The politics of art

The politics of post-independence Irish art: a brief history.

1924: Jack B Yeats wins a silver medal at the Paris Olympics for "The Liffey Swim". Back home, philistine politicians call for construction of 50m pool to ensure further success.

1925: The Free State Senate hears calls for the “monetisation of Irish art”. Unfortunately, the now 85-year-old Monet refuses to leave France.

1928: Irish art is monetised anyway, when a portrait of Lady Lavery, by her husband John, takes up residence on banknotes.

1932-33: Fine Gael’s “Blue Period”. Depressed by the prospect of a long period in opposition, Cumann na nGaedheal and its successor Fine Gael make a series of exhibitions of themselves in which blue is the predominant colour. The experiment ends in 1933, with the return to a broader palette.

Mid-1930s: The movement known as “Dadaism” is first identified in Ireland. In its narrowest sense, it means that if your “Dada” was in or around the GPO in 1916, you have a automatic entitlement to public office. The concept is later extended to include grandchildren, cousins, major creditors, hangers-on, etc.

1937: Eamon de Valera establishes the modern Seanad. Critics liken the new body to the Parisian “Salon des Refusés” – a place for displaying lesser works that, rejected by the main jury, might yet prove to be of merit, however unlikely it seems.

1948: A new political landscape is unveiled by the first inter-party government. Its predominantly blue, green, and red colours suggest a brighter future, but a more sombre brown (Noel), in the left of the picture, hints that all is not well. Sure enough, just over the horizon, the usual shower (Fianna Fáil) is gathering strength and will be back soon.

1956: A 10-year-old Ruairí Quinn wins the Texaco Children’s Art competition. His later work will include the Mary Robinson presidency, the Rainbow Coalition, and preliminary sketches for what became the Celtic Tiger.

1960: As the Lemass-Whitaker economic reforms begin to take effect, abstract artist Patrick Scott designs a new black-and-orange livery for CIÉ trains. The trains become a symbol of the modern Ireland. But back in opposition, again, a bitter Fine Gael predicts they still won’t run on time.

1983: Inspired by Sir John Lavery and Andy Warhol, unknown artists create a series of replica £5 notes at a warehouse in Dublin. Gardaí suspect one of the printers to be a member of the so-called “Workers Party” school of art, but he subsequently disappears. The notes are critically acclaimed. “Near perfect”, one garda calls them.

1991: Taoiseach Charles J Haughey opens the Irish Museum of Modern Art in the grounds of a 300-year-old former military hospital. Hearing the word “culture” in his speech, the ghosts of several thousand old soldiers reach for their revolvers.

1994: Michael D Higgins becomes the first minister for the arts. It will be his only ministerial job, setting a precedent whereby no future holder of the portfolio survives the experience to be in Cabinet again (cf McDaid, O'Donoghue, Brennan, Cullen, Hanafin, Deenihan, et al).

1997-2008: The performance art form known as “Abstract Expressionism” reaches new heights under Bertie Ahern. He makes endless speeches in the Dáil, apparently using conventional words and sentences, in roughly the right order. When the record is examined afterwards, however, meaning is always elusive.

2008: A giant bust is discovered in Leinster House. The sculptors prefer to remain anonymous. Shortly afterwards, another new political landscape is unveiled.

2011: Fine Gael and Labour promise that future appointments to State boards will be on a “pro-bono” basis. Several would-be appointees rule themselves out on the grounds that they can’t stand U2.

2014: A Government committed to transparency and the ending of croneyism appoints a junior party member to the board of Imma, arguing that his business background will make up for a lack of interest in art, although they don’t deny that the plan is to get him into the Seanad within weeks, via the culture panel, at which point he’ll be out of Imma like a shot off a shovel. The Minister for the Arts declines to elaborate, and the Minister for Health denies that the move is a “stroke”, which is true in the strict medical sense, at least.

2015: The “McNulty installation”, as it has become known, is Ireland’s entry for the Venice Biennale. It wins a special adjudicators’ award for its “wit, panache, and sheer, old-fashioned brass neck”.