Keeper of the collection
Rainbird has come from a directorial role in Staats galerie in Stuttgart, where he oversaw a large-scale building and fundraising project. He has previously worked as a curator of modern and contemporary art at the Tate Gallery in Britain.
The National Gallery of Ireland manages and houses the country’s collection of European and Irish fine art. There are 14,500 works in the collection, which dates from the early Renaissance to the 1950s.
“We’re doing a lot of work behind the backstage, if you like,” says Rainbird, “looking at how the staff are structured and how that will help with corporate planning, corporate strategy. Once you’ve got the higher ideals and aspirations; what does it actually mean on the ground?
“When we finish the refurbishment there will still be areas we will need to work on. We don’t have an education place within the body of the galleries where the education staff can do their public events and their educational activities. If you’re talking about 70,000 people being served every year, it really helps to have dedicated spaces instead of them having to look for whatever is available.
“Back of house, if we have different levels and all the different circulation routes; if you’re a visitor getting lost and getting footsore and getting frustrated, imagine what it must be like for the art handlers moving paintings around. The longer term ambition that we have is to develop the institution, make these issues simplified and clarified and much easier to work with for visitors.
“That aside, re-hanging the collections is going to be something we will be working on as well as expanding on our digital presence.”
While moving collections from the gallery spaces currently undergoing refurbishment, the curators have had a chance to cast an eye over a great deal of work. This has been a great stocktaking opportunity, helping to re-catalogue the collections and inspire new groupings of work for future exhibitions, as well as the possibility of touring work nationwide.
“I think everyone accepts that we need to show some parts of the collection during the period of refurbishment,” says Rainbird. “It’s unlikely that the Vermeer is going to be travelling — however, I don’t see why not. I think it breathes co-operation into the relationships we have with our fellow museum directors and gallery directors, whether they’re municipal or national, big or small, capital city or a regional centre.
“You have to make sure the security is fine, and the climate control is fine, and that isn’t to be found everywhere. I see it as a possibility for us to show parts of the collection which are on the internet perhaps but are not necessarily on the gallery walls.”
Rainbird is concerned with the gap in the National Collection in terms of contemporary works. The National Gallery is not known for showing contemporary artists, a fact that last year’s Dublin Contemporary festival played on, programming street art in the venue, which included graffiti sprayed directly on the walls.
“Every museum has its particular points and so far our acquisition strategy generally leaves a gap between art being made now and art that enters the collection as an acquisition,” says Rainbird.
“There are one or two exceptions, like in the portraiture collection, for instance, as there are more recent portraits that are being commissioned and that are in the collection. With Irish art for various almost accidental reasons, sometimes art of the more recent past is coming by bequest or gift so the rules aren’t so hard and fast. But generally there is a bit of a gap.
“My feeling is that we could become a little bit more contemporary, but that’s a discussion between the curators and the board. Be that as it may, I think we are an institution smack in the middle of Dublin which is a very lively capital city of a very lively country which is actually quite a young country.”
One of the many ideas bouncing around in its early stages is that of inviting artists in to make selections from the collections.
“It should absolutely be part of the way that we look at culture being formed as it is today by artists. Quite when and how we do it is a question. There are very few areas at the moment which are accessible. If we were to invite an artist to make their selection of the collection or take a room and perhaps mix their work with the works of the collection of whatever it might be, and I don’t want to prescribe anything, that would be a bit of a difficult call at the moment.”
Rainbird has entered the Irish art scene at a critical time, when the directors of the NGI, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Crawford Art Gallery have been asked to analyse and debate an amalgamation of the three institutions. “I don’t support it or not support it,” says Rainbird, “but there’s an imperative to look at it coming from the department on an official level.
“It strikes all of us directors that if there’s a sensible discussion to be had we should have it. And if there are positive constructive results that might benefit the organisations then we should look at that. We’re very well aware that although savings have been called for, quite often you need to invest to create savings. Quite often savings are extremely difficult to quantify, certainly at the beginning of a discussion and the beginning of a process. Quite often it’s a matter of moving resources, money and people from one area to another depending on how the co-operation happens.
“You have to get down into real fact finding before you can look at what actually might be changed or indeed improved by working together. We’re all organisations, we’ve all got strong identities, we’re all very proud. Some of us have got longer history than others but pride doesn’t need a long history. That is the process we are engaged with at the moment.”
* www.nationalgallery.ie
