To celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rising the Crawford Art Gallery has put together an exciting schedule of both historic and contemporary artistic reflections on the global events that shaped Ireland, what the Rising meant for ordinary people and artists, and what it can teach everyone today.
The highlight of the year will be Diverging Loyalties, opening in June 2016. This exhibition illuminates the changing political and cultural landscapes of Ireland in the first two decades of the 20th Century. It will both show the Rising in its wider political context and examine the complex nature of loyalty in a country bound by unrest and violence. Running in tandem with Diverging Loyalties will be an exhibition of personal artistic interpretations of 1916 and the Easter Rising by contemporary artists, commissioned by collector Larry Lambe. Varying in scale and media, from painting to poetry, the only instruction the commissioned artists received from Lambe was that the work should be linked with any event of 1916 that affected Ireland.
While 2016 is a time for remembering our past it is also an opportunity to look forwards and positively re-imagine our future. To this end Crawford Art Gallery presents Perceptions 2016, the Art of Citizenship; the Crawford Art Gallery, CCAD (Art Therapy department) and Cork City Council will present an exhibition of artists working in supported studio settings and builds on the success of the 2013 Art of Inclusion exhibition. Artists and organizations from a number of different countries and cultural backgrounds will be involved in public engagement events and tours and workshops with the opportunity for schools, community groups, and members of the public to get involved.
Bringing the year to a close is Irish Arts and Crafts, an exhibition highlighting the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland. The exhibition will have a thematic focus on the Celtic Revivalist desire to form an artistic style to match the spirit of a new Irish nation.
Throughout the year The 1916 Art Trail will be available to visitors to the gallery; it will highlight works on display at the Crawford that are relevant to the period surrounding the 1916 Rising. Works included in the Trail will be identifiable by a logo that will appear, along with contextual information, on their labels. The main goal is to make it easy for visitors to the gallery to trace Ireland’s political history in art.
More information can be found online at the Crawford Art Gallery.
An téacs i nGaeilge le teacht.