Recording for the Future
Visual Artists’ News Sheet | Special issue: March – April 2020
Katie Blackwood discusses some of the sculpture collections at NIVAL.
On the noticeboard at the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) there is a photocopy of a telegram from the Earley Collection. Earley and Co. was an ecclesiastical decorators based in Camden Street, Dublin, from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. The collection contains design drawing and administrative records. The telegram reads: ‘No sign of altar, explain immediately’. Taken alone, this historical document poses more questions than answers. Where was the altar? How can something as big as an altar go missing? Did it ever turn up? There may be more clues within the Earley Collection about what happened, or there may not. Archives are full of the unexpected, which can lead researchers on different paths from the ones they originally intended to follow.
NIVAL is a collection of documentation on Irish art and design from the 20th century to the present day. Although located within the NCAD campus, it is part-funded by the Arts Council of Ireland. Therefore, it is intended to be a national resource that is open to the public free of charge and without membership. NIVAL was officially established in 1997 but the archive’s origins truly began in the mid-1970s, when Edward Murphy, then a librarian at NCAD, began collecting information on Irish artists. At the time, very little was being published but students were requesting material on the local art scene. Artists’ files were created. A typical file might contain any of the following: correspondence, newspaper cuttings, press releases, reviews, interviews, images, invitations, posters, flyers, leaflets, small catalogues, diaries, price lists, CVs, statements, cards and notes, exhibition layouts, and more. In time, this expanded to creating files on galleries, arts organisations, design and other related subjects. All the small pieces of ephemera within a file work together to build a picture of an artist’s career or a gallery’s exhibition programme. It also stretches to other themes and topics. There are endless untapped research possibility within NIVAL, particularly within the sculpture collections.
The sculpture collections at NIVAL tell the recent history of sculpture in Ireland. Much of the documentation is unique primary source material that is unavailable online or from any other public resource. As well as information on individual artist and galleries, there is abundant material on organisations like the Institute of Sculptors of Ireland and the Sculptors’ Society of Ireland (now called Visual Artists Ireland); events and exhibitions like the International Conference on Sculpture 1988, Sculpture in Context; and projects like Breaking Ground and the Per Cent for Art Scheme. There is also extensive documentation on public art, monuments, sculpture parks and trails and performance art, to name but a few.
Part of the Dorothy Walker Collection contains files on some significant international artists and their time in Ireland. Walker documented Joseph Beuys’ attempt to establish the Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research in Dublin as well as Christo’s proposal to wrap the footpaths of St Stephen’s Green during ROSC 1977. Both of these projects ultimately went unrealized, but their documentation lives on. A more recent acquisition are the records of the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eight Amendment. Within NIVAL’s collections, a multi-layered picture emerges of all the different sculptural activities taking place in Ireland during a time of change, as the country gradually went from being an insular place, where art was often censored, to the more outward looking nation that we live in today.
Many Irish artists actively donate material to NIVAL and these donations can contribute information on aspects of their career that would be impossible to acquire otherwise. NIVAL has a network of regionally-based collectors who routinely collect ephemera from all over Ireland. Irish artists who are based abroad can send in materials. One such artist is Katie Holten, who often sends in items for her file and, as a result, her international exhibitions are thoroughly documented within our records.
In 2015, the sculptor and performance artist Brian Connolly donated his paperwork relating to public art commissions, which includes fascinating insights into the process, from ideas stage to the finished artwork. Briefing notes, sketches, plans, financial negotiations, dealings with manufacturers and minutes of meetings all feature. Connolly also donated images of his artworks and performance pieces. Due to the ephemeral nature of performance art, documentation is vital for those not present at the event, in order for it to be experienced at all.
Artists, galleries and arts organisations can be instrumental in archiving their own documentation to preserve their own activities. The easiest way to start is to set aside a box for paper records and to set up a folder on a computer for digital records. Put in anything relevant to your artwork and career. This can include invites, catalogues, scrapbooks, diaries, proposals, images, sketchbooks, finances, letters, emails, press cuttings, interviews, exhibition details, administration and anything that could potentially shed light on your process, inspiration, artworks, projects and career. Don’t forget to regularly back up digital records. Get in touch with NIVAL and talk to a member of staff about how to donate or bequeath your records.
NIVAL’s potential future collections are currently dotted around the country in offices, studios and homes. They are in attics and sheds; they are on the hard drives of soon-to-be-obsolete computers. As an artist, gallery or arts organisation, ensuring that your papers and files are preserved and accessible in the future means that your work will continue to live on. New audiences will be reached and the history of art in Ireland will be richer and more complete. Researchers will continue to come to NIVAL asking questions and hopefully the clues will be there to follow.