EVERYBODY who was anybody in the contemporary art world could be seen wandering like weary pilgrims around the 10 exhibition openings in Temple Bar on Wednesday night. Entitled Freestyle, it was a night of wine, art and shameless socialising for the artists and art connoisseurs of the city as all of the area's galleries opened their current exhibitions simultaneously. Talk was of the Turner prize nominations the Venice Biennale winners and just how many exhibitions was Mick Cullen opening?
Cullen, whose shows opened in both the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios and the Graphic Studio Gallery on Wednesday night, also cracked the champagne open on another exhibition in the Taylor Gallery that afternoon. The Temple Bar Gallery and Arthouse attracted the biggest crowds of the evening. In the former, artist Rachel Ballagh and photographer Peter Houlihan chatted with Mannix Flynn, who is putting the finishing touches to his one-man play, Talking To The Wall. Mannix worked on the play in the Tyrone Guthrie centre in Annaghmakerrig, and recently gave a special performance for the staff and artists there before taking the show to the Edinburgh Festival this summer.
Authors Colm Toibin and Anne Enright also popped up in the Temple Bar Galleries, as did Stephen McKenna, who selected the paintings in the forthcoming The Pursuit Of Painting exhibition in IMMA. In Arthouse, artists reigned supreme where Clea van der Grijn chatted with friends and fellow artists Remco de Fouw and Rachel Joynt; exhibitor Michael Boran wandered around the show with Antoin O Heocha, and Fergal Fitzpatrick and Stephen Brands also came alone.
Relaxing after the election flurry were political couple Shane Kenny and Lorraine Glendenning; he is the Taoiseach's press secretary while she was press secretary for Democratic Left. Meanwhile Ruth Hussey, who has not followed the path of her mother, Gemma Hussey, was just back from Brussels, via India, and hopes to work in film and television shortly.
Tracey Staunton, another artist making the rounds, has recently had a very successful exhibition in the Graphic Studios and had just heard that she was selected for the Ljubljana Biennale in Slovenia.
In the Jo Rain gallery were Beth O'Halloran and, later, Maurice O'Connell. Fresh from working in the Barbican, Maurice was the master of ceremonies at a time-capsule burial in the Temple Bar Galleries yesterday. Twenty capsules were filled by individuals and companies ranging from accountant Adrian Crawford to designer Niall Sweeney, from Dublin Corporation to the OPW.