ten artists selected?

MWC: There is a generation of artists who graduated around ten years ago, that were ‘emerging’ but are now actually more established, with a number of solo shows under belt. Coupled with this is a set of energetic and compelling recent graduates, creating a diversity of artists that generate exciting conservations between both groups. During the studio crisis, Gerard Byrne was talking about the importance of studio spaces and the sense of community they create. I see Berlin Opticians as this type of community, offering the potential for support and exchange. Gender balance was also important to me. I’m not trying to make any political statements – I just wanted to make sure that male and female artists had equal space and say in the gallery. 

AKM: How does Berlin Opticians situate itself, in relation to a burgeoning lack of physical interaction with art?

MWC: I think in a way, Berlin Opticians is a reaction to how we all view art these days. When conceived, it was very much ‘attached to a space’ – partially because that’s how I tend to interact with shows. However, we all look at magazines and read reviews, imagining artworks and exhibitions in our heads. And let’s be honest, Instagram has become a dominant platform for interacting with art. We all have our favourite artists, yet we may not necessarily have even seen their work in reality. I think if you look back, there has always been interactions with art using different media, and that would not always involve the physical. We’ve balanced the physical with the digital, intertwining physical shows with online only exhibitions – this documentation can be found on our website. I’m not trying to eliminate a physical interaction with artworks, I think that’s absolutely necessary.

AKM: As a gallery without a permanent base, do you feel you are more open to exploring the use of temporary spaces?

MYC: Definitely. As a nomadic gallery, I think we’re more open to possibilities; and whilst it requires a lot of flexibility, it is also exciting. Although the architecture of the first set of spaces was predominantly Georgian, they were all drastically different. In the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, it was like walking into a house, with a sense of the domestic and an aura of comfort, which worked particularly well with contemporary art. In the Irish Georgian Society, we found ourselves in a setting that was designed for exhibiting but had an interesting tension in how the traditional lent itself to the modern, with its difficult salon hang. For the third show in Poetry Ireland, this was a unique space, but one that had a specific role. You have to be able to respond to the places that are available. It becomes a scouting operation, and while you might be preoccupied with space, it is not everything. There is a wider identity to the gallery. 

AKM: What are the advantages of using a model like this?

MWC: By forming a group, you are highlighting their activity, which in itself creates a springboard. As you don’t have a fixed home, people are offering and welcoming you into their spaces, which adds to the experience. Next year we will appear in different locations, some of them outside of Dublin, like Lismore Castle Arts, and that’s really exciting.  Not having a preoccupation with a single space provides a chance to expand beyond Dublin, potentially even beyond Ireland in the future.

AKM: Conversely, have any challenges arisen? 

MYC: As the gallery inhabits a new space for each exhibition, there is no time to develop an intimate knowledge of it. Visits can be arranged beforehand, but the spaces are not always empty, so it might be hard to imagine what the exhibition would look like. You need to react intuitively and adapt to any restrictions that might suddenly appear. It’s hardly ever a clean white space, and you can’t always intervene or change it, as you have this limited amount of time. The idea behind it was never to pretend that you were in a white cube. When you bring art home you don’t necessarily paint your walls white, it lives in the space you provide it with. Another aspect to not having a fixed space is that we are continuously reintroducing our presence, so sustaining that engagement is something we have to work hard on. On the plus side, there is neither the time nor space to develop habits, so we can continually reinvent the gallery’s identity, which is fun.

AKM: Would you encourage others to follow a similar approach?

MWC: Absolutely. It has been such an exciting journey, making space for art in a city where it feels like we’re being continuously eradicated. It takes a little courage, as it’s time-consuming and there is risk, but that is also part of what makes it exciting.

AKM: Can you discuss your plans for 2020?

MWC: 2019 was very much about establishing the gallery, marking our presence and making sure we were visible. My first dedication is to the ten artists, but the latest show in Poetry Ireland in November saw an invited artist for the first time, Linda Quinlan. In 2020, the plan is to feature more invited artists and begin to open up the project, ensuring that Berlin Opticians continues to be a welcoming and accessible structure. This year we will also have a couple of solo shows in grand settings: Sven Sandberg in Rathfarnham Castle at the end of February and Alicia Reyes McNamara in Lismore Castle Arts in August. We’re also hoping to bring about something utterly different, but for now it’s still a secret.

Aidan Kelly Murphy is a writer and photographer based in Dublin, and the Associate Editor of CIRCA Art Magazine.

Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll is a writer and independent curator based in Dublin.

The initial line-up of Berlin Opticians artists includes David Beattie, Neil Carroll, Paul Hallahan, Emma Hayes, Barbara Knezevic, Alicia Reyes McNamara, Sarah O’Brien, Liliane Puthod, Sven Sandberg and Lee Welch. The gallery’s first exhibition took place at 63 Merrion Square from 18 to 20 October 2018. 
berlinopticiansdublin.com

Feature Image: Berlin Opticians Gallery, Inaugural Exhibition, 18 – 20 October 2018, 63 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, installation view; photograph by Lee Welch, courtesy the artist and Berlin Opticians Gallery, Dublin.

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MANUELA PACELLA INTERVIEWS PAUL O’NEILL ABOUT HIS CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND HIS ARTISTIC DIRECTORSHIP AT PUBLICS IN HELSINKI.

Manuela Pacella: Your practice is characterised by multiple overlapping interests. I agree with you that the definition of a ‘research-oriented curator’ can be quite reductive. You unify the various strands of your research as simply ‘the curatorial’ – what does this term mean for you?
Paul O’Neill: Many arguments in relation to ‘the curatorial’ were played out in discussions in the mid-2000s: Irit Rogoff talked about the curatorial as a ‘critical thought’ that does not rush to embody itself, rather it unravels over time; Maria Lind discussed the curatorial as going beyond that which is already known; Beatrice von Bismarck framed the curatorial as a continuous spaces of negotiation; while Emily Pethick described the curatorial as allowing for things to merge in the process of being realised. I found these four propositions important, in asserting the exhibition as a collaborative research action. I think that the curatorial exists in all aspects of my work as a teacher, writer, researcher, exhibition-maker, event organiser, organisation director and so forth. But I am also using the curatorial as a kind of contested term – not yet fully disclosed or constructed – which captures forms of curatorial practice that don’t necessarily result in exhibitions, objects or material forms. Exhibitions can be really productive outcomes, but I think that exhibition-making is only one part of the curatorial constellation. 

MP: Perhaps you could discuss your forthcoming book, Curating After the Global: Roadmaps for the Present (edited with Lucy Steeds, Mick Wilson and Simon Sheikh)?
PO’N: The book (out in September) is the third anthology in a publishing series between the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Luma Foundation and MIT Press. The first book was called The Curatorial Conundrum: What to Study? What to Research? What to Practice?; the second was How Institutions Think: Between Contemporary Art and Curatorial Discourse, which examined prominent institutional practices being developed globally by small and medium-scale art organisations. This third anthology emerged out of a symposium held at Luma Foundation in Arles in 2017. It looks at the dynamic relationship between politics, curating, education and research practice within institutions, and how these relations reimagine the intersection between the local and the global, the regional and the national, during a moment of political fragility for human rights across the world. The book addresses curating with respect to this new global condition, defined by issues of locality, geo-political change, the reassertion of nation states and the hardening of national borders. It profiles local initiatives that are engaging with the global in different ways, beyond the constraints of nationalism, sectarianism or protectionism.

MP: The idea of ‘co-production’ has become increasingly important within your practice. Can you discuss the rationale and relationships underpinning some of your long-running projects? 
PO’N: ‘Coalasce’ was an open exhibition model in which many different artists collaborated under the thematic: “How can we build an exhibition together?” ‘Coalesce’ is a metaphor for the exhibition as ‘landscape’, which functions as a structuring device for the three different groundings: the background, which surrounds the viewer who moves through it; the middle ground as the place where the viewer can partially interact with it (thinking about lighting, exhibition furniture, wall labels, seating, display cabinets and so forth); and the foreground, being that which contains the viewer in the space of display. Artists were commissioned to engage with one of those special coordinates. It began with three artists in 2001 at London Print Studio and ended with maybe 100 artists in 2009 at SMART Project Space in Amsterdam. It was an evolving exhibition which expanded over time, as artists invited other artists, creating different layers and cross-fertilising different artistic positions into the project. 

Conversely, in the first phase of ‘We are The Center for Curatorial Studies’ at Bard College, each of the invited artists (30 at that stage) were invited to exhibit, research and teach (with the exception of William McKeown, who is no longer with us). Primarily, they exhibited work which could be defined as curatorial, bringing together a constellation of differences; giving lectures, workshops or seminars with the students of the Graduate Program at CSS; and carrying out research with students and staff. We explored ways for the final exhibition form to emerge over a long period of time, with artists visiting at different stages. The exhibition itself became a teaching and learning environment for the students; every phase provided opportunities to learn about constructing an exhibition, working and collaborating with artists and so forth. There was also another exhibition called ‘We are the (Epi)Center’ which happened at P! Gallery in Manhattan. Several artists did performances, screenings or talks there, as well as working at Bard College, which is almost two hours outside the city. 

MP: The closing event of the free-school project, ‘Our Day Will Come’ (2011) at University of Tasmania, was held in a nightclub, involving a symposium and a disco. How do you think the two different ‘publics’ perceived these experiences? 
PO’N: ‘Our Day Will Come’ was a response to an invitation to take part in a month-long series of public art projects, curated by David Cross, called ‘Iteration Again’ in Hobart, Tasmania. I worked as an artist-curator, setting up the project’s ‘free-school’ structure with curator Fiona Lee, and inviting Sarah Pierce, Gareth Long, Mick Wilson, Jem Noble, Rhona Byrne and many others to participate along with local actors, agents and school members. Each week of the month-long project began with a question: What is a School? (Week One); What is Remoteness? (Week Two); What is Autonomy? (Week Three); What is Usefulness? (Week Four). These four inquiries structured our activities, with a school each week. Our small school building was set in an old labourer’s tearoom, inside the central courtyard of the University of Tasmania, where the art school is based. We worked with existing school activities – from classes and workshops to school dinners – and we published a school zine at the end of each week, edited, designed and printed with the expanding group of participants. We also had some formal lectures and a school radio station, developed by Garrett Phelan. The school disco was the final project, formally titled Death of a Discourse Dancer, which juxtaposed two simultaneous discursive forms: the night club and the conference. Each of the conference speakers also deejayed. I was interested in these two different audiences: one coming for the symposium, which looked at the thematic of schooling, remoteness, autonomy and usefulness; the other coming to the nightclub, where people could just dance. I was very interested in this space of publicness – the coming together of different constituencies amid moments of contestation. I had previously enacted this project at Club One in Cork in 2005, at the invitation of Annie Fletcher, Charles Esche and Art/not art. It was initially called ‘Mingle Mangled, Cork Caucus’ and worked really effectively, with everybody embracing the event. Whereas in Hobart, there was a bit more conflict or antagonism, because many of the regular visitors to the club in Hobart were not as amenable to this coming together of different audiences during their nocturnal festivities.

MP: The term ‘Publics’ has become increasingly important for you, not least since your appointment as Artistic Director of Checkpoint Helsinki. Perhaps you could discuss how the organisation’s legacy and core activities have informed this new phase?
PO’N: About 18 months ago, I was appointed Artistic Director of Checkpoint Helsinki, an initiative set up in 2013. The invitation was to reimagine how Checkpoint Helsinki could evolve and develop in the future. Checkpoint Helsinki was established as an association by a group of artists and activists to resist the Guggenheim coming to Helsinki. They developed public art projects, conferences and publications and brought international curators and practitioners to engage with Finnish art and to show alongside local artists. As an activist organisation, another priority was to monitor how decisions are made in the city, in terms of the distribution of funds towards culture and the arts. Some of these elements and commitments – like critical and social thinking, working together and being engaged in emerging debates – are still very important to PUBLICS. I proposed to the board that we could change the name to something more proactive and positive. The term ‘publics’ suggests a constellation of different practices, projects and productions. There are many diverse groups of people that constitute the public, whether imagined or abstract, real or actualised. The public means different things in different parts of the world and has diverging implications for various disciplines, from sociology and anthropology, to contemporary art and philosophy. Always plural, the term ‘publics’ is also maybe moving away from this binary of private and public, suggesting that all spaces are public in some way, while linking with contested spatio-temporal locations and discourse across the world.

We now have a physical space and it’s the primary site for the PUBLICS Library (designed by Julia studio who also designed PUBLICS’ identity). We have a specially commissioned lightbox sign – called Eat the Rich (2018) by Liam Gillick – which sits outside PUBLICS. It can be seen when approaching the space and is sited above one of PUBLICS large, open, highly visible, street-level windows, allowing the passer-by to have a sense of what happens inside. PUBLICS is situated in a mainly residential area, traditionally a working-class area, in a moment of early gentrification. Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts is just a ten-minute walk, so we collaborate a lot with them, through teaching and library access. The library – which currently has about 6,000 publications – is unique within the city and possibly Europe, with such a specific focus on the curatorial, publicness, activism and the spaces where philosophy and political-thinking intersect with contemporary art. Talks, events and performances happen regularly at PUBLICS, often in collaboration with other organisations in the city, regionally and internationally. The backbone of our programme is the commissioning and co-production of public artworks outside the normative spaces of galleries and museums. Sometimes PUBLICS is an exhibition space, a cinema, a school, sometimes we remain a library or a gathering space. We have previously exhibited work with artists such as Chris Kraus (when we installed all of her films), Harold Offeh, the Karrabing Film Collective, Kathrin Böhm and held screenings with Tony Cokes, and many others – however, PUBLICS is not primarily a gallery. 

MP: How do you feel PUBLICS is resonating, both within the local context of the Finnish art scene and internationally?
PO’N: It is definitely resonating significantly within the local scene. When we set it up, we did a lot of public talks and events and we were always packed out. We want to bridge certain discussions that are happening in the city already, with the conversations we want to have around inequality in the arts and with discrimination in all forms. Our focus is to try to diversify audiences for the arts, so that means taking on issues relating to gender politics, queer politics and so forth. We held ‘listening sessions’ where we brought together people (who may or may not have known each other) to listen to one another. Our ‘Parahosting’ events have been another way to highlight issues that weren’t so well represented before PUBLICS. ‘Parahosting’ can be everything from a book launch, residency or durational performance, to a reading group, week-long conference or pop-up installation. Parahosting is about PUBLICS giving up its programme to the work of others, and to those initiatives who are in need of space to practice and to support the realisation of their projects publicly. PUBLICS becomes the host to other people, other bodies and their ideas; it is taken over and on many levels is preoccupied by them. We try to fully engage with the local scene, operating as a kind of fulcrum for diverse and relevant critically located discussions, but we are also thinking more widely about the Nordic region and the Baltic region. In trying to ‘de-centre’ Helsinki, we are currently working on collaborative projects with Index in Stockholm, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Riga and Oslo Biennial in Norway. 

Our current focus is financial sustainability and bridging the gap between small-scale organisations and the larger institutions, such as museums, across the city. There is very much a project-based culture here, where organisations and initiatives are funded for maybe three to four years, and then you have these big infrastructures, like Kiasma or HAM, that are secured beyond that. In the middle, there is very little activity. We are trying to grow our organisation into a medium-scale organisation, as a way of supporting the ongoing, sustainable and long-term economic system of support for culture and contemporary art in the city and region. For ‘Today is Our Tomorrow’ – an annual cooperative festival project initiated by PUBLICS taking place in September – we are trying to establish a collaborative methodology whereby different organisations can collaborate on representing diversity and difference. This might end up being a substantial annual project, as a new model for working locally and internationally, in order to sustain small-scale organisations. 

Manuela Pacella is a freelance curator and writer based in Rome. 

Dr Paul O’Neill is an Irish curator, artist, writer and educator. He is the Artistic Director of PUBLICS.
publics.fi

Feature Image
Liam Gillick, Eat the Rich, 2018, outdoor lightbox commissioned by PUBLICS; photograph by Noora Lehtovuori; courtesy of PUBLICS.

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