Fund of €1.5m announced to buy State artworks

Minister for Arts Catherine Martin has set aside €1.5 million to buy contemporary artwork for the State in a bid to fill big “gaps” in the national collection. The money will be given to the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, to help buy work by generations of Irish and international artists who are described as “missing” from the State collection.

The new fund for art on topics such as climate change, diversity and global migration will also be used to buy multi-media and installation work.

“This funding will ensure that the collection is more reflective of the multiple identities and varied perspectives in Ireland today,” Ms Martin said. “As we emerge from the worst days of the pandemic we can now shift our focus from supporting artists through a time of national emergency toward more thoughtfully and more strategically rebuilding the national collection.”

Ms Martin said the award’s purpose was to address significant remaining gaps in the national collection.

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The State collection comprising thousands of works is housed by bodies such as the IMMA, the Crawford, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Arts Council and the OPW. According to the Department of Arts, the money will enable IMMA and the Crawford to acquire works to ensure the national collection is “more representative of the diverse communities” of contemporary Ireland.

The funding comes two years after the Government gave €1 million to IMMA and the Crawford to supports artists based in Ireland to meet the challenges presented by the pandemic. At the time that funding was described as the first substantial allocation in more than a decade for building the national collection.

Ms Martin said she looked forward to visiting the two galleries to see the new work. “It is critical that our institutions keep pace with new developments in our culture, and this fund will enable them to present challenging works in new media that tackle head-on some of the most important issues today, including climate change and representation.”

Welcoming the initiative, IMMA director Annie Fletcher said the new funding was “truly momentous” for the institution. “We can now begin again to invest in building and expanding IMMA’s collection of modern and contemporary art for the nation.”

Director of the Crawford gallery Mary McCarthy said the funding stands as a major investment. “It represents a real opportunity to engage with contemporary artists and create new conversations within the Crawford collection across the centuries.”