Finally catching my breath today — here’s the skinny:

• Tomorrow’s World Book Night! I’m going to be at Starbucks Blackrock from 11 am tomorrow (Saturday) handing out 48 free copies of Beloved by Toni Morrison– come on down!
• Some choice jobs in the listings this week — positions at Project, Audiences Northern Ireland, South Dublin County Council, etc.!
• The Dublin Contemporary released the first list of artists who will be participating in the exhibitions– some great names there, including James Coleman, Lisa Yuskavage, and Richard Mosse. I was tickled to see another Peruvian name added to the list (Fernando Bryce) — as a half-Peruvian lady myself (one of my cousins was Miss Arequipa a few years ago in the Miss Peru paegant, hey hey!)  I’m astonished at the sudden influx led by the DC crowd! O’Brien’s will start having to stock pisco next…
• However in one of the most upsetting announcements this week, a post on CIRCA’s website indicated that the magazine will likely disappear from March onwards. After suffering a disastrous 56% funding cut from the Arts Council last year, the magazine limped on ahead with online publishing. However this doesn’t seem sustainable any longer– it seems hard to believe that we will be without a significant contemporary art publication for the first time in 30 years.
• Culture Northern Ireland is hosting an event entitled *Showcase on 22nd March, with the juicy theme ‘entrepreneurship and new business models in the cultural industries.’
• I missed this last week, but Anne Enright authored a great piece in the Economist on Irish artists’ perseverance (and perhaps flourishing?) in the face of the recession.
• I was delighted to see one of our former students in the Irish Times this week, promoting the Vantastival festival in Co Louth (early bird tickets are on sale now! I do so covet a VW campervan of my own).
• Don’t forget the the closing date for the Clore Fellowship for cultural leaders from the Clore Foundation/Arts Council is next Friday!
• The RDS show ‘Dearc 150‘ is ongoing but closes on the 20th of March; the exhibition is celebrating 150 years of the RDS Taylor Art Award by staging a retrospective of past winners, including Walter Osborne, Sir William Orpen, Seán Keating, and more contemporary recipients like James Hanley.
• I was greatly saddened to hear of the passing of artist TP Flanagan — a marvellous artist who will be much missed!