Visual Arts: Vera Ryan has corralled 12 personalities who have been involved in the visual arts in Ireland since 1960 into one book. Some of them are movers, some were shapers and perhaps a shaker or two also exist.
In Ryan's own words "it is a kind of oral history of some aspects of the wider story of the visual arts". However, she does qualify her definition problematically, by keeping to what she considers to be the "visual arts as traditionally understood". Therefore it excludes design, architecture and film.
The collection of 12 interviews is presented in a "question and answers" format and the approach and context varies in each interview. Some of the interviews were conducted over two or three sessions and dates are given. However, there is no detail given as to when (and how many times) Vera Ryan met Charles J. Haughey.
The visual arts has changed and fragmented since the 1960s and indeed the very term now encompasses a multitude of arts practices such as video, film, architecture, painting, sculpture, performance, writing, and, creeping in at the back of the class, the curator. In fact, the verb "to curate" has become a new addition in the lexicon of the arts world at the beginning of the 21st century (my spell-check doesn't recognise it!). Declan McGonagle is concerned with the development of "itinerant curators who always seem to be on their way to somewhere else".
The late Dorothy Walker as well as Brian Fallon and Patrick J. Murphy present their views on Irish artists in an international context and all three acknowledge the importance of ROSC. There is also a strong hint throughout some of the interviews (Noel Sheridan, Brian Fallon and Paul O'Reilly) that Ireland is still playing "catch-up" in terms of the visual arts.
The interviews include politicians who have made significant contributions to the cultural infrastructure and arts policy in Ireland: Charles J. Haughey and Michael D. Higgins. Haughey believes that "an enlightened proactive approach for arts and culture must be an integral part of modern government" and both of them took this seriously.
There is an interview with Colm Ó Briain, who was the first full-time director of the Arts Council and who later became arts adviser to Michael D. Higgins. He was an important enabler in the development of a philosophical structure of arts funding and policy. In response to a question on funding for the arts and how it is apportioned, he answers that he "never believed it was the role of the Arts Council to run a tape measure across its grants".
Ó Briain, Haughey and Anthony Cronin were the chief architects of Aosdána, which, I believe, has been a major support structure for the visual arts in Ireland. Ryan also interviewed former director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art Declan McGonagle, who gave an account of the legacy of his tenure there.
I remember vividly the day in 1993 when the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition appointed the first-ever Minister with responsibility for Arts and Culture. It was a validation and acknowledgment of how artists and practitioners contributed to Irish society and Michael D. Higgins's account of setting up the nascent Department of Arts, Culture and The Gaeltacht is very informative. The establishment of the government department was very important and has changed the art-political landscape forever. Although the make-up of the ministry has changed over successive Governments, arts and culture still maintains a strong voice at the cabinet table.
What a dedicated Ministry for Arts has achieved and continues to offer to Irish citizens (including artists) is the opportunity to engage directly with Government on issues of policy. The traditional route of it being mediated by an Arts Council or Film Board is not the only access point for policy development anymore.
What is missing from the book is any interview with previous chairpersons of the Arts Council. This is a pity. It would be interesting to get their views of how their respective councils contributed to the development of the visual arts in Ireland. The biggest change in the Arts Council over the last 10 years has been the change towards the model of a development agency. Vivienne Roche, in her interview, suggests that it is not desirable for the Arts Council to become an IDA for the arts; the debate over this change is inconclusive amongst the arts community.
The success of the book rests in the provocative company of Noel Sheridan and Paul O'Reilly. Noel Sheridan survived the politics of an educational institution and presents a whiff of subversion. Sheridan is ruthless about the contradictions between the artist's life and the administrator's life, claiming "Arts should interrogate the status quo, not accommodate it".
O'Reilly is passionate about painting, articulate about curating and clear about the relationship between a gallery and an audience. He elaborates on the challenges of engaging with contemporary art and how not to treat the viewer. It was refreshing to read their interviews as they managed to undermine the rigid format of questions and answers.
Both offer a hopeful and lucid account on the development of their own careers and how to survive as an administrator working for artists.
Fiach Mac Conghail was artistic director of Project Arts Centre from 1992 to 1999. He is a producer of theatre, film and visual arts and is currently arts adviser to the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue
- Movers and Shapers: Irish Art Since 1960 By Vera Ryan, The Collins Press, 311pp, €20