Irish artists score major success at Venice Biennale

Visitors to the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale have exceeded all expectations with over 40,000 people attending the exhibition since it opened in June 2009.  The number of visitors to see the exhibition of work by Sarah Browne and Gareth Kennedy, the artists selected to represent Ireland at Venice, has almost doubled since the last Biennale in 2007 with over 1,000 attending each week.

Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland, the national agency for promoting Irish arts worldwide, in partnership with the Arts Council.

Confirmation of the exceptional visitor numbers to the Irish Pavilion coincided with breaking news that the Kennedy Browne piece Milton Friedman on the Wonder of the Free Market Pencil has been purchased for the collection of the prestigious Kadist Foundation in Paris. The piece will join a collection, which also features work by Willie Doherty, Tacita Dean, Simon Starling, Christian Jankowski, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Douglas Gordon, Gabriel Orozco, Omer Fast and a host of the world’s leading contemporary artists of the last 10 years.

This is the second piece to be purchased from the exhibition following the purchase of Sarah Browne’s Carpet for the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, a commissioned bespoke hand-knotted carpet from Donegal Carpets, by Kildare County Council.

Speaking on behalf of Culture Ireland, Eugene Downes (CEO) commented: "We are delighted with the significant increase this year in visitor numbers to Ireland's Pavilion in the uniquely competitive context of the Venice Biennale - it's a testament both to the strong international interest in Sarah and Gareth's exhibition and to the hard work of Commissioner Caoimhin Corrigan and his team."

The artists have received several invitations and commissions from international galleries to present and develop new work.  Sarah Browne has been invited to make a new work for The Daimler Art Collection in Berlin, a collection boasting works by Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol amongst others.  She is also in discussion with the acclaimed Ikon Gallery in Birmingham in relation to her first solo show in the UK. The Ikon Gallery focuses exclusively on the presentation of solo exhibitions, including recent exhibitions by Richard Deacon, Cornelia Parker and Giuseppe Penone.

The artists have also been invited to show the Venice Biennale work as part of a major exhibition "Labour Worlds at the Age of Capital Collapse" alongside artists such as Francis Alÿs and Santiago Sierra at the Kunsthalle in Talinn, Estonia in December this year.

Speaking on the importance of Irish representation at the Venice Biennale, Commissioner Caoimhín Corrigan said: “This is the only exhibition on this scale at which Ireland as a nation can absolutely guarantee that it is represented and while much of the benefit will be seen in the coming 12 – 18 months, the opportunities already generated in Estonia, France, Germany and the UK, demonstrate the value of continuing our involvement. It is vital for Ireland to build on the track record we have established through our on-going participation at the Venice Biennal, and the success of the 2009 Irish Pavilion further consolidates Ireland’s reputation as a world leader in creativity”.

Irish audiences will have an opportunity to see the work of Sarah Browne and Gareth Kennedy when the Ireland Venice exhibition returns to the galleries at Farmleigh and NCAD in the spring of 2010, before travelling to Golden Thread in Belfast.  The Kennedy Browne project will also be exhibited at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris in Summer of 2010.