> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Dublin galleries team up to lift visual art out of ‘poor cousin’ status - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/dublin-galleries-team-up-to-lift-visual-art-out-of-poor-cousin-status/ - Published: 2026-10-10T01:38:05.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-10T01:38:05.000Z - Description: Dublin Gallery Weekend returns November 5–8 with a new €40,000 prize named for Francis Bacon. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Market and Money, #public-access Dublin’s leading commercial galleries are joining forces this November to attract more people to contemporary art, arguing that visual art remains overlooked in a country known for its writers, musicians and theater. “If you open up any kind of magazines here in Ireland, there are pages and pages about book reviews, music and theatre,” said Tara Murphy, director of Solomon Fine Art. “But the visual arts are kind of like the poor cousin.” After the video interview, Murphy emailed to clarify that point. “I would not suggest that Ireland is inherently less visual—our visual culture is deep and distinctive, going back to medieval metalwork and manuscripts,” she wrote. “Rather, colonial disruption weakened many of the patronage systems that sustain visual art, while our oral, literary, and musical traditions remained extraordinarily resilient and central to public life.” She called Ireland a “highly educated country” with an enormous interest in literature and music. [Add Urgent Matter on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=urgentmatter.press&ref=urgentmatter.press) “The sharp reduction in visual arts coverage in the Irish media makes this more difficult,” Murphy wrote. “It can become a self-perpetuating cycle: less coverage means less visibility and engagement, which in turn makes arts coverage appear less central to editors and publishers.” She wrote that Irish newspapers dropped much of their specialist art criticism while galleries were shut during the pandemic. Most of those review pages never came back once outlets shifted toward chasing clicks online, she wrote. “Our gallery association (CAGA) is actively making the case for their reinstatement,” Murphy wrote. “Serious criticism and informed journalism are not a luxury; they give artists visibility, help audiences develop confidence and curiosity, and make contemporary art part of the everyday cultural conversation.” Dublin Gallery Weekend [runs November 5–8](https://dublingalleryweekend.ie/?ref=urgentmatter.press) across the city. “One of the things Dublin Gallery Weekend is trying to do is interrupt that cycle—to make contemporary art more visible, accessible and part of the wider cultural conversation in our city,” she wrote. ### How the galleries came together Murphy has worked at Solomon Fine Art for about 30 years. The gallery has been open since 1980. The idea took shape about five years ago among roughly 10 of the city’s main galleries, Murphy said. “We decided to club together, where we should, in theory, be competitors,” Murphy said. “We thought that by working together, we’d be stronger.” “They’ll happily go to New York to visit the Met or to London,” she said of friends not into art. “They might even visit the National Gallery in Dublin but wouldn’t dream of coming through the door of a contemporary art gallery.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/Talk-at-Guinness-Storehouse--with-Annie-Fletcher--Director-Irish-Museum-of-Modern-Art.jpg) A talk at Guinness Storehouse with Annie Fletcher, director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, at Dublin Gallery Weekend 2025\. Photo courtesy of Tara Murphy The group, the Contemporary Art Gallery Association, presents the weekend with law firm Addleshaw Goddard as title partner. The production company SoSimpatico produces it, and the organizers said in an emailed press release that most events are free. The association’s members meet every two weeks, in person or online, Murphy said. The group was originally meant to lobby the government on issues like VAT rates and to lobby the Arts Council. “The Dublin Gallery Weekend has grown legs and taken over much of what we do,” she said. The member galleries don’t share client information, which Murphy said would be illegal. They help each other with smaller tasks like recommending a shipper, work together on Arts Council grant applications, and attend each other’s events. “There is no drama whatsoever,” Murphy said. “I know it sounds mad, but it is true.” ### What’s new this year Murphy said one of this year’s biggest additions is the Francis Bacon Awards for Irish Visual Arts, a €40,000 prize fund backed by Château La Coste, a vineyard and sculpture park in Provence, France. The fund breaks down into a €25,000 Lifetime Achievement Award and a €15,000 Mid-Career Artist Award, open to Irish artists and artists based in Ireland, the press release states. Each winner also gets an invitation to mount a solo show at Château La Coste. A five-person international panel, including Hugh Lane Gallery director Barbara Dawson and Crawford Art Gallery director Mary McCarthy, will pick the winners. The recipients will be announced October 19, the release states. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/047_DGW-IMMA-Opening_FreddieG_2025.jpg) Guests at the launch of Dublin Gallery Weekend 2025 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin on Nov. 6, 2025\. Photo courtesy of Tara Murphy Murphy said the awards will be presented at a gala dinner at the National Gallery of Ireland during the weekend. “25,000 is not an insignificant amount of money,” Murphy said. She said the money could let an artist make more experimental work or move to a bigger studio. She said the show in France also puts the winners in front of Château La Coste’s international visitors and buyers. The two winners will also sit for a live interview with Talk Art, the podcast hosted by London art dealer Robert Diament and actor Russell Tovey, at the National Gallery. Murphy said Talk Art recorded live in Dublin last year with Isabel Nolan, who is representing Ireland at the Venice Biennale. That event sold out within about 30 minutes. “She’s just charming, really intelligent, so funny,” Murphy said of Nolan. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/Chateau-la-Coste_NIEMEYER-GALLERY_CLC-PRESS-DSC09697.jpg) The Oscar Niemeyer Pavilion at Château La Coste, an art and wine estate near Aix-en-Provence, France. Designed by Niemeyer in his final years and completed after his death, the building opened in 2022\. Photo courtesy of Tara Murphy Murphy said a second new commitment comes from the Park Hotel in County Kerry. She said the hotel’s owners, an Irish couple who had been living in Los Angeles, bought the historic property and filled it with an international collection of contemporary art. The hotel has pledged to buy work during Dublin Gallery Weekend to display at the property, Murphy said. It will also offer an artist residency in Glengarriff. The weekend is adding its first film program this year: a three-day run of Irish artists’ films at the Lighthouse Cinema in the city center, Murphy said. It is curated by AEMI and sold out within days of launching. Organizers hope to move it to a bigger screen. Murphy said Culture Ireland, a state-run body, is paying to bring 10 international curators to the weekend. The galleries are setting up talks, tours and studio visits for them, and meeting those curators could open doors for Irish artists to the Venice Biennale and other major international shows, she said. The program also includes sessions for children as young as toddlers, led by artist Claire Halpin using a method called Visual Thinking Strategies, Murphy said. “It’s not drawing or anything, it’s actually just looking and talking and seeing,” Murphy said. ### What’s on view At Solomon Fine Art, Murphy is showing “Heliotropism” by Tom Climent, a mid-career painter who lives in Cork. She said he is one of the gallery’s most popular artists. “It’s not too challenging,” she said of Climent’s paintings. “It’s got a lot of color, it’s kind of joyful, so it ticks a lot of boxes for people.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/3.-Tom-Climent-HEADSHOT-studio---Tom_2-R30.jpg) The artist Tom Climent, whose work will be shown by Solomon Fine Art during Dublin Gallery Weekend, is pictured. Photo courtesy of Tara Murphy Murphy said the title refers to how plants slowly turn toward the sun. She said the paintings deal with the slow rhythms of trees, plants and landscapes, sitting between abstraction and representation. Climent builds up his canvases with sand and plaster before painting, so pigment collects differently across the textured surface, Murphy said. He also uses gold pigment. Elsewhere, Kerlin Gallery is showing “Northern Sky,” new landscape paintings by Elizabeth Magill, the press release states. Murphy said Magill will be interviewed during the weekend by Irish novelist Paul Murray, author of *Skippy Die*s. “We really rate our writers here,” Murphy said. Other gallery shows include Damien Flood’s “Veil” at Green on Red Gallery, Sonia Shiel’s “The Nature of Tables” at Kevin Kavanagh, John Kindness’ “Mythologies” at The Molesworth Gallery and Olivier Cornet Gallery’s “Tales of Human Follies,” for the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift’s *Gulliver’s Travels*, the release states. Museums taking part include the National Gallery of Ireland, which is showing “Hilma af Klint: Artist and Visionary,” and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, whose “Technologies of Peace: Art and Transition in Contemporary Europe (1989–2026)” includes more than 40 artists, among them Marina Abramović. ### The Irish market “When I first started 30 years ago, many collectors were from the legal classes, doctors and professionals,” Murphy said. “Now it’s completely different.” She said buyers now come from all walks of life. Younger people who travel more are willing to consider work that wouldn’t have interested them before, she said. Murphy said the weekend is also meant to encourage people to start collecting and to show them how buying art keeps artists and galleries going. She said Irish galleries price work the same as galleries elsewhere. About half of member galleries show at international fairs like Art Basel and Frieze. The difference is the size of the market, she said. “We have a smaller proportion of billionaires and millionaires,” Murphy said. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/1.-Tom-Climent--What-was-hidden-is-revealed--oil--plaster-and-sand-on-canvas--183-x-198cm_Solomon-Fine-Art_-High-Res_FOR-AD-COPY.jpg) Tom Climent's **What was hidden is revealed*. Photo courtesy of Solomon Fine Art She said prices across member galleries run from a few hundred euros to six figures. Solomon Fine Art is on Balfe Street, next to the Westbury Hotel. “We get a lot of Americans coming in and they buy, for sure,” Murphy said. Murphy said organizers hope the weekend becomes a destination, particularly for Europeans, since it is a short flight. She said the gallery scene is fragile because of Ireland’s small population, limited studio space, inflation and the war in Ukraine. “Whenever there’s a pinch in the economy, galleries are hit first,” Murphy said. “People will happily buy a new car, but will they buy a new sculpture or painting?” The weekend doesn’t include galleries in Northern Ireland, which is a two- to three-hour drive away, Murphy said. Many Solomon Fine Art artists are from the North, she said. She said most of the island’s main galleries are concentrated in Dublin, while smaller cities have only a handful, “which is a crying shame.” ### Keeping artists in Ireland Ireland’s annual budget, announced October 6, put about €34 million more into the country’s Basic Income for the Arts program and extended it to 2029, Murphy said. The program pays 2,000 eligible professional artists, chosen by lottery, €325 a week for three years, she said. She said the Arts Council’s budget rose from €140 million to €142.5 million, an increase of less than 3%. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/2.-Tom-Climent--Phototropism--oil-and-plaster-on-board--50-x-43cm_Solomon-Fine-Art_High-Res.jpg) Tom Climent's **Phototropism*. Photo courtesy of Solomon Fine Art “It’s a bit depressing the increase wasn’t more, but in previous years they cut funding, so we should be happy for a modest uplift,” Murphy said. Ireland also exempts artists from income tax on their artistic earnings up to €50,000 a year, Murphy said. She said the exemption used to be unlimited. “We had a whole load of rock stars coming to live in Ireland because they could do their tax here,” she said. Murphy said the exemption means little to artists who aren’t selling and called it “a moot point.” Ireland funds art education from kindergarten through the leaving certificate exam and has art colleges in every city, including two or three in Dublin, Murphy said. She said the problem is what happens after graduation. “Many young art students coming out of college have to go to cheaper cities in Europe to afford renting a flat and a studio,” Murphy said. She said many young Irish people are leaving for Australia, and many in their 30s still live with their parents because the government has not built enough housing. “That’s our challenge,” she said, “to try and keep our talent here in Ireland.” *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. Please* [*consider subscribing*](https://www.urgentmatter.press/nasa-administrator-questioned-goddard-library-review-emails-show/#/portal) *to support independent arts journalism.*