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Irish and World Art
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Sept 19 - Oct 19: RUA Exhibition, Belfast The 127th Annual Royal Ulster Academy Exhibition runs for one month in the historic Titanic Drawing Offices of Harland and Wolff Shipyard, Belfast. Come and see the best painting from Irish portraitists, landscape and still life artists, from classical realism to expressionist and avant-garde abstract works. Plus great examples of Irish sculpture. Includes talks by artists such as Paul Seawright and Susan MacWilliam, workshops for children, as well as screenings from the Northern Ireland Film Archive. Sept15-16: Damien Hirst Auction Smashes Record Sotheby's 2-day sale of 223 works by contemporary British artist Damien Hirst raised a total of €140 million, far exceeding the previous record a for one-man auction, amid allegations of price-manipulation by the artist's business associates. According to the Sunday Times (London), bids or purchases accounting for more than half the €70.3 million spent on the crucial opening day of the art sale, were made by gallery owners and other close business associates of the artist. Sept 14: Solo Arte Launch New Managed Art Fund Waterford-based art dealers Solo Arte have launched an Irish art investment plan, catering for both individual and corporate collectors. Introduced at the Dublin art Fair, the fund aims for an impressive 7 percent annual growth. New Francis Bacon Exhibition at the London Tate Until Jan 4 2009 Francis Bacon is the most famous Irish-born painter of the latter half of the 20th century. His art trawls the full gamut of human suffering, isolation, anxiety, horror and tragedy. See lots of it at this outstanding new show at the Tate Britain. Runs September 11 2008 until January 4
2009 Death Row Convict Donates His Body to Art - Sept 2008 If his final appeal fails, Gene Hathorn, a convict on death row in Texas, has agreed to give his body to the Danish-based artist Marco Evaristti, who plans to turn Hathorn’s body into a work of art. "My aim is to first deep freeze Gene’s body and then make fish food out of it. Visitors to my exhibition will be able to feed goldfish with it." Evaristti is assisting Hathorn with the costs of his appeal by selling drawings made by the convict in prison. If the appeal fails, which Evaristti believes is likely, the Danish painter will ship the body to Germany, deep freeze it, then turn it into fish food as part of his upcoming exhibition to highlight the injustice of capital punishment. Top Art Critic Slams Damien Hirst In a new TV program for Channel 4 (The Mona Lisa Curse), Robert Hughes, one of the world's best-known advocates of modern painting and sculpture, publicly lays much of the blame for the decline of contemporary art at the door of Damien Hirst. Coinciding with the controversial UK 'clearance' sale of over 200 of Hirst's works, Hughes mounts a lengthy attack on the artist for 'functioning like a commercial brand' and demonstrating that art has lost all meaning other than its price tag. Hirst's 1991 pickled tiger shark artwork, entitled "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living", is, according to Hughes, a 'tacky commodity', despite the fact that collector Charles Saatchi resold it in 2004 for £8 million. 'It is a clever piece of marketing, but as a piece of art it is absurd,' Hughes says.
The Mona Lisa Curse is due to be screened on Channel 4 on 21 September at 6.30pm. September 11-14: Dublin Art Fair 08 The 4-day inaugural visual arts show Dublin Art Fair 2008 opens 1800 hours Thursday Sept 11 at the RDS Main Hall for invitation-only preview, with public viewing Friday, Saturday, Sunday. General admission for the 3 days costs a bargain €15. For more information about the latest artfest to hit the capital, see Dublin Art Fair 2008. August 11: Damien Flood Shortlisted Coinciding with Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture 2008, NCAD graduate Damien Flood has been shortlisted for the £25,000 John Moores Contemporary Painting Award. The prestigious John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize, named after Sir John Moores (1896-1993), is held every two years at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Prizewinners will be announced on 20 September 2008, and works by the 25 shortlisted artists will be on display at the Walker Art Gallery, until 4 January 2009. August 8: New Pamphlet Study on "Value of the Arts' The Irish Minister of State at the Department of Finance with special responsibility for the OPW and the Arts, Dr Martin Mansergh, has launched a new study in the ‘Value of the Arts’ series begun in 2006 by the Arts Council of Ireland. The publication outlines the important role played by the arts in our social development. To download the study, check out the ‘News’ section at www.artscouncil.ie August 8 - 17: Kilkenny Arts Festival For details of the 35th festival in Kilkenny, featuring 10 days crammed with exciting arts events, exhibitions and other spectaculars, including a visual arts program curated by Hugh Mulholland, see www.kilkennyarts.ie August 1 - 31 2008: James Coleman at IMMA An exhibition to celebrate the acquisition of Background, 1991-94, the third and final slide-tape installation in James Coleman’s 1990s trilogy, will be held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from 1 Aug 08 - 31 Aug 08. The County Roscommon born artist James Coleman uses photographs, video stills, transparencies, slide shows, sound tracks and film footage to explore issues of communication. July 25, 2008: Horan Sculpture Unveiled in Cork The sculpture ‘Reflection’, a four foot high figurative piece made from limestone by James Horan, will be officially unveiled in Fitzgerald’s Park in Cork City by the Lord Mayor Brian Bermingham at 5.30pm. All are welcome. The work was donated to the city by the artist, and since June has been on permanent display in the park. July 16, 2008: Prices of Edvard Munch Fuelled by Theft According to a statement by Blomqvist auctioneers in Oslo, Norway, works by the famous Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) have risen significantly in price because of the theft in 2004 of his masterpieces 'The Scream' and 'Madonna'. For example, the artist's 'Girls on a Bridge' (1902), sold at Sothebys London in May 2008 for $30.8m - tripling the previous auction record for his work. Twelve years ago, the same painting was bought for $7.7m. July 21, 2008: Hugh Lane Centenary Show An exhibition celebrating 100 years of Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, opened Monday, 21 July 2008. Highlights include works by the Impressionists Edouard Manet (1832-83), Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) and Berthe Morisot (1841-95), the Romantic landscape artist Jean-Baptist Corot (1796-1875), the Realist Gustave Courbet (1819-77), and Irish greats like Sir John Lavery (1856-1941), and Walter Osborne (1859–1903). Also exhibited are the 39 paintings withdrawn by Hugh Lane in 1908 and never yet seen. The show continues until September 28. July 5, 2008: Venice Art Arrives at
Wexford Art Gallery June 25, 2008: Monet Painting Sells For Almost £42 million at Christie's "Le bassin aux nympheas", the most outstanding work in Claude Monet's Waterlilies series, was sold last night at Christie's in London for £40,921,250 (including purchaser's premium), a world record price for a Monet painting at auction, and smashing pre-sale estimates of between £18-24 million. "Le bassin aux nympheas" - the highest-priced work of art sold so far by Christie's in Europe - was bought by an anonymous collector who emerged the winner in a nail-biting bidding battle in the sale room and over the telephones. There are two other surviving large-scale paintings in Monet's water-lily series: one hangs in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and one is in a private art collection. June 20, 2008: Sotheby's Announce 2-Day Damien Hirst Auction in September A 2-metre high animal sculpture entitled "The Golden Calf" is the lead item in a sale of 180 works by YBA Damien Hirst, planned for September 2008 at Sotheby's London. Set in formaldehyde, encased in a gold-plated box, with hooves and horns cast in 18-carat gold, the sculpture is anticipated to sell for up to £12m. Other works to be offered will include new paintings and sculptures of butterflies, cancer cells and pills. June 17, 2008: Freeze 20 Exhibition of YBA Works Opening in July at London's Hospital Club, 'Freeze 20' celebrates the art works and subsequent influence of the sixteen Young British Artists who first came to attention in the original 'Freeze' exhibition held in London's Docklands, in 1988. The new show features 16 works - from painting to mixed media - by these not-so-young pioneers of contemporary art, such as Damien Hirst, Anya Gallaccio, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, Mat Collishaw, Fiona Rae and Angus Fairhurst. June 12, 2008: Sotheby’s Art Sales Profits Down by 12 Percent in Q1 Increased rivalry from competitors like Christie’s was a contributory factor in a recently announced 12 percent fall in profits at Sotheby's for the first three months of 2008, compared with the same period last year. Art categories under the greatest pressure included impressionist, modern and contemporary art. June 8, 2008: 39th Art Basel Reveals Strong But Slower Sales The week-long Basel art fair finally closed with many dealers confessing to a sense of relief that sufficient buyers had come through despite greater caution and selectivity. Many American art-collectors stayed at home due to the fall in the dollar, while those who came took longer to make decisions. In general, however, prices remained high - even aggressive - reinforcing the current market view idea that prestigious art auctions were proving consistently more expensive to art-buyers than gallery shopping. Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich - fresh from his record-breaking New York purchases of paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud - was a welcome visitor to Art Basel where he priced several works, including a sculpture by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, a drawing by Pablo Picasso as well as other works by Lucien Freud. June 6, 2008: William Scott Still-Life Sells for £1 million "Bowl, Eggs and Lemons", a still-life painting by the Belfast artist William Scott (1913-89) sold at Christie's for £1,071,650. Scott therefore joins the elite group of Irish artists whose works have breached the £1 million barrier. Other members of the group include such outstanding painters as the Surrealist Francis Bacon (1909-1992), the Expressionist Jack B Yeats (1871–1957), the academic portraitist Sir William Orpen (1878-1931), the Impressionist Sir John Lavery (1856-1941), and the modernist Louis le Brocquy (b.1916). For details of Ireland's most successful and highly priced fine art painters, see Most Expensive Irish Paintings. June 2, 2008: Uffizi Gallery Plans New Display for Self-Portraits Florence's Uffizi art gallery is designing a $250,000 face-lift for its outstanding collection of self-portrait paintings. Begun in 1664 by Leopoldo de Medici in 1664, the collection now numbers more than 1,600 works (although only some 400 are hung) and is housed in the 'Vasari Corridor' - a one-kilometre walkway connecting the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti across the river Arno. Further structural redevelopments are planned. Examples of self-portraits in the collection include paintings by Fra Lippi, Tintoretto, Bernini, Rubens, Rembrandt, Ingres, Velázquez, Reynolds, Corot and Chagall. Later works (which mostly remain in storage) include self-portraits by Carrà, de Chirico, Annigoni and Robert Rauschenberg.
May 30, 2008: Gustav Klimt Art Exhibition (Liverpool) Billed as the most important display of Klimt's artworks ever held in Britain, the show (subtitled "Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900") runs at the Tate Gallery Liverpool until August 31. It provides a glimpse into the fin de siecle moment of Viennese creativity staged by a whole group of art-nouveau pioneers, including Gustav Klimt. However, whether any of Klimt's paintings are worth the $135 million reputedly paid by Ronald S Lauder in 2006 for the former's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is a moot point. May 18, 2008: Patrick Ireland Buried Symbolism reached new heights when a pseudonym (Patrick Ireland), belonging to the very-much-alive artist Brian O'Doherty, was interred in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The pseudonym was assumed by O'Doherty in 1972 to reflect his outrage at 'Bloody Sunday' in Derry. He vowed to retain it until the removal of the British military presence from Northern Ireland - a goal he decided was duly achieved with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. This unique fusion of politics, fine art and drama was accompanied by several poetry readings and an emotive 'keening' by the contemporary Irish artist Alanna O'Kelly, noted among other things for her photo installation work confronting the realities of the famine and it's impact on Irish society. May 17, 2008: Pablo Picasso's Heirs in Lawsuit A book entitled, La Vérité sur Jacqueline Picasso about the second wife of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) has become the subject of a bitter lawsuit. Written by journalist Pepita Dupont, the book aims to rehabilitate the reputation of the woman whom Picasso painted more often than any of his other lovers, and restore the memory of the pair's "magnificent love story". However, Dupont's account has aroused the ire of both Marina Picasso (a granddaughter of Picasso) and her step-sister Catherine Hutin-Blay. Marina Picasso is suing Dupont for alleged defamation of her brother Pablito Picasso (who took his own life in 1973), while Catherine Hutin-Blay, a daughter of Jacqueline's first marriage, is alleging three counts of defamation and invasion of privacy. The case continues. May 14, 2008: Record Auction Price For Francis Bacon Sotheby's New York: A mystery art buyer spent $86.3 million on "Triptych", a three-panel painting by Francis Bacon, making it the most expensive painting in the history of Irish art. See also Irish Art Market. May 12, 2008: US Pop-Artist Robert Rauschenberg Dies The modern American artist Robert Rauschenberg has died at the age of 82 after a long illness. Born October 22, 1925, and a pioneer of numerous diverse art styles, Rauschenberg was one of the most influential artists in the US during the 1950s and 1960s, working in a similar style to Andy Warhol (1928-87). Heavily influenced by the avant-garde composer John Milton Cage Jr, (1912–1992) - whose controversial composition entitled "4-33" consisted of 4 min 33 seconds of complete silence - Rauschenberg's conceptual and mixed-media works were also affected by the Cubist collage art of Picasso and Georges Braque (1882-1963) and the work of Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948). Unhappy with the abstract expressionism of American painters like Jackson Pollock (1912-56) and Willem de Kooning (1904-97), Rauschenberg adopted a profuse range of styles and techniques involving fine art painting, installation, assemblage and silk-screen painting, as well as joint projects including conceptual and performance art, choreography, set design and art and technology combinations. His most famous works included the 'painting' Bed (1955), created one morning when he had no money for a canvas. He used his bed quilt instead, decorating it with paint, toothpaste and fingernail polish. Another controversial work was his Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953) which was a drawing by the Abstract Expressionist Willem De Kooning (1904-97) which Rauschenberg erased. The work now hangs in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Despite early rejection by numerous art critics, Rauschenberg's artistic energy later brought him significant success (including the grand prize at the 1964 Venice Biennale), but he never quite forgot the insecurity of his earlier days and was instrumental in establishing Change - a body that provides financial support to artists in need. |
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Articles About the History of Irish Art For the evolution of visual art in Ireland, see History of Irish Art. This includes articles on Stone Age Art in Ireland, including the UN Heritage site of the Megalithic Tomb at Newgrange, plus artifacts from the Irish Bronze Age and Irish Iron Age. Read about early Christian art in Ireland, featuring priceless illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow. Read how this golden age of church-sponsored monastic irish art contributed to the later Northern Renaissance in Holland and Germany and the achievements of the High Renaissance in Italy. For a summary of modern art in Ireland, please see the History of Irish Painting (including Irish painting styles of the twentieth century). For an introduction to the plastic arts in Ireland, see Irish Sculpture. |
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