Major contemporary art event to be held in Dublin

THE LARGEST contemporary art event ever staged in Ireland will be held in Dublin next year.

The organisers of Dublin Contemporary 2011 hope the event will be a major cultural tourism driver for the city during the off-peak season.

The event, which will take place between September 6th and October 31st, will utilise most of the art galleries in the city to host some of the best-known artists in the world.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma), Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and the James Joyce Tower in Sandycove will be among the venues.

The organisers are hoping they can attract 62,000 foreign visitors to the city, giving a tourist spend of more than €13 million.

The figure has been benchmarked against similar events in places such as Berlin, Liverpool and Glasgow.

The artists involved will not be named until September when the programme is announced, but it is likely to involve a 60:40 split between international and Irish artists, of which there will be about 80 in total.

Artistic director Rachael Thomas said the principal focus of the exhibition would be Irish contemporary artists who she described as “Ireland’s best kept secret”.

She maintained Ireland was home to many world-class artists who were not as well known as their literary or musical counterparts.

“The whole point is to start a conversation about contemporary art and bring art into the public eye that the public can enjoy and relate to.”

Ms Thomas said the international artists involved will be of the calibre of Lucian Freud, whose exhibition three years ago at the Irish Museum of Modern Art attracted large crowds.

The template for Dublin Contemporary is the Documenta festival which began in Kassel, Germany, in 1955 and runs every five years.

It has become one of the most important exhibitions of modern and contemporary art in the world, though the town itself was not internationally known as an artistic centre before the festival began.

Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin said the success of the Venice Biennale, which has been going for more than 100 years, showed there was a market for cultural tourism in contemporary art and visitors would travel to Ireland if the quality of work was good enough.

“It has the potential to be a world-class event. It will showcase, not just the visual arts, but the city itself,” she said.