Singer Gavin Friday is not generally thought of as a public speaker, so when he agreed to appear at a reception to announce details of Temple Bar Properties' new public art programme in Eden restaurant on Tuesday night, he attracted quite a gathering. And no one was disappointed as he was quick to explain why he had agreed to this particular engagement. The story goes that he and his mate, Guggi the painter, were wandering through Temple Bar years ago and stumbled across the Project Arts Centre, where the performance artist Nigel Rolfe was at work. "He was covered in paint and muck and rolling around the floor for, like, 15 hours. It blew our minds. But the thing that really blew our minds was the thought `We could do that'." The rest, as they say, is history. Although Mr Friday was not completely sugar-sweet about Temple Bar ("It's a piss-pot," was one particularly pithy remark), he welcomed the Winter/Time/Art programme, and hoped it would inspire other would-be artists like himself and Guggi.
There was already plenty of talk about the first piece installed in Temple Bar Square - a construction by Laurent Mellet and Paddy Jolley entitled Cenotaph, which consists of five Ferguson tractors stacked one on top of the other. The tractors in question were sourced by farmer Oliver Meade, who is to marry Jenny Baker of Temple Bar Properties next week, and apparently there is already interest from the National Ploughing Championships in displaying the piece.
A fair number of artists involved in the programme came along on Tuesday night and tucked into the piles of fresh calamari and bruschetta, whipped up by chef Eleanor Walsh and her team. Actor Bronagh Gallagher was attempting to catch up with friends including singer Kieran Kennedy and Fergus Byrne of Temple Bar Gallery. She's just back from a tour with Bruno Schulz's Theatre of Complicity in New York and Montreal, also taking in Joe Dowling's Tyrone Guthrie theatre in Minneapolis. After a short break, she will be heading on with the company to Tokyo. Model Sonia Reynolds arrived with new husband, solicitor Barry Lyons. She's madly busy organising designer Marc O'Neill's show next week. His last fashion show with his collection for A-Wear was held in the Smithfield fruit market and that setting is still the talk of the fashion set, so expectations are high. Seeing as it's going to be held on the third floor of the IFSC car park, it probably won't disappoint.