ArtScape: Traditionally, Irish jazz musicians, even those with international careers, don't employ agents, but that is about to change with the decision by the Improvised Music Company (IMC) to set up the IMC Artists agency, writes Ray Comiskey.
Launched by the IMC last week with two successful concerts at the Project in Dublin, the new venture features an impressive roster of bands and artists in a broad spectrum of styles and idioms.
Established or emerging groups who performed at the showcase concerts, which were recorded for promotion, included Ronan Guilfoyle's Microclimate, bluesman Nigel Mooney's band, Conor Guilfoyle's Havana Son, Dylan Rynhart's Fuzzy Logic, singer Cormac Kenevey and the Phil Ware Trio, Sean Carpio's White Rocket, Richie Buckley and Organics, Nick Roth's Yurodny and the duos of Mike Nielsen-Tommy Halferty and Dermot Dunne-Ariel Hernandez.
Given the IMC's track record in organising concerts and tours - and the national and international connections it has built up over the years - the new agency should bring a measure of professional expertise to an area where it has been virtually non-existent up to now.
The man charged with running the venture is Ken Killeen, who has plenty of experience of this kind of work, having single-handedly established the Boom Boom Room as a stylistically adventurous music venue and kept it running for several years before being recruited by the IMC's Gerry Godley.
Feast yourself in Galway
A giant jumper in a children's playground, some 632 shirts rolled and stacked, and a chance to record your own footsteps. They're all part of Tulca's month-long feast of visual arts which opened in Galway city yesterday, writes Lorna Siggins.
"Within and without" is this year's theme, and more than 90 Irish and international artists worked with curators Cliodhna Shaffrey, Sarah Searson and Áine Philips to stage work in some 20 venues in the city - ranging from Galway Arts Centre to the Birdcage Tuxedo Shop to the examining room in optician Colette Kelly's practice on Buttermilk Walk.
Highlights include a special residency by Richard Dedominici of Watford, described variously as a "one-man subversive think-tank" and an artist who "specialises in poetic acts of low-grade civil disobedience", and a three-night performance by Donna Rutherford which contrasts memoirs of a Glaswegian childhood with observations on Iraqi culture.
Ruby Wallis has taken portraits of single-parent families within her own housing estate, entitled Other Madonnas, and Damien Magee views Ireland as an island from Galway Bay in West Latitude, while Stephen Gunning's Leave to Remain is a short film shot during the Afghan asylum seekers' hunger strike in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, last May.
Galway City Hall is exhibiting work by senior citizen participants at the Sonas daycare centre in Mervue, while the new museum has been transformed into the old city gaol - or part of it - by Louise Manifold, who is artist-in-residence for the festival.
Her Ghost Gaol, as an animation projection, can be viewed at the Museum Square by Spanish Arch, while French photographer Nicholas Feve presents his photographic response to the "sacred and sublime" landscape of Omey island, lying just off Claddaghduff in Connemara, inside.
Performance art is a distinct feature of this year's programme, which incorporates live presentations, and all events are free.
The festival continues until Sunday, November 26th. For more details, contact Galway Arts Centre at tel: 091-565886 or see www.tulca.ie
Museums and national identity
There are sure to be many points of interest for Irish people at next Wednesday's lecture in Dublin by the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, entitled The Role of Museums in Shaping National Identities. MacGregor has in the past spoken about "Britishness" and what role, if any, museums have in pursuit of it - which is of relevance to Irish museums and how they might use their diverse collections to portray a more universal view of Irish culture.
Over his 15 years as director of London's National Gallery, MacGregor saw major developments, including a renegotiated agreement with Dublin City Gallery over the Hugh Lane paintings. Since being appointed director of the British Museum in 2002 he has sought to position the British Museum in a more prominent cultural role. In viewing museums as international resources, he has used his diplomatic skills to develop partnerships between the British Museum and worldwide museums, including those in China and Africa.
In 2003 he sent curators to Iraq to help that country retrieve its ravaged museums, and this year he embarked on a commercial consultancy to assist the new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.
The Irish Museums Association annual lecture will be held next Wednesday, November 15th, at 6.30pm at the National Library. Admission is free and all are welcome.
Artoons on show
Regular readers will be familiar with Tom Mathews's weekly Artoon, presenting Mathews's very particular take on artistic life. He must be Ireland's top pun-ster, and his quirky sense of oddity, coupled with his delicately coloured, finely painted cartoons have developed a following. He has had more than 30 solo shows over the years. Next week he opens an exhibition of arts-themed works - many of them original Artoons - in a show called But Is It Art? at the recently reopened James Joyce Centre at 35 North Great George's Street.
The show draws its inspiration from Mathews's own experiences of holding exhibitions of his work. Inevitably, says Mathews, "I encounter the man who asks 'But is it art?', as if somehow cartoons are not serious because they aren't solemn." The answer for Mathews is to paraphrase Oscar Wilde: "Art is the only serious thing in the world and the artist is the only one who is never serious."
The exhibition opens on November 15th, and runs until November 30th.
Music Network has announced €71,500 for the Arts Council-funded Music Recording Scheme.
Con Tempo Quartet was awarded €6,965 towards recording a CD of traditional Irish and Romanian pieces, with guest artists Máirtín O'Connor, Gary Ó Briain and Cathal Hayden. Cliona Doris (solo harp) was awarded €4,500 towards a CD of 20th Century Irish harp music. Mary Dullea was awarded €9,000 towards a CD of contemporary Irish piano trios by the Fidelio Trio. Michelle Fleming was awarded €8,000 towards a CD of the complete string quartets of Brian Boydell by the Carducci Quartet.
Gráda were awarded €7,000 towards the production of their new studio album. Daniel Jacobson was awarded €9,975 for a CD of duets between a jazz-trained electronic musician (ZoiD) and some of Ireland's top jazz musicians. Dorothy Murphy was awarded €9,300 towards a CD of standards and her own compositions. Jane O'Leary was awarded €6,370 towards a CD of her own works, to celebrate her 60th birthday. Kevin Volans was awarded €1,400 towards completion of a self-funded CD of own works by pianist Jill Richards. Ian Wilson was awarded €9,000 towards a CD of four of his own works, to be recorded by Belgrade Strings.
With funding from the Arts Council, the new Performance and Touring Award was developed this year by Music Network to assist Irish and Ireland-based musicians in realising performance opportunities. This is a one-off scheme for 2006 in lieu of the council's own Music Recording Scheme and the Performance and Touring Award.
We shouldn't hold our collective breath about when there'll be a new Abbey Theatre at George's Dock, following the terms of the Docklands tender for a temporary performing arts space there.
The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) is seeking tenders for a temporary platform or stage structure - called a New Events Platform (NEP) - for a period of three years, with a possible extension to five years. The NEP will be required to "blend in aesthetically with the existing dock surrounds" and to have "a more permanent look and feel". In recent years, George's Dock has been a great site for the Spiegeltent during the Dublin Fringe Festival; this year, the fire installation there opened up the possibilities for enlivening the area.