ArtScape: In something of a coup for Dublin's Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Irish-born painter Sean Scully is to donate a substantial body of work - as many as nine paintings - to the gallery, writes Aidan Dunne.
Scully is one of the foremost painters active today internationally, and his work is sought avidly by museums and collectors worldwide. While he was born in Dublin, in 1945, within a few years his family had moved to England, where he grew up. Since the late 1970s, he has been based in the US, although he is currently Professor of Painting at the Fine Art Academy in Munich. He has built his formidable reputation with his assertive, grid-based abstracts paintings, known for their atmospheric colouring.
His Irish roots are extremely important to him and he regards his Irishness as central to his identity. For this reason he has always been keen to locate a body of his work in Ireland. A more ambitious scheme, involving the Docklands site known as Stack A, was championed by the late critic Dorothy Walker, but lacked political backing. The original idea in relation to the Hugh Lane was that a space in the gallery's proposed new wing be devoted to his work. In the changed economic climate, it is by no means clear when that new wing will be built, but the donation of works is to go ahead. The paintings will form an important cornerstone in the gallery's contemporary art collection and, given that Scully was born in Dublin, is an appropriate destination for his work.
The Minister listens
Arts lobbyists, take heart, writes Belinda McKeown. As Thursday's presentation in the Dáil by the Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue, of his amendments to the Arts Bill 2002 confirmed, he has shelved the much-decried standing committee on the traditional arts. Abandoned, too, are the standing committees on local authority involvement in the arts and on artistic innovation, which comprised Section 21 of the Bill as it was drawn up by Síle de Valera. It's something of an endorsement of the efforts of those in the traditional arts community who refused to accept the potential limitations of a standing committee without a fight.
So it's good to hear two other groups, Theatre Forum, and the so-called "gang of nine" - those chief executives and artistic directors who, in a letter to The Irish Times in March, strongly criticised the current Arts Council and called for greater transparency in the next one - report open and positive meetings with the Minister in the run-up to his announcement of the amendments. Apparently, he was all ears to their argument for representation of the arts sector on the new council; might we expect to see one of their number among the lucky 13 to be appointed by the Minister in July?
'Ulysses' in the can
Ten years after he first attempted to bring James Joyce's Ulysses to the screen, Irish director Sean Walsh has completed the film, which will be titled bl,.m, writes Michael Dwyer from Cannes. Stephen Rea takes the role of Leopold Bloom, with Angeline Ball as Molly Bloom, Hugh O'Conor as Stephen Dedalus, and Patrick Bergin as The Citizen. Walsh, who has worked in the film industry for 15 years and owns Millbrook Studios in Dublin, was in Cannes this week on a fact-finding mission as he prepares to sell the international rights to the film.
"In May, 1993, at the tender age of 32, I started working on it as a film project," he said in Cannes, "but it has taken all this time because as a proposition, there were too many hurdles for people to believe in it. It's the world's most complex novel, and it's a period costume film, which costs money." Walsh expects that bl,.m will be released in Irish cinemas this year, with a view to a DVD release around Bloomsday in June, 2004, the centenary of the novel's publication. He said that he was not at all deterred that it had been filmed in 1967 by US director Joseph Strick - a version that never should have been made, according to critic Barry Norman in a recent TV programme. It was banned in Ireland for more than a decade.
"Our project doesn't need the support of the James Joyce estate," Walsh added, "but as soon as we finished the film two weeks ago, I sent a tape of it to Stephen Joyce, and I'm very keen to hear his reaction." Already the film has received a ringing endorsement from Joycean scholar David Norris, who attended a private preview of the film this month. "Sean Walsh's version of Ulysses is a triumphant reinterpretation of James Joyce's masterpiece," Senator Norris said.
Cork grins and bears it
You have to hand it to the Cork School of Music (CSM). Undismayed by the decision of Minister for Education and Science, Noel Dempsey, not to proceed for now with building the long-planned new school, the school's drama department has announced a new BA in Theatre and Drama to coincide with the opening of that very school, writes Mary Leland. Currently, CSM operates out of 17 different venues. Condemning the Government's decision, the TUI said the Minister has "rewarded their forbearance and dedication with a well-aimed kick in the teeth". But at the coal-face, where the school's drama department nestles down with Wind, Percussion, Singing and Speech under the leadership of John O'Connor, the new four-year degree course is taking shape. Along with performance, actor training and theatre methodology, the course will include writing, design, all the technical skills of production and direction, lighting, sound, stage-management, speech and drama therapies, drama in education and other theatre specialities.
To be accredited by the HETAC, the new course relies on the fact that the contentious new building will include theatre, performance and rehearsal facilities as an intrinsic strand of the curriculum. There is no recognition in these plans of the kick in the teeth described by the TUI, although everyone at the school (and increasingly at CIT) is feeling relatively toothless.
Jury out on AXA voting
There's been a lot of muttering at the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition about the fact that so many of the competitors are playing for a jury which includes their teachers, writes Michael Dervan. No less than 18 of this year's 59 competitors fall into this category. At 30.5 per cent of the total entry, it's the highest representation of juror-taught competitors the competition has seen. And many people following the course of the competition have drawn what they see as obvious conclusions from this fact.
The disparity in transfer rates for juror-taught competitors and others is very striking indeed. A full 50 per cent of juror-taught competitors made it into the second, as against only 36.6 per cent for the rest. From the second round into the semi-finals, the figures were 55.6 per cent and 46.7 per cent, respectively. Only in the transfer from the semi-finals into the finals did the figures go the other way, when only 40 per cent of juror-taught players passed through as against 57.1 per cent for the others.
This is not at all as straightforward as it seems. Many people are unaware of the fact that, apart from the finals, jury members cannot vote for their own pupils. Also, at one-in three, the ratio of jury-taught to non-jury-taught players in the finals is pretty much in line with the opening round. What must be of concern, though, is that this year, as in all previous competitions bar the first in 1988, jury members' pupils have y had a greater success rate in getting from the first into the second round. It's also the case that in only once, in the 1991 competition, did juror-taught players have a higher success rate in making it from the semi-finals to the finals. Looking at the statistics, it's clear that, whatever the cause, jury voting has tended to favour one class of competitor in round one, and another in the semi-finals. And, with juror-competitor relationships at an all-time high in 2003 and the biggest attendances the competition has had for some time, there has been more than usual public concern this year about the balance of the jury's verdicts.
The competition could help reduce any perception of bias by publishing the jury members' votes in full, as the results of each round are made public. This kind of transparency would be more than welcome. Another option would be for the competition's director and jury chairman, John O'Conor, to limit the number of teachers he chooses for the jury or, indeed, make a breach with the general practice of international music competitions by placing a ban on competitor/jury member teaching relationships. One thing is certain, with so many jury-competitor relationships and unexplained patterns in the voting, whether accidental or not, the muttering is not going to die away of its own accord.
Abbey movers
With the question of how the Abbey might be developed on its current site coming up and the legal issues attached to the acquisition of adjacent property, the Arts Minister this week made an interesting appointment to the board of the National Theatre. As well as reappointing Eithne Healy to the board for a second term of four years, John O'Donoghue named Dr John O'Mahony SC as a new board member. Dr O'Mahony will replace Deirdre Purcell who has served three terms on the board, the maximum period permitted. Dr O'Mahony, a native of Cork, studied medicine and law at UCC and subsequently lectured in forensic medicine and jurisprudence. He was called to the Inner Bar in 1986. Dr O'Mahony has served on the Southern Health Board and is currently chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal.
McKenna takes to arts on TV
RTÉ Television has announced the appointment of David McKenna as executive producer for music and arts programming. He will continue to have responsibility for The View but will also liaise with commissioning editors for the on-going development of RTÉ's music and arts strands. The final edition of The View in the current season will go out next Tuesday and the series will return in early September. Born in Dublin in 1953, David McKenna has worked in theatre as a director, producer and writer, in journalism as a writer and editor and since 1988 as a producer/director for RTÉ television, for the most part in drama and documentary.