The Model – The Model, Sligo.

Sligo International Chamber Music Festival 2022 returns to The Model, Sligo and St Columba’s Church, Drumcliffe

The Model, Sligo. — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 13:10:39 +0000

www.sligointernationalchambermusicfestival.com

Sligo County Council is delighted to announce the return of Sligo International Chamber Music Festival in the wonderful settings of St Columba's Church Drumcliffe and The Model, Sligo. Alongside the Vogler Quartet, the Festival programme will include performances from some of the finest Irish and international musicians including Fionnuala Moynihan (piano), Vashti Hunter (cello), Finghan Collins (piano), Jonian Ilias Kadesha (violin), Dermot Dunne (accordion), Noam Greenberg (piano), Malachy Robinson (double bass) and actor Phelim Drew.

Once again, the Festival presents a rich palette of music spanning the classical, romantic, modern and contemporary periods featuring composers Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy, Rhona Clarke, Dvořák, Janacek and newly commissioned works by Irish composers Judith Ring, for Dermot Dunne, Deirdre Gribbin for Malachy Robinson and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly for Fionnuala Moynihan.

The Festival is delighted to have commissioned, in 2020, three new Irish works, from three Irish composers and for three Irish performers. Taking pride in the long-term policy of the Festival to support local composers, we are particularly grateful for the opportunity to champion Irish composers and musicians during the difficulties caused by the Covi-a9 pandemic. Indeed, whilst working closely with the Contemporary Music Centre, the Festival has commissioned fourteen new works since the inaugural festival in 2000.

Taking place this May Bank Holiday weekend from Saturday April 30th to Monday May 2nd 2022 Sligo International Chamber Music Festival continues to be one of Ireland's leading chamber music events.

As producers of the festival, Sligo County Council Arts Service acknowledges our association with key stakeholders since the festival was established in 2000: Vogler Quartet, Arts Council of Ireland, Contemporary Music Centre, RTE, Artscope Ltd, Drumcliffe Vestry & Drumcliffe Tea House, and our recent partner venue The Model, home of the Niland collection.

The Model to be designated a Museum

The Model, Sligo. — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 13:06:46 +0000

Gallery selected to join Heritage Council of Ireland Museum Standards Programme

The Model is delighted to announce its selection to join the Museum Standards Programme for Ireland (MSPI). This prestigious programme was established by The Heritage Council to benchmark and promote professional standards in the care of collections within the Irish museum sector. Selection under the MSPI is seen as a major accolade in the sector.

The programme is the gold standard for Irish museums and a huge commitment on behalf of the participants. Successful applicants must meet 37 standards before they can be awarded full accreditation. This can take anywhere between three and five years to complete. Factors taken into account include how museums care for their collections and visitors, as well as governance and management standards, and their education and exhibition programmes..

Speaking about the announcement, Director of The Model, Emer McGarry said “when Nora Niland established the collection in 1959, her vision was to found a world standard art collection for County Sligo anchored by the works of Jack Butler Yeats. Working with the Heritage Council, we will bring all our activities in line with international museum standards to create a suitable home for this unique and wonderful body of work.”

The Niland Collection, which belongs to the people of Sligo, is one of the most notable regional art collections in Ireland. It features one of the largest public holdings of work by Jack Butler Yeats in existence. It a strong focus on the works of 20^th century Irish artists. The collection includes a broad range of both traditional and contemporary works by artists including Norah McGuinness, Dorothy Cross, Alice Maher, Clodagh Emoe, Eamon O’Kane, Sean McSweeney, Estella Solomons, Paul Henry and Sean Keating amongst many others. The collection can be enjoyed as part of The Model’s exhibition programme and through recently published 2^nd edition Niland Collection hard back book.

Visitor numbers have been on an upward trend and The Model looks forward to announcing an exciting programme for Spring/Summer 2022.

John B. Yeats 100th Anniversary

The Model, Sligo. — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 11:18:14 +0000

John B. Yeats (JBY) died on 3 February 1922 while living at his studio and apartment in New York. In honour of his life and anniversary, The Model has curated an exhibition of the artist’s pencil sketches and oil paintings. JBY was a renowned artist and the father of four remarkably talented children. Though he began his career in law, JBY found his passion in painting, and soon devoted himself full-time to his craft. He considered this painting, ‘Self-Portrait, New York’ to be his personal masterpiece, and it reveals an interesting story about the artist and the autumn of his life.

John B. Yeats (1839-1922). Self Portrait, New York, 1911-22, oil on canvas 152.5×101.5cm. On loan from a private collector.

At the age of 68, JBY joined his daughter Lily on a trip to New York where she was exhibiting her work. They arrived on 29 December 1907 and stayed initially with a wealthy Irish-American friend John Quinn. Quinn was a successful lawyer and an avid patron of the arts who built an impressive collection, some of which was later donated to The Niland Collection.

JBY became truly enamoured with New York City, so much so that he refused to return home to Dublin with Lily, instead choosing to live out the rest of his life in NYC. In a letter to his daughter Lolly, he wrote, ‘I am convinced that fortune awaits me here,’ and in the fourteen years that followed, John remained an enthusiastic resident of NY, though fortune sadly eluded him.

In order to support JBY with an income, Quinn commissioned this self-portrait in early 1911. The painting was to become a work-in-progress that occupied the artist until his death in 1922. In 1919 JBY wrote to John Quinn: ‘It is like watching a blessed ghost of a long lost beloved slowly materialising. I think of nothing else and I dream of it’. JBY depicts himself in the act of painting while situated in the small bedroom that also served as his studio. JBY had found a greater expressionistic manner in New York, his style became looser and his application of colour took on a more dynamic energy. Yeats’ obsession with the portrait is indicated by its heavily worked surface and its multiple layers of densely applied paint. For JBY, the painting was the fulfilment of his artistic career.

#yeats #irishart #johnbutleryeats #yeatssociety #thenilandcollection #ireland #selfportrait

Guest Blog – Andy Parsons

The Model, Sligo. — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:38:50 +0000

Looking back at the exhibition now that it has finished I am struck by the intensity of the emotional responses it has created. Many people I talked to about the exhibition were keen to share their own personal stories. The stories were sometimes about the minutiae of being in a hospital, and sometimes stories filled with struggle and sadness. The universality of the subject has meant that the exhibition has far reaching appeal attracting a broad audience.

I think the works were also able to connect with people because they combine observation with memory. In a short essay on Rembrandt’s late self-portraits “A Cloth Over the Mirror’* the writer John Berger talks about the process of looking and recording appearances. Berger imagines Rembrandt faithfully painting his own reflection from a mirror until he reaches a point where – in order to get at the truth – he needs to turn away from appearances and somehow conjure an image which depicts his interior emotional life.

I’m no Rembrandt! But I have followed a similar path in making the paintings and sculptures for ‘Patience’.

After the first 6 months of the residency at Sligo University Hospital, I had to change my working pattern. The restrictions caused by the pandemic meant that I was no longer able to draw in the hospital itself and had to rely on my initial drawings and crucially, on my memories. The process also became very personal, my son had been a patient at the hospital for a long period of time and the hospital had very strong memories for me, which over time fused with the observations I had made in situ.

From the start of this process I was very aware of the responsibility of telling stories from the hospital. It is a place we all know, and we all have good and bad memories associated with it. Our fragility as humans and our reliance on science, medicine and the care of dedicated health workers were at the front of my mind while creating the works.

At the same time, in trying to create images and objects that were true to my own experience of hospital life, I tried to capture glimpses of things rather than panoramic vistas or photographic tableaux.

In finding a way of responding to the subject of hospital life I was guided by weekly conversations with Dr. Richard Davey. These conversations led to Richard’s powerful and insightful texts on the website that accompanied the exhibition www.patience.ie

Richard’s critical response to the work helped me explore the empathetic, humanist basis of my thinking much more clearly. At the same time it gave me the confidence to move decisively away from a documentary approach to something that is less realistic, and at the same to closer to reality.

After spending 2 intense years on the residency and exhibition, I have been lucky to meet and work with some amazing people. Accessibility has been a theme of the residency, and the video walk-through Paul Cabena and Daniel MacDonald have created is in keeping with the ethos of the project, allowing people to enjoy the show without physically visiting the gallery.

*“A Cloth Over the Mirror’, is Chapter 12 of ‘The Shape of a Pocket’, by John Berger, published by Bloomsbury, 2002.

The magic of The Toy Theatre as it pops up in schools throughout Sligo

The Model, Sligo. — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 09:45:00 +0000

Once again, The Niland Collection pops up in primary schools throughout Sligo in the form of miniature toy theatres created by primary school children in their classrooms. The inspiration came from Jack B Yeats’ much loved painting The Toy Theatre and the project was developed by The Model in collaboration with Branar Téatar do Pháistí, Ireland’s most famous children’s theatre company. We have been able to work directly with schools through online digital workshops on how to make a toy theatre and bring it to life through performance.

We caught up with some of the schools to see how they were getting on.

Participating schools are Taunagh NS, St. Joseph’s Templeboy, Scoil Bride Carns, Gaelscoil Chnoc na Re, Gaelscoil Chluainin, Killglass NS, St. Michael’s Cloonacool, Scoil Ursula, St. Edward’s, Ardkeeran NS, Corballa NS, Coolbock NS, Sudbury School, Culfadda NS, Owenbeg NS and Kilavil NS.

If your school would like to be part of this project, contact education@themodel.ie

Sligo’s SPILT MILK Festival announces acts and schedule for November return

The Model, Sligo. — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 09:41:05 +0000

Spilt Milk makes its return to Sligo for its third edition from 18th – 21st November, 2021. A year on from its online event Transmission last November, organisers are delighted to announce the festival will return as an in-person series of live shows, installations, film screenings and workshops across four days and nights.

As with previous installments, Spilt Milk have once again delivered an eclectic, carefully-curated bill that reflects the scope of forward-pushing music and art in Ireland today.

As part of the festival line-up The Model will be taken over by a stellar, palette-spanning bill on Friday 19th November. Headlined by Cork DJ, producer, Syn, the show will also feature fast-rising Dublin DJ, producer, and founder of collective/club night Lepton, Ngoni Egan, Donegal experimental electronic auteur Aengus Friel aka Shammen Delly, School Tour wielding cold casio wave from Mt. Errigal., and Sligo-based Warmer Climes the latest synth-noise incarnation of Taf Hassam.

Saturday’s headline show at The Model is another gem. Following Patty & Selma, and Dublin multi-disciplinary artist & musician Mary Keane aka Cormorant Tree Oh, Dublin five-piece Silverbacks top the bill. Taking in new material and tracks from their Choice Prize-nominated debut LP, Fad, it’s sure to be a typically blistering set from the band.

Newly formed Poor Creature, a project from Ruth Clinton (Landless) and Cormac MacDiarmada (Lankum) along with Dublin experimental folk artist Branwen take over The Model on Sunday afternoon, bringing the music programme to a close.

“Spilt Milk is about coming together to enjoy adventurous music and art in the comfortable surroundings of a small town,” said Spilt Milk festival co-founder Edel Doherty in a statement. “We’re excited to finally get back to in-person events and are looking forward to welcoming and seeing both familiar and new faces in Sligo this November.”

“Our music line-up features young, compelling and forward-thinking names in Ireland’s rich and varied music scenes,” Doherty continued. “We’re proud to programme with inclusivity and diversity at our core which we heartily believe will lead to deeper and broader shared cultural experiences.”

Tickets are on sale here and some are free. Each concert is ticketed separately. Attendees will be required to show proof of immunity (EU Digital Vaccine Cert or Certificate of Recovery from COVID-19 within the previous 6 months). See below for a full breakdown of the festival programme.