FROM 10 o'clock this morning, the Irish Contemporary Art Gallery Association will again be hosting what amounts to a contemporary art mini marathon: its second annual "Art-Full" open day. The association's member galleries - Kerlin, Rubicon Green on Red, Solomon, Hallward and Taylor, all within walking distance of Grafton Street - will be welcoming visitors to new group shows with all day receptions.
Armed with refreshments of hard and soft varieties, visitors can see - presumably ever more unsteadily - shows of the artists associated with each gallery, thus providing a neat and painless way of enjoying exhibitions that might otherwise get lost in the Christmas rush, as well as, in some cases, getting what amounts to a preview of the art year to come.
In this respect, the Rubicon offers new work by Blaise Drummond and Clifford Collie, both of whom will have shows next spring, as well as sculpture by Maud Cotter, and new work from Michael Kane, reportedly based on sketches made in the Burlington Hotel "during the late 1980s". (What can all that be about?)
At the Solomon Gallery visitors will have the opportunity to assess, among other things, models of work by Rowan Gillespie dealing with the Famine, life size versions of which will soon be installed in "Liberty Walk" in Boston.
The Green on Red on Fitzwilliam Square offers new paintings and works on paper by Mary Fitzgerald, her first in two years, as well as new prints from Alice Maher and Brian Kennedy. The Hallward's show will include work by James Hanley and Robert Armstrong, while Taylor Gallery's substantial roster of painters will be combed for work from Brian Bourke, William Crosier, and Sean McSweeney, among many others.
Those who creep up the long stairs to the Kerlin Gallery will see work by a host of gallery artists, including Fionnuala Ni Chiosain, David Godbold, John Kindness and Felim Egan, in a show that presumably approximates a partial shortlist for the 1998 IMMA Glen Dimplex award!
"The open day is a clear statement to the public that the galleries really are for visiting, just like public galleries," says Josephine Kelliher of the ICAGA, owner of the Rubicon. "They are not just for private clients and private transactions."
That this message seems to have reached the public is reflected, Kelliher judges, in the achievements of last year's inaugural open day. "It was not a concentrated sales day, but we were all extraordinarily busy. I guess each gallery had a steady flow that amounted to 300-400 people passing through, 20 or 30 times the usual number. As a project to create extra excitement around contemporary arts, I think it was a success.