Saving the paintings as the floods rise in the gallery

ARTSCAPE:'SOME AMAZING saves" have resulted from the emergency conservation work continuing at UCC's Glucksman Gallery in Cork, where director Fiona Kearney has marshalled a team to rescue items damaged in the flood waters inundating parts of the university, writes Mary Leland.

The gallery was built in the lower grounds, literally on the banks of the River Lee, and when the waters rose last Thursday week the gallery basement was flooded. This is – unfortunately and perhaps unwisely – the Glucksman’s storage area and held 184 items from the university’s art collection, with 11 artworks directly on loan from artists.

Kearney says the team, led by Paul Curtis of the Muckross House bindery in Killarney, has worked non-stop since the flood and has managed to recover 181 works, though the full extent of the damage won’t be known until each one is individually examined. It is already clear, however, that some items are irretrievable.

Kitchens, cafe and plant areas are also affected, and initially the recovery operation focused on pumping water from the basement and ground floor to clear a safe passage to the art store.

The art in storage included important items from Hughie O’Donoghue, Louis le Brocquy, Martin Gale and others. The gallery’s main exhibition spaces are on the first and second floors and have not been affected, but the gallery is to remain closed until further notice.

Another victimof the flooding is Glor, in Ennis, Co Clare, which has lost a scheduled show. Second Age's production of A Doll's House, due in Glor next week, has been cancelled because of the weather uncertainty, which could pose a risk to the truck which carries the company's sets and costumes, and also to patrons and staff.

Contact Glor or Second Age about refunds.

Over thepast couple of weeks more than 10,000 people have signed a petition supporting the cultural sector, and on Wednesday their signatures were presented to the Minister for Arts, Martin Cullen, recently back at his desk. Cullen had been out of circulation but working from home for a few weeks because of a back problem, but was at the three Cabinet meetings this week, and has also been at public events.

The petition calls for the retention of Culture Ireland and the Irish Film Board, the maintenance of existing levels of funding for the Arts Council and the retention of a full minister for the arts. It was presented by a National Campaign for the Arts (see NCFA.ie) delegation, made up of Tania Banotti (Theatre Forum), Sarah Glennie (Irish Film Institute), Gerry Godley (Improvised Music Company) and Fiach Mac Conghail (Abbey Theatre). It was apparently the first arts group to meet the Minister in pre-Budget mode.

Whatever the Budget brings, and it won’t be good for anyone, the NCFA appears in a short time to have galvanised a genuine solidarity within the cultural sector, what Banotti described this week as “an unprecedented union of all the different art disciplines in Ireland because not one of those areas is unaffected by the proposed cuts of the McCarthy Report and the devastation that will be caused by a severe slashing of arts funding”. It is “here for the long haul”, she insisted, urging Cullen to press the case of the arts at Cabinet. She stressed that the NCFA was representing the arts as one voice, and was not there to defend privileged positions or incomes – pay in the arts is already generally low – but looking for the funding to continue to make creative work, to keep festivals alive, to ensure that venues are not empty.

Mac Conghail commented that this week’s was “an important and essential meeting. As a sector, we in the arts are not oblivious to the fact that cuts are going to happen across the board. However, we don’t believe that the arts should take a hit from which it can never recover, because then the country will not recover. The arts are fundamental to Ireland’s economic well-being, as the Minister himself highlighted at Farmleigh in Dublin, and the NCFA is fully committed to working with the Minister and the Government to help shape future public policy on the arts.”

A bankrupt country. An unpopular, weak leader who, with his advisers, has frittered away the national wealth and is out of touch with the public mood. A people groaning under the weight of taxes and a growing demand for change, new leadership and an end to corruption.

Yes, it's Richard II, and in our current challenging environment, it's an act of faith to undertake such an ambitious production. But Blank Canvas (violinist Emily Thyne and actor Tim Casey, who previously produced Sonnets and Sonatas and Diary of a Madman) has assembled a cast of 14 for an Irish production that opens at Dublin's Smock Alley on Tuesday. Sue Mythen is the movement director, while Tim Casey directs and plays the lead.

“It is an exciting play,” says Casey. “It has some of the best lines in Shakespeare and some great characters (Richard, John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke), and is fascinating in its exploration of power and corruption. It is actually a very popular play worldwide, but has rarely been done in Ireland – I don’t know if there has been a professional production in the last 50 years. The reasons for this could be:

a) it’s not on the Leaving Cert course; b) the large cast makes it prohibitively expensive; and

c) the references to the Irish (against whom Richard goes off to fight, leaving an inviting kingdom for the banished Bolingbroke to return to and take over) are not exactly positive. Of course, the English don't come out of it well either. As one of the cast members put it, the characters are quite similar to the characters in The Sopranos."

Richard IIis at Smock Alley, Dublin, Nov 30-Dec 12. Tickets €20/€15; 01-8327625, tickets.ie.