Last weekend Dublin hosted not one but two National Art Fairs. No-one seemed to see this as odd, except maybe for some of the artists and galleries involved.
Art Fair 2011 finished up on sunday in the RDS, Ballsbridge. The fair, which has been running in one guise or another since 2000 featured over 100 artists and galleries. While the number of visitors over the weekend seemed to be very high there is no doubt that sales activity was a little quieter than previous years. Meanwhwile, up the road from Ballsbridge at the RHA building on Ely place the VUE: National Contemporary Art Fair was running for the first time, - which according to the Irish Times featured "most of the main Irish galleries, North and South." The main "contemporary art" galleries that is.
Two art fairs in Dublin, on the same weekend? In a country the size of Liverpool ,with a limited pool of support for the visual arts to draw from. Yet someone obviously thought it made sense to run a second art fair, in direct competition (did I mention already it was on the same weekend !?) with the already established and successful (and dare I say it, popular) RDS Art Fair.
Obviously the RHA and organisers of VUE considered the art that they were showing to be quite separate from and different to the art that Art Fair 2011 was offering. And clearly they saw the market for their art as being very different too. Why else would you choose to run one Art fair in direct competition with another? I could suggest arrogance, or self-delusion, but that wouldn't really answer the question, would it? And does it really matter? Is it worth any more than a passing "only in Ireland!" style comment? After all a contemporary art fair had been operating successfully as part of the annual Interior Design Fair for the past couple of years.,
What it highlights for me, more than anything else is the two-tier art world that operates in Ireland and which has always been here, but which we just seem to accept. And when I say we I am mean both artists and general public. And so when the two art worlds come together over the same weekend, in direct competition with each other, no-one bats an eyelid? It's already accepted that this is the status quo and so deserves no comment. I disagree.
On the one hand there is a world where artists produce "contemporary art", around which a whole "contemporary art sector" has been created, complete with an impressive network of new county arts centres, state of the art public galleries (VISUAL in Carlow is an incredible space, but who is ever going to fill it on a regular basis?), an army of arts administrators to manage all of these "spaces" and to oversee and allocate an ever reducing public funding budget, (how many have the skills to make their arts centres commercially viable enterprises in the absence of state funds? We'll see soon enough over the next few years.) and a third level arts education system that produces fine art graduates each year that see no relation between making art and making art that will connect with an art buying public. Without an art buying public there would be no art market, no visual arts sector. The idea of making art for art's sake and being supported by state grants just doesn't cut it when the country is in the midst of deep austerity measures.
Which leads us to the last pillar of the "contemporary art sector", the commercial galleries that represent and sell the work of the artists that come up through the arts education system and are fostered by the public arts support network. Most of these galleries, "the main galleries, north and south" according to the Irish Times, were exhibiting at the VUE: National contemporary Art Fair, an art fair that has been endorsed by the RHA, (a publicly funded Academy for the Arts , an " artist based and artist orientated institution dedicated to developing, affirming and challenging the public's appreciation and understanding of traditional and innovative approaches to the visual arts) and embraced by the broader, publicly funded arts sector.
On the other hand there is .... what? Ordinary art? Non-contemporary art? Art that the general public respond to and collect but that doesn't warrant the support of the arts council or public funding or your local arts office? Art that doesn't get to hang on the walls of our new public gallery network because it is seen as too traditional, too representative, not challenging enough? Or just not clever enough to get beyond the "peer" selection committees , set up to vet and approve the art that eventually gets shown to the wider public. This "ordinary art" is also the art that is represented and presented through the vast majority of private commercial galleries operating in Ireland - but these galleries don't make the shortlist of the "main" galleries in Ireland, nor do they get the endorsement of the RHA.
I have this image in my mind of hordes of Zombies pressed up against and banging on the lovely glass walls of the RHA building on Ely place, trying to get noticed, trying to get in. But to no avail, as the chosen few on the inside continue to sip lattes and wine and talk about the importance of the black paper bag that's displayed on the wall and how it is has redefined the future of art in Ireland! And worse still I'm on the outside :)
Clearly there are two types of art being made in Ireland. One that is made for the ordinary art enthusiast and collector, and another that is made for a self-serving and self-preserving contemporary arts sector. What a pity then that the Royal Hibernian Academy should choose to support the latter and lend it's name to an Art Fair that chose to run in direct competition with the RDS Art Fair - an event that has, over the last 10 years, done more than any other in Ireland in making art - contemporary and "ordinary" - accessible to a wider public and developing a new, self-confident market for Irish art in Ireland. And in the process providing a market place and opportunity for 100s of independent artists, like me, to build and develop our own careers, independently of the "contemporary art sector" to which we appear invisible and by whom we are basically ignored.
If that's starting to sound a bit aggrieved on my part then let me say that it 's not intended to, it is simply reflecting the feelings of so many of the artists and galleries that I have spoken to in the past couple of weeks. Personally I am very content where I am in my career at present - I have a strong support base for my work both nationally and internationally, I work with some great pro-active galleries and I have just had a successful Art Fair 2011. But that shouldn't take away from the reality that there is large cohort of visual artists in every county in Ireland that are trying to make a living from their art and that do not, and probably never will get to benefit from the support or funding opportunities available to the "contemporary art sector". And that just seems unfair. And maybe that's where my frustration is coming from.
Does any of this seem familiar? Does it reflect your experience? Let us know...
Art Fair 2011 finished up on sunday in the RDS, Ballsbridge. The fair, which has been running in one guise or another since 2000 featured over 100 artists and galleries. While the number of visitors over the weekend seemed to be very high there is no doubt that sales activity was a little quieter than previous years. Meanwhwile, up the road from Ballsbridge at the RHA building on Ely place the VUE: National Contemporary Art Fair was running for the first time, - which according to the Irish Times featured "most of the main Irish galleries, North and South." The main "contemporary art" galleries that is.
Two art fairs in Dublin, on the same weekend? In a country the size of Liverpool ,with a limited pool of support for the visual arts to draw from. Yet someone obviously thought it made sense to run a second art fair, in direct competition (did I mention already it was on the same weekend !?) with the already established and successful (and dare I say it, popular) RDS Art Fair.
Obviously the RHA and organisers of VUE considered the art that they were showing to be quite separate from and different to the art that Art Fair 2011 was offering. And clearly they saw the market for their art as being very different too. Why else would you choose to run one Art fair in direct competition with another? I could suggest arrogance, or self-delusion, but that wouldn't really answer the question, would it? And does it really matter? Is it worth any more than a passing "only in Ireland!" style comment? After all a contemporary art fair had been operating successfully as part of the annual Interior Design Fair for the past couple of years.,
What it highlights for me, more than anything else is the two-tier art world that operates in Ireland and which has always been here, but which we just seem to accept. And when I say we I am mean both artists and general public. And so when the two art worlds come together over the same weekend, in direct competition with each other, no-one bats an eyelid? It's already accepted that this is the status quo and so deserves no comment. I disagree.
On the one hand there is a world where artists produce "contemporary art", around which a whole "contemporary art sector" has been created, complete with an impressive network of new county arts centres, state of the art public galleries (VISUAL in Carlow is an incredible space, but who is ever going to fill it on a regular basis?), an army of arts administrators to manage all of these "spaces" and to oversee and allocate an ever reducing public funding budget, (how many have the skills to make their arts centres commercially viable enterprises in the absence of state funds? We'll see soon enough over the next few years.) and a third level arts education system that produces fine art graduates each year that see no relation between making art and making art that will connect with an art buying public. Without an art buying public there would be no art market, no visual arts sector. The idea of making art for art's sake and being supported by state grants just doesn't cut it when the country is in the midst of deep austerity measures.
Which leads us to the last pillar of the "contemporary art sector", the commercial galleries that represent and sell the work of the artists that come up through the arts education system and are fostered by the public arts support network. Most of these galleries, "the main galleries, north and south" according to the Irish Times, were exhibiting at the VUE: National contemporary Art Fair, an art fair that has been endorsed by the RHA, (a publicly funded Academy for the Arts , an " artist based and artist orientated institution dedicated to developing, affirming and challenging the public's appreciation and understanding of traditional and innovative approaches to the visual arts) and embraced by the broader, publicly funded arts sector.
On the other hand there is .... what? Ordinary art? Non-contemporary art? Art that the general public respond to and collect but that doesn't warrant the support of the arts council or public funding or your local arts office? Art that doesn't get to hang on the walls of our new public gallery network because it is seen as too traditional, too representative, not challenging enough? Or just not clever enough to get beyond the "peer" selection committees , set up to vet and approve the art that eventually gets shown to the wider public. This "ordinary art" is also the art that is represented and presented through the vast majority of private commercial galleries operating in Ireland - but these galleries don't make the shortlist of the "main" galleries in Ireland, nor do they get the endorsement of the RHA.
I have this image in my mind of hordes of Zombies pressed up against and banging on the lovely glass walls of the RHA building on Ely place, trying to get noticed, trying to get in. But to no avail, as the chosen few on the inside continue to sip lattes and wine and talk about the importance of the black paper bag that's displayed on the wall and how it is has redefined the future of art in Ireland! And worse still I'm on the outside :)
Clearly there are two types of art being made in Ireland. One that is made for the ordinary art enthusiast and collector, and another that is made for a self-serving and self-preserving contemporary arts sector. What a pity then that the Royal Hibernian Academy should choose to support the latter and lend it's name to an Art Fair that chose to run in direct competition with the RDS Art Fair - an event that has, over the last 10 years, done more than any other in Ireland in making art - contemporary and "ordinary" - accessible to a wider public and developing a new, self-confident market for Irish art in Ireland. And in the process providing a market place and opportunity for 100s of independent artists, like me, to build and develop our own careers, independently of the "contemporary art sector" to which we appear invisible and by whom we are basically ignored.
If that's starting to sound a bit aggrieved on my part then let me say that it 's not intended to, it is simply reflecting the feelings of so many of the artists and galleries that I have spoken to in the past couple of weeks. Personally I am very content where I am in my career at present - I have a strong support base for my work both nationally and internationally, I work with some great pro-active galleries and I have just had a successful Art Fair 2011. But that shouldn't take away from the reality that there is large cohort of visual artists in every county in Ireland that are trying to make a living from their art and that do not, and probably never will get to benefit from the support or funding opportunities available to the "contemporary art sector". And that just seems unfair. And maybe that's where my frustration is coming from.
Does any of this seem familiar? Does it reflect your experience? Let us know...
It's totally not fair and sadly it happens in Canada also!
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