Homeland Art

There is a proposal in the pipeline to merge the three main State galleries in a cost cutting exercise. The three main State galleries are: The National Gallery, The Irish Museum of Modern Art (I.M.M.A.), and the Crawford Gallery, in Cork.

Correspondence from the Department of Arts disclosed that as a result of the “brainstorming exercise” to amalgamate government departments. State art galleries are on the list.

Officials in the Department of Arts said that the proposal still has to be looked at in detail and that nothing has been decided.

Crawford Gallery director, Peter Murray doubted if there would be any economical advantage for the merger as members of the board are not paid for their services. He did say that the galleries could work together in other ways such as combining bargaining power when advertising or when launching campaigns.

The directors of Irish museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery are away and were not available for comment. 

If I was a director of a museum and there were rumblings that “my” museum was going to be merged with two others, I don’t care if I was on holidays on Mars, I would make sure to send some sort of comment supporting the case that there was no need for a merger instead people writing “not available for comment”.

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