Brian McAvera considers the leap from all to gallery as a new generation of artists like Conor Harrington successfully negotiate both arenas
Is graffiti art a ‘good thing’? What’s the difference between a Diego Rivera, or any of the Mexican muralists of the 1920s who painted large outdoor murals on social and political themes ( usually in an effort to unify the country) and the contemporary tradition of street art, typified perhaps by Banksy? You can see such work around the globe, in the poorer districts of New York or Paris or Berlin or London. On the one hand you have the actual graffiti scribblers, limited in talent and rarely able to spell, who disfigure railway embankments, the edges of factories, and motorway flyovers. On the other hand you have a growing band of urban painters who have technique and often a degree of talent who are frequently used as a kind of camouflage in the upwardly mobile journey of a given area. Much of this work is, of necessity, ephemeral. It covers the cracks en route to urban regeneration, it is of the moment, and thanks to the internet (to sites like Instagram, and the growing armies of bloggers) it attracts consi9erable publicity.
In his assessment of Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners’ award-winning Student Centre at UCD Seán ó Laoire charts the evolution of Ireland’s largest campus since its foundation
Carissa Farrell reports on sculptor and multi-media artist Andrew Kearney’s new installation ‘Tell Me Something’ for Limerick City of Culture, which continues Kearney’s focus on the policing of the private individual
Without decisive action, our glass heritage will once again be lost, argues Eleanor Flegg, as Róisín de Buitléar’s exhibition’Caution! Fragile’ receives an enthusiastic reception Stateside