Guest – Art at Newbridge House

Fingal County Council’s Arts Office is delighted to announce a new exhibition programme which has been developed in partnership with Newbridge House, titled Guest.

Adding to the tour experience of the house, Guest will invite contemporary art curators to engage with its collections through a new exhibition format which aims to show the visitor new ways to think about what is collected here and the place of the art and artists of today within its cultural history.

For the inaugural Guest  exhibition at Newbridge House Marysia Wieckiewicz Carroll has curated the appropriately titled New Considerations of Familiar Settings, featuring 11 female and gender minority artists including Niamh McCann, Niamh O’Malley, Katie Watchorn, Ella de Burca, Eithne Jordan, Barbara Knezevic, Helen O’Leary, Liliane Puthod, Alice Rekab with Louise Meade & Emma Wolf Haugh whose work will be located throughout the house and brought to life in conversation with the expert Newbridge House guide team.

Mayor of Fingal Councillor David Healy had an introduction to the exhibition at the house with Collections Curator, Cathal Dowd Smith and exhibition curator Marysia Wieckiewicz Carroll  and commented:  “Fingal is very proud of its heritage properties and any opportunity to promote and celebrate them as destinations to new visitors is welcomed and encouraged by Fingal County Council. Local communities who regularly frequent the Newbridge House grounds will also have new reasons and opportunities to visit the house which preserve the significance of the collections here for future generations”.

Emer O’Gorman Director of Services of the Economic, Enterprise, Tourism and Cultural Development commented : “Initiatives like  Guest and the introduction of new art and artists to Newbridge House allow us to celebrate and promote this beautiful heritage property not only for new visitors to the county but for local audiences who may be inspired to plan repeated visits with families and friends through this exciting engagement experience.”

Public Art Co-ordinator Caroline Cowley explains: “Our first Guest curator, Marysia Wieckiewicz Carroll, works as part of the team at The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and is the founding director of Berlin Opticians Gallery where she represents a number of key Irish artists. Her experience of both historical and contemporary art practices and their potential to spark new conversations about collections makes her an exceptional first choice”.

Marysia has reflected on the importance of Lady Betty Cobbe on the house, an avid collector of the objects, paintings and sculptures that have given Newbridge House its unique beauty.What we learn from  Lady’s Betty’s aesthetic was her relationship to the range of Irish and particularly Dublin artisans and craftspeople who delivered for her on commissions of wallpaper, plasterwork, fabrics and her connections to the  international trade of the time from where she procured china and the full range of decorative arts in her role as a homemaker , the cultural impact of which  cannot be underestimated today. The exhibition New Considerations of Familiar Settings presents new narratives about the role of women in society and the value art has in making new connections between the present and the past.

Guest at Newbridge House – New Considerations of Familiar Settings, Curated by Marysia Wieckiewicz Carroll, and featuring Niamh O’Malley, Katie Watchorn, Ella de Burca, Eithne Jordan,Barbara Knezevic, Niamh McCann, Helen O’Leary, Liliane Puthod, Alice Rekab with Louise Meade & Emma Wolf Haugh will run from 4th of June – 19th September 2021. Entry is included in ticket price to Newbridge House and Farm.

Images:

Image: Mayor of Fingal, Councillor David Healy, Curator Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll, Cathal Dowd Smith, Collections Curator at Newbridge House, Caroline Cowley Public Art Co-ordinator Fingal County Council’s Arts Office.

Guest at Newbridge House – New Considerations of Familiar Settings Curator Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll, with work by Alice Rekab,Family Bodies,2020,steel, wood, plasticine & digital print at the Sculpture Hall, Newbridge House

Notes

Guest will run annually with curators invited by the Fingal County Council’s Arts Office in Partnership with the Collections Curator at the house.

Featured Artist Niamh O’Malley will represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale 2022

A work by artist Niamh McCann, Not Tycho’s but Collin’s Nose is a bronze cast of Michael Collins taken from a sculpture bust located at The Hugh Lane Gallery by sculptor Seamus Murphy ( 1949)

Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll is an independent curator and art writer. She has organised a number of exhibitions and projects in Ireland and abroad, including Sleepwalkers. Production as Process at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, Otherwise – as part of Alternativa Art Festival at the Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, Poland and ∞ (Broken Mirrors) at NCAD Gallery, Dublin, Ireland. She worked as Assistant Curator at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and was one of the co-editors of Paper Visual Art Journal between 2014-2018. Marysia is the founding director of the Berlin Opticians Gallery – Dublin’s contemporary art gallery that operates both online and in physical spaces (www.berlinopticiansdublin.com). Together with Nathan O'Donnell she co-edits Numbered Editions - a new imprint for artists’ writing across forms, supported by the Arts Council Literature Project Award. Marysia is a recipient of the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary Award.