Page 17 - Studio International - December 1971

The brunt of the criticism has been that the into an explosive that blew up in Mr Lynch's News and notes
Council, whose annual subvention from the face.
Government amounts to £6o,000 has been The Independent Artists group and its The Artists, Placement Group will be
consistently misdirecting its funds and associates represent principally a generation operating from the Hayward Gallery during
blatantly failing in its duties towards the arts which has chosen to express itself in terms of December. Artists and invited representatives
generally. A vast proportion of the annual the realities around it rather than according to from Government, industry and education will
subsidy goes to the purchase of paintings from the latest reading on the New York/London be on view in an office situation called 'the
two dealers in central Dublin and principally barometer of taste. The group, whose annual Sculpture', where they will discuss the APG
from one of these. In 1968-69 £23,000 was exhibition was held in the Municipal Gallery idea of Art and Economics, and the nature of
spent in this way. Dublin from 1963 to 1969, was refused the relationship of 'the individual' in organiza-
The National College of Art is run by the accommodation there in 1970 on the grounds tion. The APG insertions in eight past issues of
Minister of Education, a man of considerable that its usual space was to be converted for use Studio International will comprise the catalogue.
obtuseness whose speeches one would suspect as a display area for an extended permanent They record the development of the APG
were written by the Archbishop of Dublin. The collection. This was proved false within months situation over a 2-year period, and inn70 will
Minister deputes lesser luminaries of his and several short-term exhibitions were held be an 'exhibition-in-time' showing this
Department to the actual administration of the there during the following two years. The evolving situation.
school and has recently sacked two teachers National Gallery also refused to house the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 8 opens
who objected to the failing of more than half exhibition on equally spurious grounds though 27 April 1972. The exhibition is open to all
their students at end of term assessments James White, the director of the Gallery, living artists working in the U.K. Only paintings
because of political activity. The result has expressed admiration of the artistic standard of and constructions may be submitted. All entries
been a large scale protest. the 1971 exhibition at the Project Arts Centre. should be designed to hang on a wall and must
Next door to the College of Art is the Dail, Besides the obvious motivation, the quick
not project more than six inches from it.
the Parliament of the twenty-six county State. kills of the Art Market, Culture in Ireland Sending-in days 7-12 February. Further
While the crisis was developing in the College, (for 'Ireland' read 'Dublin' and vice-versa),
information from Timothy Stevens, The
an average of ten deputies at any time (out of a especially the plastic arts, is the last sphere in
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool L3 8EL.
house of several hundred) attended the special which the old English colonial class, the
debate on 'the North'. Meanwhile the British so-called Anglo-Irish and their fellow-travellers Basil Jacobs Fine Art Ltd are holding Peter
Army was slaughtering the people. 'Six killed maintain power. Lanyon's first major London exhibition since
in two days, call for murder trial in Newry' MICHAEL KANE 1968, to coincide with the publication of a
ran the front page headline of the Irish Press on Dublin 4 monograph of his work by Aidan Ellis
October 25. Parliament becomes irrelevant, Publishing Ltd. The exhibition runs from
`the centre cannot hold'. 16 November—11 December.
During this frightful week-end, while the Bear Lane Gallery Ceri Richards, CBE, died in London on
revolution in the North-East proceeded on its I write with reference to Jeff Clark's letter in 9 November aged 68.
way, the Arts Council and its friends were your November issue.
attending the opening of a curious exhibition. It is hardly necessary for me to say how very The interview with Dennis Oppenheim by
This was the 'Irish' section of a large and much the Council of Bear Lane Gallery regrets Willoughby Sharp, which appeared in last
pretentious complex of exhibitions called Nick Waterlow's resignation. We are very month's Studio International, was edited by
`ROSC71'. It was held at the Municipal Gallery conscious of all that he has done. Liza Bear with the artist.
of Modem Art while the 'international' section However: negotiations with the Arts Council New London Galleries include the Surrealist Art
opened later in the week-end at the Royal have now been re-opened. If they prove success- Centre, 31 Brook St, WI, which opened with an
Dublin Society's hall at Ballsbridge, the ful I hope Nick Waterlow will be intimately exhibition including Dali, Magritte, and Delvaux;
the Lucy Milton Gallery, 125 Notting Hill Gate,
headquarters of the last bastion of British associated with any new structure. which is part of a group of European galleries whose
Imperial Culture in the twenty-six counties. I take many of the points that Jeff Clark has outlook is determinedly international; and Sotheby's
The peculiar dichotomy of 'Irish' and raised. But I feel that it is possible, while Belgravia, a saleroom in Motcomb Street which will
be devoted to Victoriana and early twentieth-century
`international' has become established by press, retaining the premises and purpose of Bear Lane art.
television and radio as a result of a Gallery, to establish an art complex in Oxford of Alecto International has been joined by Brian
semi-conscious suspicion that the Irish do not considerable calibre and potential. These are Rushton, formerly publications manager at the Tate
quite qualify for the world. ROSC, therefore, the lines on which we at present are talking to Gallery, and the writer and critic Charles Spencer.
employs an apartheid structure, dividing the the Arts Council. Idea Books, 18 Endell Street, London WC1, are
`native' from the 'foreigner' and—as in South Nothing is settled: but I feel that the distributing the catalogues of the Francis Bacon
exhibition at the Musée de l'Art Moderne in Paris.
Africa—excluding even from the Bantu section criticisms directed at the Arts Council by Jeff
any artist who has shown any independence of Clark call for some modification in the light of The Victoria and Albert Museum are holding a
major exhibition of Victorian Church Art.
spirit. Thus all the committee and most recent developments—developments of which
members of a group called, appropriately of course Jeff Clark could have no knowledge. Miró Sculptures, an exhibition organized by the
Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, is currently at the
enough, the Independent Artists, have been left We much appreciate his letter. Cleveland Museum of Art before going on to the Art
out because of their declared republican/ ELIZABETH DEIGHTON Institute of Chicago.
socialist views and the unaccommodating Chairman, Bear Lane Gallery Council The Tate Gallery will hold a large Barnett Newman
expressionism of their work. exhibition in the summer of next year.
The main sponsor of `ROSC 71' is Gulf Oil Twenty-four British sculptors have been invited
whose tankers pollute the sea in Bantry Bay and by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation to produce
proposals for works to be erected on public sites in
along vast reaches of the Irish Coast. The R.D.S. eight cities in Britain. Sixteen of the proposals will
exhibition was opened by An Taoiseach (Prime be selected. The cities concerned are Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham,
Minister) Mr Lynch who was dramatically Cambridge, Cardiff, Southampton and Plymouth.
upstaged by a protesting student from the Augustus John drawings from all phases of the
National College of Art. The expensive artist's career are on show at the Lefevre Gallery
advertisement for Gulf and the dealers turned from December 2-18.
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