Cork: how excellent for the visual arts?

THE preparation of the Arts Council's Arts Plan 1995-1997 provoked widespread debate about arts funding in this country a year ago. With Cabinet approval last autumn, followed by recognition from the Department of Arts and Culture that the plan would in fact take five years to implement, the concern that the plan was being shelved may have dissipated for the time being. Nevertheless, these developments will not fully convince everyone until substantial financial backing is guaranteed, and tangible results filter down to ground level.

In the meantime, the plan's strategies must still be subject to scrutiny. One of the most controversial proposals has been the creation of "centres of excellence" in various media. The Arts Council devised this challenging concept to encourage development of specific arts disciplines within prescribed areas around the country.

Not surprisingly, reaction to the designation for Cork as a focus in the visual arts was welcomed by most practitioners in the city, considering it appropriate recognition for the important work carried out over the last six or so years. This includes the establishment of organisations such as the National Sculpture Factory, Backwater Artists' Group, the Art Hive, Cork Printmakers, and the Sirius Project. Add to this list such bedrock institutions as the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Triskel Arts Centre, Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork Arts Society and Cork Artists Collective, and a picture begins to emerge of a city small by European standards but large in terms of its visual arts activity from some 200 resident artists.

In this respect, Cork's amenable size has engendered a rather convivial atmosphere for the practice of art where there is a real sense of contact and co operation between most of these organisations through, for instance residency programmes and lecture series.

DESPITE the optimism the designation has generated within the city's visual arts community, a wariness remains which echoes the Arts Council's warnings about accepting the designation at the expense of other art forms.

"I think this is very real," says Elizabeth McEvoy, executive director of the Triskel Arts Centre elf you look at people working in theatre and music in Cork you can see the concern flash across their mind that they may have to move elsewhere 50 as to practise in their own field.

But with regard to visual arts funding, Vera Ryan, lecturer at the Crawford College of Art and Design, is very concerned in case all the good intentions and polite phrasing set forth in the plan will remain just that. And the Arts Council, which she feels has "done little to be proactive about Cork as a centre for excellence", has yet to take on the initiatives proposed in the arts plan, such as provision for new studio spaces and an international arts agency in Cork. In addition, she is beginning to question seriously the validity of "strategic partnerships" with local authorities when the requisite funds have yet to materialise.

The existence of Cork Arts Development Committee (CADC), and specifically its visual arts sub commitee, confirms that there is no complacency on the part of Cork's visual art institutions. They now feel they have a unified voice with which to respond to the plan with a level of commitment and purpose which may well be unrivalled outside Dublin. In this way, through "round table" dialogue, these institutions can actively pursue funds with an eye on the broader context of the restoration of the city's commercial, cultural and environmental future.

CADC is all the more welcome when one considers that 10 organisations in the city are currently looking for something in the region of £3.5 million between them to realise fully their ambitions. These include the Art Hive's plans for substantial redevelopment and expansion, as well as the Triskel Arts Centre's plan to expand into adjacent buildings.

Meanwhile, the Backwater Artists' Group, the Cork Artists' Collective, Cork Arts Society the National Sculpture Factory the Sirius Project and Cork Bronze Co all seek to upgrade existing facilities. Likewise, Cork Printmakers and UCC Visual Arts Committee are looking to relocate to suitable venues. But with so many organisations applying for funding, and the capital pool still not as big as many would like, disappointments are inevitable.

"There has been a lot of talk about capital development in this city according to artist and Arts Council member Vivienne Roche, ... but issues which are of equal, if not more concern, are the development of existing resources that are in the city There has been increased allocation to most of the visual arts organisations in the city, so in a sense it's actually happening now."

THIS leads to the main question of how Cork should develop visual arts practice in the light of the designation as a "centre of excellence". Peter Murray curator of the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, feels that extra infrastructural development is needed to build on the successes to date.

"Cork lacks commercial galleries of a standard comparable to the Taylor and the Kerlin," he says, and the day that Cork gets a couple of fully fledged, free run, commercial contemporary galleries you will then know that the arts are really thriving".

Vera Ryan also feels that there are not enough galleries or patrons in Cork to establish an artist's career, suggesting "I would like to see not only more support for the artists who choose to spend their whole artistic career in Cork, but also for those who begin a career here and then move somewhere else later. So if the city can be good to its artists, for whatever the length of time, I think that will balance up a situation where you have very formed artists like Crozier or Charlie Tyrrell choosing to work in a certain isolation and then bring their formed energy to the city and that's a reasonable balance for Cork". But, while sharing the view that infrastructural development is necessary and will benefit the city in the long run, she airs concern that in the short term "Artistic energy is being diverted into structural developments, and I feel that will be to the detriment of artistic practice in Cork".

An example of this enforced deflection of creative activity comes from artists such as Deirdre Nolan, co founder of the Backwater studio, who, prior to our conversation, had to clean her hands of oil paint to assist a fellow artist with their newly acquired computer. Later she commented on the difficulties of not having paid administration.

"This leaves artists in a very vulnerable position, because if you are applying for funding you can't go in with the big boys, you just don't have the know how none of us were taught marketing in (Art) school, none of us were actually taught to stand up and sell ourselves and it was almost considered demeaning to your art to push yourself."

So it would seem that an institution such as an international arts agency, which it is suggested in the arts plan may be located in Cork, would be considered very import ant in wrestling this administrative "burden" from artists without, at the same time relinquishing their right to contest arts policy.

IN ADDITION to an arts agency, an exhibition space designed to accommodate all forms of contemporary art practice is widely acknowledged to be well overdue in Cork. The Crawford Gallery's development plan, however, signals the greatest prospects for securing such a venue for Cork. This or any similar multi purpose space, is viewed as an essential ingredient to encourage other proposals, which include a major international Biennale and a residence in the city for visiting artists. But perhaps even more important than these is the need to first overhaul the deteriorating condition of existing studios, and then to initiate the creation of new ones. Overall, if such proposals do become realised, it is strongly felt that their implementation must not affect what has been described as the city's "organic development" to date, i.e. it should in follow a similar pattern to that set by Temple Bar in Dublin with its intensive localisation of arts activity.

But with so much energy being devoted to structural development, it becomes all too easy to ignore the general public's perception and awareness of art in the city, which is often only serviced through community art and artists in schools programmes.

The need to involve as many people as possible neatly translates back to the view that more international artists should be encouraged to the city, not just to exhibit but to work here for a period.

It is certainly happening in Cork, according to one of the city's most energetic promoters of the visual arts, the director of the National Sculpture Factory, Nora Norton. She strongly advocates that international artists should be continually encouraged to the city so as to "energise" young local artists. She illustrates this by mentioning a commission for the Atlanta Olympics by British artist Tony Cragg who has chosen to fabricate his 25ft tall piece at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork. In this way "the word spreads amongst major artists like Cragg, like James Turrell, like Druvra Mistry that Cork is alive"