30 June 2009
‘Blow Your Own Trumpet’ — IMA’s annual practitioners’ forum — is set to take place on Friday, 10 July from 10-4 pm at Daniel O’Connell House (58 Merrion Square South).
The day promises to be a very interesting one, with presentations from museum professionals around the country on recent initiatives in their institutions. It’s a great way to get a snapshot of what’s happening across Irish museums, and have an annual chinwag with others in the biz.
For a full line-up of presentations click here, or on the image above.
For further information or bookings contact the IMA Administrator, Carla Marrinan, at 01 4120939 or office@irishmuseums.org
1 Comment | 
Event announcements, Heritage, Museum, Professional training | 
Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
2 February 2009
Having my daily breakfast of espresso and Euronews, I was amazed to see a story on the public response to the Picasso exhibition currently on at the Grand Palais in Paris… the show’s about to close, and tens of thousands of people apparently queued overnight to catch a last glimpse of the works. To facilitate the crowds the Grand Palais hosted a marathon 83-hour viewing session. According to the accompanying article on the Euronews website, more then 700,000 people have visited the exhibition since it opened in October.
And yet the spirit of liberté, égalité, fraternité has not graced all quarters, with detractors late last year describing the populist shows as ‘a cancer’ in the Parisian art world.
Elsewhere the arts democracy has gained stronger footing, as the BBC last Wednesday announced its intent to put 200,000 paintings in public ownership online, and the imminent appointment of a new arts editor and arts board to enhance coverage. This follows on too from the innovative move by the Prado in early January to place some of its greatest paintings on Google Earth in extreme high resolution, allowing online viewers to see the works in astonishing detail.
And yet, I can’t help but feeling a mixture of exhilaration and depression at such news… imagine an RTE arts board? The public queuing for hours to see a National Gallery exhibition? Irish paintings in the public ownership actually (gasp!) online? What happens to a dream deferred…
Leave a Comment » | Arts policy, Museum, New media, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
5 December 2008
Yesterday’s New York Times reported on the budget crisis looming at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, one of the most important centres for contemporary art on the west coast of the US:
The museum has operated at a deficit in six of the last eight years, and its endowment has shrunk to about $6 million from nearly $50 million in 1999, according to people who have been briefed on the finances.
Now the California attorney general has begun an audit to determine if the museum broke laws governing the use of restricted money by nonprofit organizations. And local artists, curators and collectors, including current and former board members, are lobbying to remove the museum’s director, Jeremy Strick, its board, or both.
The museum’s tailspin has brought an outpouring of grief and disbelief in a city that has recently cast itself as a rival to New York as the nation’s art capital. The closing of such a respected museum, or even its merger into another institution, would leave a formidable hole not only in the city’s psyche but in the national cultural landscape as well.
(read the rest of the article)
The philanthropist Eli Broad wrote an opinion piece in the LA Times in November offering $30 million to the museum, if his donation could be matched by other donors– but so far, no bites. The LA Times’ arts blog CultureMonster has been keeping tabs on developments, with interesting comments from the blogosphere following quickly on its heels. Will this be the first major museum to face closure in the economic downturn?
1 Comment | Funding, Museum | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
20 October 2008
The New York Times reported yesterday on the preparations of some major US museums for a possible dive in individual and corporate support of the arts– including donations of personal collections, rates of museum membership, and exhibition financing:
“There is bound to be belt-tightening across the board,” said Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “I imagine a lot of donors who are leveraged will probably be postponing decisions until the first of the year. A lot of people are waiting to see what happens, which means things will be put on hold.”
Mr. Govan said that he also wondered how the economic crisis would affect memberships, a crucial revenue stream for all museums. “We’re competing with buying gas and going out to dinner,” he said.
The Los Angeles museum’s memberships, which bring in about $8 million a year, range from $25 at the student level to $50,000 for members of the Director’s Circle (a status that affords what the museum terms “intimate dinners with artists and the director”).
In New York, meanwhile, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office has asked the department of cultural affairs, which decides how much city money each museum receives, along with other city agencies, to reduce its spending by 2.5 percent in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and make an additional 5 percent cut in the next one.
(read the rest of the article)
1 Comment | Funding, Museum | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
15 October 2008
As Deirdre Falvey reports in the Irish Times, the overall budget for arts and culture in Ireland is set to decrease from €204 million this year to €185 million. In particular the Arts Council’s budget sees a reduction from €85 million to €76 million. Culture Ireland’s budget will remain static at €4.7 million.
The reductions are far from unexpected… and indeed despite protestations from the sector it would have been deeply unwise not to reduce arts & cultural funding when every other public sector will be feeling the pinch. While it’s clear that cutbacks in arts funding will be necessary, it’s difficult to yet predict how priorities will be adjusted to meet these new financial realities. With the Arts Council still in flux, I doubt a clearer picture will emerge for some time.
In more surprising news:
The National Library of Ireland, the National Archives and the Manuscripts Commission are to be amalgamated, as are the National Gallery of Ireland, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Crawford Gallery.
The department indicated this would involve amalgamating the boards, directorate, governance, HR, infrastructure and management.
This follows the reduction across the board of the number of state agencies. How this will play out in reality is anyone’s guess; to my mind this is the most worrying development for the arts from Budget 2009.
*Update*: For a more extensive breakdown of budget figures & commentary, see Theatre Forum.
3 Comments | Announcements, Funding, Museum | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
9 October 2008
Vendedoras de alcatraces by Diego Rivera
I was terribly disappointed to learn that the big show of IMMA’s autumn season has been cancelled. From their press release:
The Irish Museum of Modern Art announced today (Tuesday 7 October) that, due to circumstances beyond its control, the exhibition Works from the Natasha and Jacques Gelman Collection of Modern Mexican Art, which was scheduled to open to the public on 26 November 2008, has been cancelled.
The cancellation of the exhibition, which was to have included works by such famous Mexican Modernists as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, is the result of legal proceedings in Mexico involving the Vergel Foundation, which manages the Gelman Collection.
Commenting on the situation, IMMA Director Enrique Juncosa said: “Everyone at IMMA greatly regrets this recent turn of events. We are very conscious of the fact that a great many people were eagerly looking forward to seeing these magnificent works, and we have worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to try to ensure that the exhibition could go ahead. I should like to express our sincere thanks to the Mexican Ambassador, H E Cecilia Jaber, who has assisted us in every possible way in our dealing with the Mexican authorities. However, despite this, and the co-operation of the Vergel Foundation and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Institute of Fine Arts) in Mexico, it has proved impossible to proceed with the exhibition.”
Disaster! This was going to be a major opportunity to see works rarely exhibited in Ireland, and we had been eagerly anticipating taking our students to see these works. How unfortunate for the museum and for the great number of visitors the show would have drawn…
Leave a Comment » | Announcements, Museum, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
15 September 2008
Just a reminder to all you vultures out there– the third annual Culture Night takes place this Friday, September 19th, from 5-11 pm. In Dublin more than 100 arts & cultural organisations will be staying open late, offering unique & fun programming for this evening only. Temple Bar Cultural Trust is the driving force behind the initiative, which includes special bus routes (map pdf) laid on to take vultures from spot to spot, and lots of outdoor performances and entertainment.
It’s not just Dublin getting all the action either:
Culture Night Cork: http://www.corkcity.ie/culturenight
Culture Night Limerick: http://www.limerickcity.ie
Culture Night Galway: http://www.galwaycity.ie
Last year’s event had a great buzz to it– wandering around the National Gallery at near 11 pm was a surreal highlight for me!– and it’s a great chance to check out (for free!) sites that normally require admission. I’ve got a few circled already… 
Copies of the programme can be downloaded as a pdf here, or picked up in print copy from participating venues, the Suffolk St Dublin tourist office, or Temple Bar Cultural Information Centre at 12 East Essex Street (the latter two will be open 9am until 11pm on Culture Night).
Leave a Comment » | Cinema, Drama, Event announcements, Heritage, Literature, Museum, Music, Opera, Performing Arts, Theatre, Tourism, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
10 September 2008
Yesterday a new director of the Metropolitan Museum was announced following months of a highly publicised search. Taking over the reins from Philippe de Montebello from next January will be current curator of tapestries & textiles at the Met, Thomas Campbell:
In selecting Mr. Campbell, the Met seems to have opted for intellectual heft as well as continuity. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute in London, he arrived at the museum in 1995 and made his reputation through much-praised scholarly catalogs and ambitious shows involving complex logistics and diplomacy. His exhibition “Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence” became the sleeper hit of 2002, attracting some 215,000 visitors, more than twice what the museum had projected, with many works that had never been seen in America.
Reached by telephone, James R. Houghton, the board chairman, said, “Clearly we wanted a scholar and art historian who is respected in his field, has a keen intellect and can be decisive.”
In capturing the post, Mr. Campbell appeared to have edged out finalists including Max Hollein, the popular director of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, and two Met curators who currently outrank him: Ian Wardropper, 57, the head of Mr. Campbell’s department, European sculpture and decorative arts; and Gary Tinterow, 54, the curator in charge of 19th-century, modern and contemporary art.
Asked whether he expected any ruffled feathers as a result, Mr. Houghton said: “Probably. This is a hell of a job.”
(read the rest of the article in the New York Times)
1 Comment | Museum, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
8 September 2008
Event Announcement:
Irish Museums Association Annual Lecture
with Philippe de Montebello
National Gallery of Ireland, Lecture Theatre
20 November 2008 6.30 pm
The IMA Annual James White Lecture will be given by Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on the theme ‘What Makes a Great Museum Great’.
Admission Free. Booking is strongly advised.
For bookings, please contact the IMA office in 01 6633579 or ima@ngi.ie
Leave a Comment » | Event announcements, Museum, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
8 September 2008
Big cuts have been announced to the salaries of the top-paid employees at the Smithsonian, in an effort to curb exponential growth in executives’ salary:
According to figures released recently after a request by The Associated Press, the chief financial officer for the Smithsonian Institution could have the biggest reduction. If the cuts planned for five years from now were made today, CFO Alice Maroni could lose as much as $120,000, or 41 percent of her base salary of $293,280. Others could have reductions ranging from $6,000 to more than $80,000 a year.
Nonprofit watchdogs and members of Congress have been questioning salaries at the Smithsonian since former Secretary Lawrence Small’s compensation grew to nearly $916,000 for 2007. Small resigned in March 2007 when it was revealed that he was also charging the Smithsonian for housekeeping and repairs to his home swimming pool, among other expenses.
[...]
Critics aren’t sure the Smithsonian has done enough. They question why [new Smithsonian secretary] Clough is paid more than the U.S. president, who earns $400,000 a year.
“One has to ask, what’s the logic of paying Clough $500,000 and then paying the others so much less?” said Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute who studies nonprofit leadership. “I don’t think that makes for very good morale among staff.”
(read the rest of the article)
Yikes. Somehow I think this is one financial model Irish arts institutions won’t be following…
Thanks to Kevin O’Dwyer for passing this news article along.
Leave a Comment » | Funding, Museum | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
7 August 2008
A Tain tapestry by Louis le Brocquy, one of the IMMA works suffering from poor storage conditions
IMMA’s storage crisis made the front page of the Irish Times over the weekend, as a report obtained by the IT through Freedom of Information detailed the extent of damage that’s been done to the permanent collection due to inadequate storage facilities. This is the second revelation in recent months of serious mismanagement of national collections (following a damning audit of the National Museum’s collections by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General). The five-year-old IMMA report, authored by collections curator Catherine Marshall, details buckling of artworks, prints adhering to glass, and bloom appearing on metal sculptures– such damage making the works in storage ‘dangerous to handle’ unless absolutely necessary.
A second piece in the IT continued the IMMA story further:
Imma’s own on-site stores at its home at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham (RHK) were crammed with artworks, constituting a serious hazard as they could not be evacuated in the event of a fire and had no proper environmental controls to protect fragile works of art. With well over 1,000 works in its permanent collection by then, the vast bulk was being housed in “temporary” and “interim” warehouses and stores sourced off-site by the Office of Public Works (OPW), none of which were really suitable for storing art.
So critical had the storage situation become that Imma was forced to store works in a shipping container in the car park. The use of the shipping container was described as an emergency solution. But the “emergency” lasted four years. In September 2007, Imma’s director Enrique Juncosa wrote to Sean Benton, the chair of the OPW, again highlighting its storage problems.
Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Arts policy, Funding, Museum, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
8 April 2008
On Saturday the National Gallery of Ireland announced that Fionnaula Croke– a twenty year veteran at the Gallery– would be taking over the reins from Sergio Benedetti as head curator:
Ms Croke, who takes up her post this month, will have overall responsibility for managing the permanent collection and exhibitions at the gallery.
She told The Irish Times her main priority would be to enhance the permanent collection through acquisitions, research and the publication of gallery catalogues. The National Gallery gets €3 million a year from the Government to acquire new works.
The gallery is also planning a €45 million refurbishment of its older buildings and the construction of a new wing, which will be used to provide further gallery space.
From Churchtown in Dublin, Ms Croke joined the gallery in 1987 as a research fellow, and subsequently became curator of French paintings.
In the 1990s, she was also responsible for administering exhibitions and in 2000 was appointed head of exhibitions in anticipation of the opening of the Millennium wing of the gallery.
1 Comment | Announcements, Museum, Visual Arts | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
30 January 2008
The New York Times today reviewed the new Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York, a fellowship programme affiliated with Columbia Business School that offers advanced business training to museum curators. The programme seeks to bridge the gap between curators and director positions they may aspire to, responding to the fact that
… candidates for the top jobs need not only the skills of an art historian, but also those of a chief executive, investment banker, motivational speaker, political infighter and veteran diplomat.
The Center also seeks to ensure that museums will continue to be run by those from a curatorial (and not simply business) background, by equipping curators with the skills of arts managers:
They learned about endowment management and conflict resolution. They heard from executive-search specialists, the kind who could someday help determine the fates of the curators in the room. And they listened to an expert in the booming business of museum marketing — a field many museum leaders view with suspicion — talk about focus groups, audience expectations and branding (“the B word,” as the expert, Arthur Cohen, delicately described it).
The programme’s aimed at experienced curators (8+ years of experience required to apply), as the current fellow list demonstrates. It’s interesting how the training of museum curators has changed little over the past few decades, and remains solidly the domain of the scholar– quite different from the expectations of orchestra and theatre managers, where artform experience may not command the pole position. The question to what extent this type of training will trickle down the curator food-chain is an interesting one…
Leave a Comment » | Museum, Professional training | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
29 January 2008
Speaking at the launch of IMMA’s new programme last Thursday (as reported in the Irish Times), Minister for the Arts Séamus Brennan called on Irish museums to extend their opening hours, in order to enhance access and respond to visitor demand:
“We need to get away from the traditional and often rigid nine-to-five opening times and build in a degree of flexibility that reflects our changed lifestyles and use of leisure time.”
Certainly nothing new here to anyone who’s ever tried to navigate the bizarre opening policies of many of the national institutions, and early closing hours of many cultural resources throughout the country– something Culture Night in Dublin has tried to rectify, with an amazing public response and success. The new Science Gallery may be on to something here, with opening hours until 8.30 during its upcoming festival.
If you open, they will come, seems to be the message…
1 Comment | Arts policy, Museum | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
23 January 2008
During a visit on Monday to the Hunt Museum in Limerick, President Mary MacAleese criticised claims made by the Simon Wiesenthal Center concerning the provenance of the collection, and the description of the late Hunts as “notorious dealers in art looted by the Nazis”. Today the Irish Times reported on the SWC’s response to the president:
President Mary McAleese has been criticised by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC) for censuring it over allegations it made about the Hunt Museum. The centre said it would be publishing a report in five or six weeks’ time which would vindicate its stance on the issue.
The centre’s European director, Dr Shimon Samuels, said he was “quite shocked” at Mrs McAleese’s remarks, which were uncalled for and were “not very presidential and were very unstatesmanlike”.
(…)
Mrs McAleese said the allegations were “baseless . . . unfounded . . . a tissue of lies” and had hurt many people.
Last October, an independent report by Lynn Nicholas, a world authority on Nazi looted art, found that “the presently available information and research provides no proof whatsoever that the Hunts were Nazis, that they were involved in any kind of espionage, or that they were traffickers in looted art”. (more…)
UPDATE: Fintan O’Toole gives the President an earful on the issue in Saturday’s Irish Times…
Leave a Comment » | Legal issues, Museum | Permalink
Posted by Emily MFG
Subscribe to this blog using RSS
