LAST YEAR DUBLIN Gallery Weekend – a weekend of tours and culture that opens up Dublin’s artistic side for three days – made its debut.
This year, it’s back, and it’s going to be considerably bigger than it was during its “phenomenally successful” run in 2015.
55 events will take place in 36 galleries across Dublin between Friday 25 and Sunday 26 November, and almost everything is free of charge.
It’s something that Rayne Booth, curator of the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios is justifiably excited about.
“We’ve a good few more galleries this year, like Gallery X and the Doorway, while IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) and the Douglas Hyde and all the originals will be present and correct,” she tells TheJournal.ie.
This is about finding the great art that’s tucked away in Dublin, it’s all there, you just have to look.
Booth explains that there is “a lot more” press coverage this year. “We did last year on a shoestring, well we’re doing this year on a shoestring too, but it’s all a little bigger,” she says.
We had 20,000 people last year. It’s going to a really buzzy weekend.
This year’s events and exhibitions in galleries like IMMA, MART Gallery, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Kerlin Gallery, NCAD Gallery, and The Hugh Lane and many more featuring a range of Irish and international artists.
Meanwhile, walking tours will “showcase the cultural highlights” of areas like Trinity College, Parnell Square, Monto, and The Coombe, to name but a few.
There’ll be some exclusive events to boot. An exhibition opening of a new film by Irish artist Duncan Campbell will take place at IMMA, and a conversation with Barbara Knezevic at the Temple Bar Gallery to name but two.
The Knezevic talk is one Booth is particularly looking forward to – not surprising given it’s taking place in her own gallery.
“I’m really looking forward to that, but all the tours really should be amazing,” she says.
Last year we picked up a lot of tourists as the weekend went on so we’ve got something special to build on.
The whole idea of the weekend was that we had no visual arts festival – we had time dedicated to architecture and the like but not our galleries.
Other cities around Europe don’t have the artistic infrastructure we have in Dublin. We have a really amazing thing going on here. It just needs to be promoted to show people what’s there.
“It’s great that this weekend is becoming cemented in people’s minds,” she says. “But at the end of the day this art is going on all the time and people just don’t know. We have to change that.”
Dublin Gallery Weekend runs from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 November. You can learn more about it here. A map of the gallery locations is available at locations across the city
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