Royal Hibernian Academy re-launched

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expanded upper gallery at the RHA

On Monday the smashing new Royal Hibernian Academy was unveiled in tandem with their Annual Exhibition, and I was excited to see the new building after months of anticipation. Over the past year the RHA has been undergoing a major expansion, and its redeveloped delights on offer include:

  • renovation of the entrance to incorporate a new reception area, and removal of the old staircase, adding a significant amount of space to the massive upper gallery
  • new staircase built in a double-height atrium, creating another exhibition space with a window wall providing excellent lighting
  • new cafe run by the Unicorn
  • new bookshop run by Noble & Beggarman (who also operate the Hugh Lane Gallery shop)
  • a 9000sq foot studio complex containing group & individual studios, a reference library, common room and administration offices
  • recladding of the exterior, new signage and lighting

According to an article by architectural critic Frank McDonald in the Irish Times last Friday, the project has cost 7.8 million euro, mainly raised from private donors, with 2 million still needed to balance the books. Hopefully the spectacular new spaces will prompt potential donors to dig deep– the RHA is an invaluable & unique resource for the visual arts in Ireland, and the determination of its board and its director Patrick Murphy are to be commended. For more photos from Monday’s reopening (thanks to husband Des!), click the link…

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Obama and the arts

As Obama now moves from political aspiration to policy implementation, the question suddenly occurred to me yesterday: what the heck does he think about the arts in America? With all talk focused on the economy and Iraq, I can’t recall a single reference to American arts/cultural policy within election discourse over the past year.

Fear not, for the internet reveals all– behold the Obama/Biden platform on the arts!

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New info & links added to ‘Research’

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Inspired by the Arts Council’s new publication indexing research on the arts & education, I’ve been busy updating the information located on the ‘Research‘ section of the blog…

Hopefully this will be of use to our students & others interested in further research on arts management and cultural policy, both in Ireland and internationally. I’ve provided (subjective) thumbnail sketches of the key resources available, and hope this will serve as a shortcut for getting stuck in to the wealth of research material out there 🙂 Any glaring omissions, please let me know!

Drawing a blank

Today is tremendously exciting for me and other Americans in Ireland who’ve been watching the US election closely. We can only hope that as the curtain falls today on one political legacy, a new, energised, more thoughtful and just one will rise to take its place. And hopefully one with a better sense of rhythm…

In honour of the day, some thoughts from leading Americans in the arts on the cultural legacy of the Bush administration:

Paul Auster – Author

I’m hard-pressed to think of a single thing the Bush administration has done to promote the arts. Things have gone on as before: novelists are writing books, people read them or don’t read them, movies are being made and people go or don’t go, artists are painting pictures, people are making music. I don’t see that the Bush people have affected the cultural landscape that much.

These past eight years have been about the worst that I can imagine. For the first time as a writer I’ve addressed, here and there, the situation that we’re living through. I’d never done that before and I guess because I’ve been so alarmed, so distraught, the pressure of this unhappiness has spilled over into my work at times.

If McCain wins, I feel like going into a cellar for the next four years or going out in the streets every day and screaming. Obama, if he does win, is going to have so many problems to deal with that the most one could hope for would be to undo some of the damage. Most artists seem to be for Obama. In fact, I haven’t met a single one who is for McCain, so our spirits would be lifted. The problems in the country will remain as serious as ever.

Art isn’t journalism. Some of the greatest historical novels were written long after the events discussed in the book. You think of War and Peace, written in 1870 about things that happened in 1812. I think there’s this confusion in the minds of the public that artists are supposed to respond immediately to things that are going on. We’ve been living through a new era. Everyone knows the world has changed, but exactly where the story is taking us is unclear right now and until it plays out further I don’t know if anyone has a clear vision of what’s happening.

(read other reflections on the Guardian website)

p.s. if you can, GO VOTE!