The Royal Hibernian Academy, with its complex and celebrated history, is a prominent part of the rich cultural tapestry of Dublin.
However, whilst the RHA has been the bastion of contemporary art in Ireland for two centuries, it risks no longer being the barometer.
Abigail O’Brien has been the President of the RHA since 2018, and is the first woman to hold the post. Not only did she break a 195-year period of male presidential hegemony at the Academy, but she has also taken noticeable action to drag the institution off a course bound for obsolescence.
The significant renovations to their current home on Ely Place were made less than two decades ago, and promised exciting change. However, what makes the RHA such a traditional and illustrious institution is also what impedes it from pioneering the innovative movements in contemporary art. The composition of the RHA membership means that to corrupting outside forces it is impenetrable; but by the same token, its ability to enact dynamic change is similar to an ocean liner’s capacity to make a sharp turn.
There are clear signs that the Academy is democratising under O’Brien’s leadership. However, some of its conservative traditions are deeply entrenched. A Royal Charter capped RHA membership at 30 Academicians until it was recently increased to 55 by a private bill passed in 2023.
Membership is for life, which means that a new member is only admitted when one passes. So, while the nature of the rules ensures the highest standards and a sense of exclusivity for its membership, it has inevitably led to a certain insularity of opinion and difficulty reflecting the cutting-edge and full diversity of contemporary art in Ireland.
For such an influential institution, it - like many of similar standing - remains an imperfect one. Its Annual Exhibition is a source as important and limiting for the visual arts in Ireland as the annals are for Irish medieval history.
The contents of the Annuals and the Irish annals are determined by the opinion of a small number of eminent people. Both, as a result, are the subject of much scepticism.
Inevitable biases effect the product of both, but, to their respective subjects, they are the most valuable records of change and continuity we have. It is noticeable when there are absent years. Often, the lack of records tell greater stories - such as the annals lost during the rebellion of 1641 or the Annual Exhibition destroyed by fire during the Easter Rising in 1916.
Importantly though, through famine, world wars, insurrection, independence, pandemic, prosperity and malaise, the RHA has endured.
Without the annals, our understanding of Irish medieval dynastic and monastic history would be appreciably poorer. However, historians’ reliance upon them means that we lack an appreciation for the greater, more democratic landscape of the Irish medieval period.
With that in mind, without the RHA Annual Exhibition, would our understanding of the visual arts in Ireland be appreciably poorer? Has the eminence and conventional nature of the institution distracted us from appreciating the true landscape of contemporary Irish art?
In medieval Ireland, the annals recorded the state of the times but posed no questions of - nor foretold - the future. Similarly, the Annuals have succeeded at capturing and commentating on the state of Ireland but have failed to forge the important conversations about the country’s future.
Notwithstanding its shortcomings, the RHA Annual Exhibition is important.
The Annual is the biggest open call art exhibition in Ireland and this year is the RHA’s 194th.
Not only does the Annual showcase the richness and diversity of contemporary visual art in Ireland, but it supports emerging artists, promotes art education, and allows us to discern the changing styles and character of Irish art over the last two centuries.
In the 1820s, the Academy declared that its motivation was two fold: ‘Annual exhibitions of members’ work and the conduct of a fine art school, as at the RA in London.’
Now, their public mission is less specific, but more ambitious and outward-looking: The Academy is devoted to ‘developing, affirming and challenging the public’s appreciation of traditional and innovative approaches to the visual arts.’ ‘Developing’ means reflecting the times as they move and ‘affirming’ means sustaining the traditional essence of Irish art. The Annuals have succeeded in these two missions. However, when compared to exhibitions around the world, the most applicable adjectives to describe this year’s Annual would neither be ‘challenging’ nor ‘innovative.’
Across the Irish Sea, this year’s RA Summer Exhibition has been described as a ‘gasping death-rattle of mediocrity, a miserable garden party of vapid good taste.’ By contrast, in 2018, the colourful contemporary artist Grayson Perry curated the exhibition with what a critic described as ‘impish pizazz.’ Since then, critics and audiences alike have grown tired of the uninspiring Summer Exhibitions at the RA. But it is clear that they are enthused when there is something interesting, challenging and even mischievous exhibited.
In Perry’s 2018 curation there was something dubious, something thought-provokingly anti-conventional. For example, Olga Lomaka’s elongated fibreglass sculpture of the Pink Panther was flanked by a portrait of controversial politician Nigel Farage by David Griffith. There were also a number of interactive and multi-sensory works such as Tim Lewis’ mechanical chopsticks and Michael Landy’s shouting shopping trolley piece, Closing Down Sale.
Challenging and innovative in a very different way, Alfredo Jaar’s The Rwanda Project at the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town employed an inventive use of multimedia to produce soberingly profound works on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The Silence of Nduwayezu, which uses a million slides of an orphaned child’s eyes on a light table with magnifiers and illuminated wall text, is an exceptional example of contemporary art facilitating people’s understanding of something previously unfathomable.
More recently, Refik Anadol’s Unsupervised at MoMA in New York has embraced artificial intelligence and data visualisation to create an immersive multi-media experience. As Europe’s tech hub, you might hope that the output of Ireland’s visual artists would reflect that and Ireland’s leading galleries would encourage it.
It is up to the RHA to encourage artists to push the boundaries, be mischievous, and perhaps question some of their long-standing rules for submission. After all, if convention had been questioned earlier, perhaps it would not have taken 195 years for a woman to become the president.
Despite some criticism, the Annuals are gloriously meritocratic. Naturally, the selection process is subjective, but every work is seen in isolation with no biographical or descriptive information, which means entry to the exhibition is not impeded by the age, experience, or background of the artist.
A recent progressive move from the Academy is that, for the first time, members’ work will be exhibited throughout the galleries, and not just upstairs in the Charles Gallagher Gallery.
Artists who are chosen have an unparalleled opportunity to exhibit their work to tens of thousands of people.
O’Brien has previously told the story that she had a work selected when she was at art college in Dún Laoghaire in a year when some of her tutors did not. The Annuals offer a unique opportunity for student artists and those who are previously unknown to gain invaluable exposure next to the biggest names in Irish visual arts, which now includes O’Brien herself.
However, for the majority of artists who apply each year, they do not get that opportunity.
Of the 5,313 works submitted in 2024, 4798 (or 90%) were rejected. For the 515 that made the cut, having their work selected for the RHA Annual Exhibition is a mark of prestige and recognition. In London, the RA has had to cap the number of submissions at 16,500. There, an even smaller percentage of applicants’ works are accepted.
Having such a competitive admission process must be dispiriting for those artists who do not have their works selected over a period of time, but it does reinforce the eminence and value of being admitted.
Although the RHA is devoted to supporting Irish visual artists, it does not owe any artist inclusion for inclusion’s sake. Inclusion and social access in arts education is crucial, but when it comes to exhibiting the best of the visual arts in Ireland, no artist is owed compassion.
Whenever there is subjective adjudication, there will be suspicion and disapproval. Some artists question the selection process: the composition of the selection committee; the number of members’ work selected; the commercial impulse; the lack of transparency; and the absence of feedback. But are these grievances towards the juried RHA Annual Exhibition justified or cynical?
Limerick-based artist Brian O’Rourke said about his work being rejected for the Annual in 2019: “The human in me is a bit disappointed, but the artist in me doesn’t give a s***.” The RHA Director, Patrick Murphy emphasises that in the Annual “there’s more rejection than there is acceptance, which is what being an artist is.” What the Annuals show is that as much as artists seek approval and notoriety, rejection is crucial for building their robust sense of self.
Being composed exclusively of Academicians means that the power of the selection committee lies in the hands of eminent professional artists, but it does explain why to some critics the Annuals are not known as harbingers of the cutting-edge.
The Annuals successfully monitor the pulse of the visual arts in Ireland but they rarely get the heart racing or penetrate the public discourse, like contemporary art can and should.
The RHA Annual Exhibitions are fine as they are. They serve Irish artists and art enthusiasts well. But if they wish to inspire the next generation to use art as a means of making statements, starting conversations, and questioning the future, they need to adapt.
Much like the Irish annals, the RHA Annual Exhibition is a valuable record of what has happened, not a commentary on what might happen next.
While the 194th Annual wonderfully reflects contemporary Ireland, it falls short of capturing the dynamism and dilemmas of modern Ireland. It has not yet fully embraced the more challenging and innovative approaches to contemporary art.
However, the Annuals are an invaluable historical source that tell the story of the complex and often tumultuous journey of the Irish visual arts from the early nineteenth-century to the present.
After all, there is little importance to where you are if you do not know where you have come from.
As the great Celtic dynasties have been eternalised by the annals, great artistic movements have been chronicled by the Annuals. We know of the triumphs of high-kings as we know of the genius of great Irish artists because we have sources, albeit with some flaws, that link us to our history by telling us where we are and showing us from whence we came.
Cover art is Clare Langan, ‘Cocoon’ | 194th RHA Annual Exhibition.
Representation of the United Arts Club
Brian Gallagher and Marie-Louise Martin are two of several members of the United Arts Club who had works accepted into this years exhibition.
Marie-Louise Martin’s drypoint print, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight XIII,’ was selected for this year’s exhibition. Of the Annuals she said: “They are a wonderful showcase for what artists are currently producing in Ireland. It’s always a nail-biting few weeks waiting for the first and, hopefully second round results, especially as there are an increasing number of entries.”
Martin gives the Annuals a special value given that “many other open submission exhibitions like the Living Art and an t’Oireachtas have disappeared over the years, so the opportunities to exhibit are few and far between.”
View Marie-Louise's work online here.
Former Committee member and art convenor Brian Gallagher said of being accepted into this year’s Annual Exhibition: “Getting works accepted in to the big annual exhibitions such as the RHA is always a boost and it is great to see my own art beside my contemporaries.” Gallagher’s is a scraperboard piece called ‘Copse.’
View Brian's work online here.
The RHA Annual Exhibition at 15 Ely Place opened on 20 May and ran until 4 August 2024.
