Is street art anti-social behaviour or has it been transformed into a vital and socially-engaged practice that reclaims our urban environment?
Silvia Loeffler considers the politics of visual expression
For 2012, the organizers of Dublin’s First Fortnight, an arts-based mental health awareness project that took place during the first two weeks of the year, commissioned a number of street artists to create pieces that challenge the prejudice, discrimination and social stigma that surrounds mental health issues. Among the featured works are an almost six-metre high sauce bottle stating Labelz are for Jars not for People (Fig 13) by ADW on Wellington Quay, Canvaz’s melancholic Ballerina lifted out of depression by a red balloon on Drury Street, and Maser’s simple statement on the corner of Grantham Street and Camden Street: U ARE ALIVE.
Muirne Lydon reveals the original brilliance of Murillo’s Prodigal Son as degraded varnish and old restorations are painstakingly removed from the 17th-century series at the National Gallery of Ireland
Using a selection of germane quotations Rolf Loeber recalls his mentor, the late Maurice Craig; their literary exchange taking the form of a tete-a-tete.
Cosmopolitan yet connected to local issues, Mervyn Wingfield, 7th Viscount Powerscourt played a prominent role in promoting Ireland’s cultural institutions at a pivotal time in their early history, writes Philip McEvansoneya