Artist kicked out of workspace over City of Culture protest
Actor Kevin Kiely was vacated from his Creative Limerick workspace on Rutland St after he was told his sign — bearing the slogan “I Believe Karl Wallace” — was not in keeping with his contract.
The workspace is run by Limerick City Council, the sole shareholder of Limerick City of Culture.
Mr Wallace resigned from the City of Culture project at the start of the year, citing a breakdown in communication with chief executive Patricia Ryan. She quit last week.
When Mr Kiely returned to his workspace a few days ago, he found that a padlock on the door had been removed, as had the slogan.
“What has happened here is, I was sitting having a coffee and the people in the space next door, who were moving out, saw somebody breaking the lock of my front door, and then removing the sign, which was a piece of text that I created,” he told the Limerick Leader.
“I was due to leave today, I had my own lock on the door. I have made some personal choices during my tenure, because of the disagreement I have had with how the city run arts organisations. I am fully prepared to have Creative Limerick discuss what I did wrong, because I did it on purpose.”
Creative Limerick is a scheme managed by the planning department at the city council to revitalise vacant urban spaces.
Creative Limerick project worker Mhici Ní Mhurchu said she entered the building and removed the sign.
“I removed the lock, I removed the poster personally. It is mostly about the fact that he is at the end of his contract, but the poster itself was not in keeping with the contract he signed. And that was not really considered acceptable.”
She added: “Steps needed to be taken.”
A spokesperson for Limerick City Council said last night: “The council had given use of a (vacant) unit to Mr Kiely over the past few months. His lease had ceased.”
“The council had to enter the unit to tidy it up. The keys were not returned and that is why we had to break the lock, to make sure the electricity was switched off and that the unit was tidy.”
The spokesperson said that “there was no attempt” made to purposely remove the ‘I Believe Karl Wallace’ art piece. “It was removed only in the process of tidying up the unit. If it was an art piece he should have taken it with him when his lease was up.”
Earlier, Mr Kiely said that “the communication that I was getting from Creative Limerick was that the art I was doing wasn’t good enough”.
“I believe that what is wrong with creativity in this city is that it is perceived in a way that belittles the arts,” he added.
“Creative Limerick — above the person that was contacting me — were putting pressure on me to be here a lot, to give me time constraints.”
