BEN WEIR OUTLINES HIS RECENT BOOK, PUBLISHED IN RESPONSE TO URBAN REDEVELOPMENT IN BELFAST CITY CENTRE.

“The Claw is the blind performer
It cannot speculate, judge
Nor wince

     Steadfast
     Choreographed
     Dull acts
     Mechanised
     Strength Hastening
     Iconoclastic
     Labour

Blunt-cleft
Buildings open
Exposing truths
The Claw can’t read

     Crimes in plain sight
     An austere vandal.”

Architecture is a discipline. In this sense, verbal and written discourse, criticism, research and art production are all potential methods of practicing architecture, while contributing to the collective knowledge that shapes it as a discipline. Working both as a graduate architect and as a practicing artist, I use contemporary urban redevelopment as subject matter within my work, to cast light on the underlying conditions of the city – its constant struggles and reinventions. In my view, the city is a debate, a project, a living organism.

The death of Modernism as an international architectural experiment, coincided with the rise of neoliberalism as the prevailing economic model in the West. As such, this was effectively the end of radical social missions in architecture.  This era gave rise to buildings that do not generally respond to their loci, to history, culture, theory or technology, to the individual human experience nor the needs of a community. Instead, they are only assigned value as capital. This method of redevelopment eradicates the vernacular and tends toward an architecture of bland uniformity – something architect and writer Paul Shepheard calls a “flat sameness”. One of the main culprits of this tragedy is a method called ‘land assembly’. Land assembly procures large swathes of building plots from many different businesses and land owners, and combines them into one homogenous zone with a single owner. This is often disastrous for the historic urban grain of a city and even more detrimental for local and independent businesses. As well-known architect Adam Caruso states, “these developments constitute a serious erosion of democracy and of the public realm.”¹

Land assembly in Belfast has happened most significantly with the construction of Castlecourt in the late 80s and with Victoria Square in the mid-2000s. These projects strike me as having nothing to do with architecture. They are, in my view, anti-placemaking, anti-contextual, anti-sustainable and anti-architecture. Any ‘architecture’ here is simply a tool for cloaking a department store in a steel and black glass facade (as is the case for Castlecourt), or a fancy glazed roof and dome to cover pseudo-public streets (as is the case for Victoria Square). All too often, it seems that Belfast has no problem tearing down what is left of its historic fabric in favour of any kind of investment. The City Council seems to push tourism so hard, yet soon there may not be anything of worth left for tourists to visit. Architecture does not need to simply be a vessel for the profiteer, inclined towards private developers’ single-tracked minds. As a result, architecture either becomes complicit within this framework, or turns to something more introspective and self-critical.

I self-published my book EVERYTHINGGETSTREATEDTHESAME/ as a call to arms and as a reactionary protest against the current situation of urban redevelopment in Belfast. The fact that my actions manifested themselves in the format of a book was purely consequential of my methodology. I did not set out to make a book, per se, but it became clear that a book format would be the most fitting way to collate a series of photographs and subsequent writings that I had been making over several months. The physical landscape of Belfast (as well as my daily routines within the city) was changing rapidly. Streets were slowly being pulled open, allowing light to grace surfaces it had never previously touched, while others were closed up like caverns. Opportunistically, I spotted an excavator (later to be dubbed ‘The Claw’) pulling down the remnants of a concrete frame. I climbed into demolition sites to photograph the rubble before it was dutifully cleared away. Most of the photographs – which were captured on an Ilford HP5 black and white disposable camera – did not have much individual merit. However, as my collection grew, I began to notice themes and avenues worth expanding upon. It was at that stage that I started writing and taking more photographs, with the specific intention of making the book.

A large proportion of the demolition to date has been of noteworthy historic buildings, including three from the 1890s on North Street, and Commonwealth House on Castle Street. Meanwhile, Swanston’s Warehouse on Queen Street was being gutted for façade retention and extension. These demolition projects were happening alongside the construction of student housing and large hotels. With the resurfaced and reprehensible plans for a new retail centre in the cultural hub of the Cathedral Quarter, the historic fabric of Belfast is about to be irreversibly changed.² As a result, the book does have polemic and political intention and hints at some conclusions, but moreover these urban development projects form a context for the book to become something much more experiential.

EVERYTHINGGETSTREATEDTHESAME/ imagines buildings as inhabitants of the city. It features buildings that have been destroyed, manipulated, exploited and left to rot, either intentionally or otherwise. The photographs presented in the book are not intended as documentation. They do not seek to aestheticise or fetishise construction sites, dereliction, ruin or ‘urban decay’. The book speculates – through personification – that if buildings had the capacity to dream or think self-reflexively, what sense would they make of their situation? It could be argued that the book centres thematically on the ‘death of buildings’, intended in both a metaphorical and literal sense, to address: what happens to the material of the city once deconstructed; and the politics and meaning of ‘reusing’ the urban artefact. I attempted to bring together these seemingly disparate narratives in order to find new meanings or understandings of the situation.

In terms of the book’s objecthood, I intended to maintain an aesthetic in keeping with the content, while paying attention to the pace of information and images. The book suggests a sketchbook-style approach, with varying image sizes, drawings seemingly pasted-on, text running over images and images running off the page. Rather than presenting the writing and images in a specific sequence, I produced a digital ‘sketch’ version that was subject to various stages of refinement, as I began to structure the content using chapters and headings. The final layout was informed by discussions with a graphic designer friend who works at Two Digs (an independent design studio in Belfast). At this point, we established a compositional grid and a set of formal rules to use – or consciously break – on each page. The use of perfect binding fulfilled my own ideas about how the finished book should look and feel. The decision to use digital print over lithograph was purely an economic one.

I see the book as an artwork in itself. It was launched at Framewerk in Belfast, alongside a corresponding exhibition that contained fragments from the book. A public talk offered the opportunity to discuss the book’s themes and aimed to increase awareness about the bureaucracy that defines our built environment, while so heavily impacting on our lives within the city. Overall, my aspirations for the book are that people will value our cities and buildings as cultural artefacts, rather than as passive backdrops or profitable assets.

Ben Weir is an artist and Architecture graduate (RIBA Part II). He is currently based in Belfast, having completed his studies at the Glasgow School of Art.
benweir.co.uk

Notes
¹Adam Caruso, Quaderns (Barcelona, Spain: January 2001) Issue 228, p. 9.
²Formerly known as the Royal Exchange development.

Image credits: 
Ben Weir, The Claw, 2017; 35mm black and white photograph.
Ben Weir, Nothing is Sacred, Nothing is Safe from EVERYTHINGGETSTREATEDTHESAME/, 2017; p. 28 –31. 

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WITH NEWLY COMMISSIONED WORK FOR EVA INTERNATIONAL 2018 ON THE HORIZON, MATT PACKER SITS DOWN WITH JOHN RAINEY TO DISCUSS THE TRAJECTORY OF HIS SCULPTURAL PRACTICE.

Matt Packer: Can you describe how your background in the medium of ceramics continues to inform your work?

John Rainey: Production and imitation are aspects of the ceramic discipline that continue to be particularly important within my work. However, my curiosity about how things are made, and my compulsion to physically produce things, predates my training in ceramics. For me, processes and skills feel very enabling. I have a need to constantly examine and improve on this technical capacity, which is what drives me forward. My interest in materials has always been broad, but I see my experience in ceramics as a good anchoring point that I can deviate from and return to. In a similar way to how people describe the process of learning languages, I think that my understanding of this material allows me to easily adopt novel materials.

It’s very difficult to detach ceramics from the weight of its social, cultural and industrial histories. This richness of context results in a material language that people are generally very familiar with. I enjoy using the illusory potential of ceramics to destabilise this familiarity. Making the work appear as if it were another material, possibly marble, creates a sense of material confusion and uncertainty that I find useful. My work with 3D printing – either in creating final outcomes or as part of my ceramic process – has added to this play with material associations and expectations.

MP: Yes, the experience of your work is often one of indeterminacy. Often it is difficult to tell whether we’re looking at an artificial material, or one that has a natural basis; a surface that has been handcrafted or digitally rendered. It’s a question of physicality that seems to extend from your process of production through to the encounter with the viewer. How much consideration do you give to viewers?

JR: The effect on viewers is something that I’m still coming to terms with. The more responses I get and the more I try to rationalise them, the more my consideration of the effect becomes informed. There’s a tendency for the work to provoke a feeling of disturbance, which, when taken to the extreme, can be experienced by some as disgust. I think this originates from my wider interests in the subversion of tradition, abjection and the uncanny (Freud’s “unheimlich” – the experience of strangeness in the familiar). However, for me, it’s important that viewers’ reactions tend more toward unease.

The indeterminacy you mention is intentional, maybe as a sort of conditioning function that sets the tone for the viewers’ encounters with the artwork. The experience of digital culture and communication is something that influences me. These territories are still relatively unchartered and full of grey areas, disambiguation and misrepresentation. I want a sense of this to communicate through my sculptures, so I pack the work’s form and content with conflicting themes – beauty and ugliness, attraction and repulsion, tradition and progression. While my treatment of materials aims to question the established beliefs about the material world, there is also a quality to the forms themselves that, while somewhat referential, are trying to resist classification.

MP: Across your sculptural practice, there are portrait busts composed with tiny hands; there’s what appears to be human hair coming from eyes. The character of the body in your work seems very fluid, not only in a technological sense, but in a figurative sense too, which adds to the uneasiness. How do you consider your relationship with ideas of the depicted body and the art historical traditions of figurative sculpture?

JR: I often focus on parts of the body that are not considered the ‘core’. These non-core parts – such as hair, eyes and hands – are some of the most expressive and have obvious links with identity and identification. Hands feature regularly in my work because they tend to be our main point of contact when interfacing with machines. They also interest me as parts of the body depicted in historical sculptures that often don’t survive the passage of time. Hair, in the art historical sculptural tradition, was typically short, shrouded or tied up. I’ve always assumed that this was because longer hair would be prone to damage, but generally hairstyles can be really indicative of a time and societal context.

The use of real hair and glass eyes in my work moves it away from the homogenisation of the body into a single material, indicative of art historical traditions. Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1881) is an important sculpture for me. In its first presentations, Degas had deviated too far from contemporary material tastes (using wax, real hair and fabric) and the artwork wasn’t well received. These materials are often more associated with the waxwork, the diorama, animatronics and folk art. For me, that deepens the tension between reality and artifice, in a way that has since been used by sculptors like Hans Bellmer, as well as Ed and Nancy Kienholz to express social anxieties.

MP: Your work is currently showing in the group exhibition, ‘Dissolving Histories’, at Golden Thread, Belfast (30 November 2017 – 20 January 2018) and you will also be producing new work for EVA 2018. Perhaps you could discuss your plans for this new work?

JR: I think the most obvious development in both of these presentations is the shift in scale and ambition, in terms of production. For ‘Dissolving Histories’, I created a new work called Variants, which features a series of sculptural variations of a common statuary form, elevated above eye level on a large wooden structure. The structure features a central stairway leading to a viewing platform, where the viewer becomes surrounded by the series of sculptures and can examine the variation between the forms in a more intimate proximity. The work challenges the aim of repetition that is central to the slip casting processes often used in my work, creating a series without sequence or formal hierarchies that values singularity and deviation from a constant. In thinking about the viewer’s experience of a group of sculptures, in some ways I feel I was influenced by Barbara Hepworth’s nine-part bronze series, The Family of Man (1970). However, where Hepworth’s interest was in the relationship between man and nature, Variants focuses on the relationship between man and manufacturing.

For EVA 2018 I am producing an intervention on an architectural facade. The project refers to the eighteenth-century landscaping tradition of imitating Greek and Roman ruins within wealthy estates and country gardens. In this tradition, the ruin’s symbolism of a fallen world order was seen within the framework of the eighteenth-century aristocratic privilege. The ruin became a folly and a marker of taste, sophistication and the progression of civilisation. The project will explore these ideas and their contemporary status.

MP: Do you have any long-term plans for future work?

JR: I’m going to be spending the first six months of 2018 in Italy doing the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s fellowship at the British School at Rome. I think, with the relevance of this setting to my current work, this period will be very influential on what follows. I already have a sense that recent developments in my work – like the use of silicone, rubber and steel – will become increasingly significant. Another developing focus in my larger presentations over the last number of years has been the design of the viewer’s encounter, where the treatment of the space and the use of bespoke exhibition furniture has led to an integration of the sculpture and its display. I see this approach escalating in future exhibitions. One of my favourite activities is developing solo presentations, because they allow me to create these encapsulated environments for interconnected works. I feel they’ve been the catalyst for several major advancements in my work to date, so I hope the next few years provide more opportunities of that nature.

John Rainey is a sculptor based in Belfast.

Matt Packer is Director/CEO of EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Image credits:
John Rainey, Love in the Time of Artifice #3, 2013; image by Matthew Booth Photography.
John Rainey, The Theatre of Projected Self, 2013; photograph by Philip Sayer, courtesy of Marsden Woo Gallery, London.
John Rainey, Variants (detail) 2017; image courtesy Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast.

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ALAN PHELAN TALKS TO MARY CREMIN ABOUT HER NEW ROLE AS DIRECTOR OF VOID, DERRY.

Odd as it sounds, there is something slightly Scandinavian about Derry. Maybe it’s post-conflict Northern Ireland and the almost socialist democratic prosperity that peace has brought to the region. Industry may not have taken off just yet, but public services appear to be well-funded. The abundance of cultural centres is also mirrored by a bemusing abundance of hair salons – something that is comparable with Helsinki. Perhaps the harsh northerly climate brings with it serious approaches to both art and hair care. Derry’s various galleries inhabit historic spaces, yet have a very contemporary outlook that draws big names to this small city. I recently visited Mary Cremin, the newly appointed director of Void, to discuss her new role and her future ambitions for the gallery.

Alan Phelan: After many years working as an independent curator (and in a variety of administrative positions across the Irish art scene) how different is it to finally be a director? What challenges are you currently facing that really excite or terrify you?

Mary Cremin: There is great freedom in being an independent curator, but the downside is the precariousness of funding to realise your projects. As a director there is greater security, which I appreciate. It is also great to have a team to work with on building a vision for the gallery. There is also the excitement and freedom that comes with having a gallery to develop over time. The really big challenge at the moment are the unknowns surrounding Brexit and what impact this will have on arts organisations and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) over the next two to five years and beyond.

So, the concerns surrounding precarious funding arise again. I think what is particularly challenging in the arts is that we have to consistently justify what we do and why it is important. Visual literacy in contemporary art is relatively low in Ireland and Northern Ireland; that is why our engagement through education is so integral to the gallery, as this is how we can expand visual literacy in the future.  It is also an imperative for helping government understand the benefits of the visual arts within a wider definition of culture. What is both exciting and terrifying at the same time is the responsibility of a gallery team and how to develop and grow an arts organisation that is provocative, relevant and sustainable.

AP: You have a large capacity for stress; nothing ever seems to phase you – I have witnessed this firsthand, in the many different jobs you have taken on over the years.  Now that you can determine the consensus, call the shots and be in charge, what kind of things do you want to do or change?

MC: Void has an excellent reputation both nationally and internationally, so I will build on that with further dynamic collaborations with institutions and galleries. I will expand the off-site programme, as I quite enjoy the complexities of working in the public realm. We are currently working with CCA to develop a public commission on Derry City Walls for the Walker Plinth – the base of a column erected in 1827 that once held a statue, but was destroyed in the 1970s. The site is symbolically important, and it could potentially be a means of activating the walls and creating a more contemporary context for the plinth. We will be working with the artist Liam Crichton through ACNI’s Artists Career Enhancement Programme, which mentors professional artists in 2018. There are new artists studios opening in Derry, so Void will play an active role in supporting them.

AP: Void got its name after Orchard Gallery closed and left the city without a signature contemporary art space. Since then, the city has been home to various art spaces, including the Context Gallery (which later became CCA), and has even hosted the Turner Prize in 2013. How do you envisage Void continuing to draw on the city’s rich appetite for contemporary art?

MC: I am interested in how galleries like Void can perform on this global stage, while operating in the periphery. Each city is a microcosm reflecting on the larger picture, so, while what we do will continue to be outward-looking, it will reflect back on Derry and Northern Ireland. With Brexit, the question over Northern Ireland’s border remains central to how this exit from the EU will be framed. There is a lot of cross-border activity where Derry is located and so this discussion has a huge impact on how the city can function post-Brexit. Northern Ireland could potentially no longer have access to the free circulation of artworks throughout Europe, so this will have huge repercussions for Void’s audiences and exhibition programmes. It is an interesting time to be in Northern Ireland and with that comes challenges, but I think Void can contribute to these conversations by occupying a space that is simultaneously local, national and international.

AP: Void’s learning programme, ‘Void Engage’, is a well-developed and participatory strategy for the gallery. Do you have a feel for how you want to develop it, and do you have any plans for connecting south of the border?

MC: ‘Void Engage’ has a very active audience and is really well tied in with exhibitions. It is integral to what we do. In order to expand it, we will have a new programme inviting artists, curators, writers, and critics to give talks. Void previously had an art school, so we would like to reactivate this discursive element, because it is so essential for a vibrant arts community. I have very strong relationships south of the border, so I do plan to connect with different organisations. For example, we will be collaborating next year with the Douglas Hyde Gallery. I intend to develop stronger relationships with the art colleges there too, as I think Derry has really strong visual arts infrastructure and has a lot to offer students. It would be great to have more active conversations between the north and the south.

AP: You have a broad knowledge of contemporary art, with a particular passion for video and moving image work. This is evident in your first exhibition at Void, which had a super lineup. Can you discuss what kind of work you want to show in the gallery in the future?

MC: I see my first three exhibitions as a trilogy relating to the past, present and future. I was thinking about the complex history of Derry, so that’s how I developed ‘Where History Begins’ (28 October – 16 December). I was thinking about material culture and how that informs our cultural history. I have borrowed artefacts that span from the Neolithic era to the plantation period, with the aiming of connecting with the topics addressed in the films presented, while also broadening the definitions of what local history can be. I wanted to look at contemporary politics more specifically with the next exhibition, ‘Everyday Words Disappear’ (3 February – 10 March 2018), which will present the work of Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez. His recent film, Blue Orchids (2016), deals with the arms trade and relates back to Raytheon – an arms manufacturer based in Derry that closed in 2010, due to mounting pressure from local protesters. Grimonprez’s work also addresses topical ideas relating to fake news that are so prevalent within the current political global arena. The final exhibition in the trilogy, ‘Between Objects in the Waking World’ (24 March – 12 May 2018) will present the work of Berlin-based Italian artist, Rosa Barba, which is situated between experimental documentary and fictional narrative. The works selected address the corrupted relationship between man and the machine, which for me, really reflects this position of ‘unknowing’ that we currently find ourselves in.

2018 will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1968 civil rights movement in Derry. This historical moment continues to define the contemporary, through its political and cultural imagination. Void will commission a series of new works to explore the role of female activists and workers who were central to that movement, while examining their impact on Derry today. I am interested in how these new artworks can provide fresh readings, opening up new notions of history. What I would really like to achieve is to slow down the exhibition-making process. Having the time to develop exhibitions alongside artists, would allow for more diversions and conversations to develop, while offering greater engagement on all levels.

Alan Phelan is an artist who lives and works in Dublin.
alanphelan.com

Mary Cremin is the newly appointed director of Void, Derry. She is also curator of two exhibitions, ‘Then & Now’ and ‘Promised Paradise’, as part of Galway 2020.

Image credits: 
Rosa Barba, Outwardly from Earth’s Center, 2007, 16mm film transferred to digital, color, sound, 22 min; film still © Rosa Barba.
Installation view, ‘Where History Begins’, 2017, Void, Derry; image by Paola Bernardelli. 

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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.

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Draíocht Arts Centre, 22 November 2017 – 3 February 2018

In Yvonne McGuinness’s two-channel film installation, Holding ground where the wood lands (2017) – commissioned for this year’s ‘Amharc Fhine Gall (Fingal Gaze)’ exhibition – a group of adolescents from a local Foróige club are depicted meandering through open fields and woodlands surrounding the former Plunkett Estate in Portmarnock (now Malahide Golf Club). Centred around a pivotal and formative time in their lives, the film fluctuates between documentary film and directed theatrics and depicts the young men engaged in a series of performative actions.

An idyllic history is portrayed, in which peacocks roamed these once private gardens. On one screen, birds flutter and fly, while a typical, yet strangely alien landscape is depicted on the other. We hear the call of a peacock, slightly muffled, as if belonging to a distant memory. On hearing it again, we realise that the call is being made by one of the young men, as he mimics the distinctive birdcall that would have once echoed here. Such inversion eloquently informs questions about performed identity and relationships with place that permeate the rest of the film.

Birds often act out territorial displays through their own unique rituals. One such feathered performer, evoked by McGuinness’s film, is the tooth-billed bowerbird (a well-known and admired mimic of the forests of Queensland, Australia). For good reason, this bird is also known as the ‘stage-maker’ bowerbird. It drops selected leaves light-side up on the forest floor, deliberately contrasting against the earth, before taking its place on this constructed stage. Fluttering a dance, the bird exposes a flurry of coloured feathers that normally remain hidden, weaving harmonies and making use of its own melodies, whilst also mimicking the songs of its neighbours. It assembles and performs with an elegant and deliberate rigour and, in pursuing such rituals, it builds territories of colour and song. While McGuinness’s peacock is grounded ‘where the wood lands’, the bowerbird’s territories constantly shift.

The youth group are the stage-makers of their own forest and territories; through their own rituals, they delimit and probe at its edges. They make borders by painting lines in the grass and let out animalistic screams, as if engaged in some ceremonial purge. The young men proclaim to “begin again”, vocalising this message and writing it on a wall. They make a campsite staged between blue and red textiles draped from surrounding trees. Sitting around the fire, they work through a scripted conversation, before reading in unison along with the voice of an older, absent man, who recalls this place as he remembers it in his youth. One of the young men unearths an adolescent tree in the forest. In darkness, the group march in a torch-led procession out of the woods, all wearing life jackets, to the sound of crashing waves. As a collective, they re-plant this adolescent tree, which becomes a ritualistic emblem. By relentlessly probing at the architecture of these territories, the film tentatively explores how these processes might relate to their identity, self-hood and sense of belonging.

Of course, a genuine sense of identity and belonging are not easily uncovered in the throes of adolescence, and McGuinness appropriately demonstrates these tensions through the geometry of material, both on and off the screen. The visual counterpoints of ritual catharsis and alienating landscapes across the dual screens compete with a steady editorial rhythm. This tension is also manifested spatially, as the two channels are projected on separate adjoining walls, meeting in a hard-edge in the corner of the gallery. These competing channels move past this staged dialectic to fleetingly converge. At times, it seems almost as if a synthesis has been reached – a thematic impasse crossed – only for the channels to split again and the tension to return.

Amidst this duelling, there are flatter moments and narrative elements that spin off into nothing. However, the sincerity of the actors in their participation ensures that the film, overall, remains engaging. The same cannot be said of the accompanying installation – comprising 33 freshly-cut tree trunks (some of which feature briefly in the film), six monitors looping video portraits of the actors, and a vinyl text piece installed on the back wall – aspects which are supposed to offer the film some spatial extension. Aside from the potent, almost intoxicating smell of perfumed wood coming from the tree trunks, none of these elements seem to offer any transformative dimensions to the main feature. A significant mediating factor however, is the gallery space itself, dialectically situated between another territorial relationship and presenting its own unique tensions – that of the art institution and the wider public realm.

Philip Kavanagh is an artist and writer based in Dublin.

Image credits: 
Yvonne McGuinness, Holding ground where the wood lands, 2017, two channel HD film; images courtesy the artist.

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Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, 27 October – 22 December 2017

Featuring: Aoibheann Greenan, Seán Hillen, Sean Lynch, Lucy McKenna, Tadhg McSweeney, Doireann Ní Ghrioghair, Nano Reid. 

The term ‘urban legends’ may trace its lineage back to the 1960s, but as a cultural phenomenon, the term has existed for millennia under the guise of folklore and mythology. The internet’s emergence has proved a double-edge sword for modern mythical incarnations, offering both the platform to spread the tale and the means to debunk it. Originally, folklore provided tales of humour or warning, and, as such, disproving them was generally not a priority. These stories often contained grains of truth – elements that rooted them in reality – before they were embellished into more thrilling versions. In recent decades, greater archaeological understanding of the Brú na Bóinne complex in County Meath has shown that this process also extends to ancient mythologies. We still cannot fully substantiate or corroborate these mythologies. This threshold between truth and myth serves as the departure point for ‘The Otherworld Hall’, recently presented at Navan’s Solstice Arts Centre.

Seven artists were chosen by curator-in-residence, Sabina Mac Mahon, to articulate this concept. The exhibition is underpinned by Mac Mahon’s reference to Nano Reid’s painting, Where Oengus Óg Magnificently Dwells (1963). Sadly, this piece is absent, but two of Reid’s later works are included instead, invoking the gallery’s surrounding landscape with their muddy rural palettes and runic paraphernalia. However, while they don’t appear to sit uncomfortably with the surrounding work, they, at times, fail to interject with the contemporary pieces. Instead, they occupy a space between the dialogue created by other works – echoing the Tuatha Dé Danann, who built sites such as Newgrange only to depart to the otherworld, leaving the living to inhabit Ireland.

The work from each artist has been dispersed across three rooms, creating a nonlinear narrative that encourages viewers to engage with pieces in their own order. This curatorial approach helps to gel the disparate mediums and practices, which play off each other; topics raised within one work can be continued by another. On entering the exhibition, we encounter a sculptural fragment by Aoibheann Greenan. Removed from its parent piece, it is recast as an alternative narrative, highlighting the blurring of fact and fiction within ancient mythology – a concept that flows through the exhibition as a whole. Greenan’s work, The Eighth Seal (2017), investigates the significance of Sheela na Gigs – figurative carvings of naked women displaying exaggerated vulvas. The dramatic transformation of truth into mythology is palpable here, referenced by Greenan in relation to the ongoing socio-political debate surrounding the Eighth Amendment.

Alongside his mixed-media sculptures and paintings, Tadhg McSweeney presents a video piece. A trio of monitors are stacked beside a motion-activated turntable. Instead of a needle, a small camera; instead of a record, a pamphlet. Once activated, all focus shifts to the screens which display an enlarged and hypnotic symbol, evoking the nearby Neolithic monument, Newgrange. As the symbol rotates, its source disappears from consciousness. The interpretation of symbolism is further explored in the work of Lucy McKenna. Her installation, A Soft Whistling, features acrylic and vinyl sheets that cast symbols and patterns at different angles and colours. A visual language is constructed, reminding us that our interpretations of symbolism within archaeological sites are often highly subjective.

Doireann Ní Ghrioghair’s recent sculptural work is achieved through taking plaster casts of parts of public buildings. Allowed to dry unsupported, these casts subside in on themselves, echoing the collapse and impermanence of past civilisations. Ní Ghrioghair has included pigments in these casts, reminding us that many buildings and statues from antiquity were once colourfully finished, their modern blanched veneer now denoting loss and absence. The recasting of visual metaphors is also evident in the work of Seán Hillen, who takes a multi-layered approach. Hillen presents work from his collage series, ‘IRELANTIS’ (1994 – 2005), in two different formats: some are facsimile reproductions, while others are archival copies of the originals. Hillen seeks to create new mythologies from fragments, pulling together divergent sources to corroborate them. History, it seems, can be reproduced in varying formats.

Sean Lynch’s video work, Campaign to Change the National Monuments Act (2016), addresses a 1987 amendment which banned the use of metal detectors to discover historical objects. In ancient societies, the discovery of an artefact was often greeted with fear, to the extent that the object was reburied with an offering, in a gesture to appease the gods. Nowadays, such offerings are kept by the finders. In order to protect itself from legal challenges, the state has opted to seal the ground to opportunists. This curtails the discovery of new artefacts and future evidence to support existing theories. Whilst this approach cannot be sustained, it does at least encourage us to reconsider the history we already have – something explored at length by the artists in ‘The Otherworld Hall’.

Aidan Kelly Murphy is a writer and photographer based in Dublin, and Arts Editor for The Thin Air.

Image credits:
Seán Hillen, Trouble with the Spaceship, Co. Meath, 1994, collage, 19.5 x 26 cm.
Aoibheann Greenan, The Eighth Seal, 2017, mixed media on paper, 40 x 29.5 cm.

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Birr Arts Centre, 16 October – 1 December 2017

I rarely turn down an offer to travel to Birr, a heritage town with multiple architectural attractions. One of these is the Oxmantown Hall (a former parish hall built in 1888), now Birr Theatre and Arts Centre. Open in its current form since 2000, the renovated building is a jewel of Irish architectural history and a modern hub of arts activity for the town and surrounding region. The building faces a row of impressive terraced Georgian houses on a street that is shouldered by the ornate St Brendan’s Church. I travelled to Birr to see Brígh Strawbridge-O’Hagan’s show ‘At the Fade,’ which was installed in the front foyer of the building. I spent a few minutes knocking on the front door, before finding myself chatting with staff and drinking coffee while looking over the show. In many ways, this was the perfect preamble to thinking about the exhibited work, not least because I got time to reflect on my wonderful memories of Birr (having spent time there as a teenager), but also because memory – in some form or another – seems to be elicited intentionally in the brave simplicity of Strawbridge-O’Hagan’s work.

But what do I mean by ‘brave simplicity’? At a time when artists are compelled to situate their practice within evermore complex discursive frameworks, it is refreshing to approach an exhibition that is simple, even modest, in its execution, concerned as much with what isn’t there and what has been subtracted. ‘At the Fade’ is a series of paintings, paper cuttings and pencil and charcoal drawings, with all but two being best described as landscapes. However, it is the drawings that I found most intriguing, with brave simplicity lying in their largely unfinished form. The best example, Away at Sea, is a pencil portrait, drawn in such a way as to suggest somebody that the artist is striving to remember, but cannot fully visualise. Perhaps ‘the fade’ denotes a yearning to remember; a point in our cognition when memories are difficult to grasp; or when the past is no longer immediately accessible as ‘the past’. This process of grappling with memory is also addressed in Sea Rope, an exquisite drawing of a large rope knot, the strands of which fade into nothingness in the surrounding page. Each strand is indicative of a memory, with the knot signifying a striving to remember. Memory, in this sense, could mean an untangling of the knots that we call ‘life’.

The centerpiece work of ‘At the Fade’ is – on first viewing – the immense drawing, When Waves Were Horses. However, after leaving the centre, I found myself thinking about the only piece that blends figuration and abstraction. Circular and two-tiered in its formation, the top section of Dusk Split consists of an atmospheric charcoal drawing of a woodland viewed from a distance (over which there are swirling clouds). The bottom tier is a series of colorful penciled lines drawn perpendicular to the base of the upper tier. In some sense, I was drawn in by the simplicity of line and by what isn’t formed in these colours. It’s as if the artist offers us the tools to complete the picture for ourselves. I began imagining where the lines might lead, like lines of flight from the dark forest the soul, with each colour opening up an emotion in me.

Prior to leaving the space, I chatted with the staff about the challenges faced by multi-purpose arts centres across rural Ireland and soon afterwards, found myself pushing a trolley around the local Tesco. Before I knew it, I was at the counter buying the remastered version of George Michael’s 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice. I always wanted the album, but was too inhibited as a teenager to admit that I liked George Michael. Driving down the motorway with the songs bellowing, I thought about how I would write this review. Unbeknownst to myself, the seed of an idea had been planted. Several works presented in ‘At the Fade’ had touched me to such an extent that I did something affirmative and bought something I had always wanted. Maybe, I thought, something in these images had engendered a kind of opening in me? Revisiting this place to see the exhibition had triggered memories and unexpected thoughts. Sometimes we just need a nudge in the right direction. ‘At the Fade,’ in its entirety, offered a gentle and rewarding prod.

Dara Waldron lectures at the School of Art and Design, Limerick. He is the author of the forthcoming New Nonfiction Film: Art, Poetics and Documentary Theory (Bloomsbury, 2018). He also maintains the experimental arts blog ‘Art Encounters’ for HeadStuff.ie. 

Image credit:
Brígh Strawbridge-O’Hagan, All Washed Up.

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Island Arts Centre, Lisburn, 23 November – 20 December 2017

Husband and wife, Robert and Barbara Ellison, are showcasing their recent work in concurrent solo exhibitions across two gallery spaces at the Island Arts Centre in Lisburn. Without an overarching theme attributed, the exhibitions freely explore the artists’ varying techniques and painterly styles. This is a unique opportunity to see work by these two artists in the same venue at the same time, and to observe similarities and differences across their distinct practices. When opening the exhibition, artist Neil Shawcross noted that both artists are starting to gain international attention, with Robert’s work being shown in the Agora Gallery, New York, earlier in the year.

Barbara Ellison has vast artistic experience as a member of the Ulster Watercolour Society, the previous Head of Art at Stranmillis College, and as the former president of the Ulster Society of Women Artists (until 2006). She has also won many awards for her work. In Gallery 2 at the Island Arts Centre, Barbara presents watercolour paintings, drawings and several mixed-media works, the majority of which are fairly new. Despite the fact that this large collection of 24 works is presented within a relatively small space, the exhibition does not feel overcrowded, arranged as it is. The artist is clearly experimenting with technique, evident in the mixed-media pieces, which add further layers of texture and complexity to her light and skilled painterly technique. Her exhibition feels like a foray into new territory, especially in relation to her watercolours, with the primary material always being simply water in the past.

Still Life with Bowl and Peaches (2017) is a perfect example of the new direction in which the artist is leaning. This dynamic and exciting mixed-media piece depicts a deep blue bowl from above, with what appears to be three ripe peaches clustered in the corner. This peachy hue is echoed across the rest of the piece, with fragments of text-rich pages torn from a book. Combining with other textures and the lightness of the watercolour medium, this printed material adds a narrative layer to the work. The rest of the painting is dotted and scrawled with ink, darkening the overall effect and deepening its appeal – a tactile approach that ultimately offers a considered expression of what the artist is seeing and experiencing in her surroundings. With no curatorial theme, the exhibition presents a variety of subjects, from still life to landscape, depicting both calm and dramatic scenes. This variation leaves no doubt about the artist’s skill, when approaching any subject matter.

In Gallery 1, Robert Ellison’s extensive series of oil and acrylic canvasses are similarly diverse in subject matter, ranging from still life scenes to depictions of Donegal landscapes. The artist is relatively new to painting yet has already gained substantial exposure, with his work being exhibited and collected across Northern Ireland and the United States. The most fascinating aspect within every single painting, is Robert’s interpretation of colour. His 2017 series, ‘The Garden in February’, is beautiful in its wholesome and optimistic treatment of an otherwise dull and dreary time of year. The series has bright blue skies, as well as mustard yellow landscapes infused with vibrant pinks, which are far from a typical Irish winter scene. Ellison embraces bright hues with thick, expressive brushstrokes, conveying his obvious joy at depicting his own garden in such a dynamic colour palette.

The Island Arts Centre has taken care to present the work of these two artists as separate and distinct solo exhibitions in different rooms. However, when viewed together, the work really makes sense. There are a number of obvious crossovers, not least the fact that the artists clearly travel together, are inspired by similar things and have the same varied interests across a range of subject matter. For example, both artists present painterly interpretations of Blanche’s Farm. While Barbara’s acrylic painting, Gall Bog, near Blanche’s Farm (2017), simply sings with expressive tones and rough, angular movements, Robert’s Stream Near Blanche’s Farm, brings forth a heightened and colour-rich interpretation of a bright landscape under a lavender sky.

These scenic alignments offer a lovely nod to the couple’s shared experiences, which are expressed from inherently different perspectives. It is unclear whether the two artists actually paint together, yet the similarities of subjects and locations unite their work in beautiful and thoughtful ways. Such duality makes these exhibitions a joy to explore first-hand and it therefore makes sense that the work of these artists be presented apart, yet be experienced in close proximity.

Mary Stevens is a curator and writer who currently lives in Belfast.

Image credits:
Barbara Ellison. Still Life With Apples And Pears, 2017, mixed media, 56 x 76 cm.
Robert Ellison, Grassy Sound Cabin and Boardwalk NJ, 2017, oil on canvas, 71 x 91 cm. 

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