IMMA critique unjustified and at odds with public opinion

Kathy Sheridan's article last week on the Irish Museum of Modern Art was a curiously intemperate and ill-informed attack.

Miss Sheridan's account of her experience at the museum is strangely at odds with that of the vast majority of our visitors and with the wide range of international commentators and critics who have chosen to visit the museum. In a major survey of visitor satisfaction at eight leading national cultural institutions carried out in 1999, IMMA was rated above average in almost all categories and was rated highest of all the institutions in respect of its front-of-house and information service, a particular target for Miss Sheridan's ire.

As recently as June 2000, the art critic of Newsweek magazine, Peter Plagens, described the museum as "one of the most beautiful museums in the world" and rated it the number one visual arts attraction for American visitors to Europe last summer. Arts commentator Tim Marlow, broadcasting on BBC television, characterised IMMA as a "powerhouse of modern art. . . focusing on the very best of home-grown and international post-war art".

Indeed, Miss Sheridan is even in disagreement with her own newspaper, whose art critic, Aidan Dunne, described IMMA as "thriving" and "a success story" as late as November 25th, 2000.

With regard to the museum's attendance figures, 260,000 visitors a year is a more than respectable figure for an institution operating in the rather specialist field of modern and contemporary art. The comparison with the National Gallery, which opened in 1864 and covers seven centuries of art (IMMA opened in 1991 and covers the period from the 1940s onwards), is quite spurious.

In fact, in a recent article in the In- dependent (London) on visitor numbers at museums and galleries in the UK and Ireland in 2000, Ian Hunt described the 849-people-a-day attendance at IMMA's Leon Golub exhibition as "amazing". In addition, in 2000, displays from the museum's collection were shown in 26 locations throughout the country, from Belfast to Dingle and from Tallaght to Carrick-on Shannon, as part of IMMA's national programme, and were seen by tens of thousands of people during the year.

Having referred to the extensive building works currently in progress, Miss Sheridan bemoans the lack of flags announcing our 10th anniversary. This work is going on as part of the planned development of the site involving investment of close to £3 million negotiated with the Office of Public Works over a number of years.

In fact, our 10th anniversary year does not begin until May 25th, by which date the work will have been completed and our programmes launched. No sensible organisation would erect celebratory flags before the completion of such construction work. This would indeed be a waste of taxpayers' money, about which Miss Sheridan seems to be so concerned.

On the subject of the taxpayer and his "hard-earned cash", we would be very interested to know where the figure of £4 million for the museum's 2001 budget comes from. This information is news not only to the director and staff of the museum but also to officials in the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.

As manager of the museum's front-of-house operation, I know for a certain fact that front-of-house staff are never absent from the information desk except to restock brochures or to assist a member of the public, all within the general front-of-house area. The impression Miss Sheridan seeks to create, that visitors are left to fend for themselves, is quite unjustified.

THE appraisal offered of the museum's bookshop is also entirely at variance with the overwhelmingly favourable day-to-day response from the general public. In 10 years not a single complaint, verbal or written, has been directed toward the bookshop. Yes, the shop does carry items of interest to tourists, but it also contains a stock of some 3,000 books and catalogues; possibly the most focused selection of contemporary art, architecture and design titles available in the country.

Her comments concerning our calendar of events (covering January to April 2001) also betray a complete lack of familiarity with museum practice. Experience has shown that the information visitors require when they arrive at the museum is in relation to what they can see at that time. It is standard procedure in arts institutions around the world to provide visitor information in this three to four-month format. Information for events outside that period is readily available to the public on request.

And this brings us to surely the most extraordinary aspect of Miss Sheridan's article - her apparent failure to pay even the most cursory visit to any of the several exhibitions or artists' studios open during the week of her visit. How can anyone take seriously a critique of an arts institution which fails to engage, on any level, with the activity which is the very raison d'etre of that institution?

We ask, along with many others, what was the point of the article and, more especially, why was such a careless, unbalanced appraisal of a respected national institution allowed to find space in the pages of The Irish Times?

Kathy Sheridan replies: The point at issue is IMMA'S falling attendances and its responsibility to attract, and engage with, the unconverted. My visit was in the guise of a "mildly curious taxpayer" in search of a decent lunch, some original merchandise and an enthusiastic staff member to provide guidance.

What I found was poor signage, dreary food, grimy dining tables, banal merchandise, an unhelpful staff member (who had ample opportunity to inform and enthuse and chose not to) and an empty reception desk. Ms O'Byrne does not address these detailed criticisms.

As a journalist, I would have climbed the stairs to the exhibition; as a casual visitor on a limited lunch break, I believe I would not - as was the case with a Galway woman whom I met outside. The part of my article on exhibitions policy was not my opinion but a distillation of many views canvassed from the Irish arts world.

Ms O'Byrne may not like what I found but I am only the reporter. I have no agenda; I know no one involved in the current IMMA debacle nor did I canvass the view of any current board member.