Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (DLR) invites professional visual artists to apply for the Visual Art Commission.

 

If you are selected for this opportunity you will receive:

·     €12,000

 

Individual artists are invited to apply. We also invite applications from two artists who work together or two artists who would like to exhibit together. If two artists apply together, the €12,000 will be split between them. Group shows will not be considered for this opportunity.

 

Three exhibitions will be selected from this call out and will take place in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Exhibitions will be on show for eight to ten weeks, we will agree this with the selected artists. The dates for the 2024 exhibition are early-November to mid-January 2025; the dates for the 2025 exhibition are early-July to early-September; and for 2026 the dates are September and October.

We will only accept one application from each artist.

 

If you have any difficulty completing the online application or have an any access needs, please contact us by email arts@dlrcoco.ie or telephone (01) 236 27 59

We would like artists to create new work that examines and connects to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County. We welcome ideas that look at the geography, culture, or some of our communities in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County.

 

Artworks must be suitable for a general audience which includes children and young people. Please look at the Gallery Policy on our website for details about our programming priorities. If you have any questions about this, please email us at arts@dlrcoco.ie

·     Artist commission of €12,000*

·     Marketing material and PR (DLR Arts Office will take care of any print and online PR for your exhibition).

·     Professional art technicians to install your work

·     Exhibition Launch

·     The support of a curator if needed (to a maximum amount of €1,000 per commission).

·     Insurance of the artworks while in the Gallery. If an artwork is too fragile to be covered by our insurance, the artist may be asked to insure it or remove it from the exhibition.

 

·     The €12,000 is a VAT inclusive amount.

 

The number of artworks which will be included in the exhibition will be agreed between DLR Arts Office and the artist(s) before signing contracts. 

The Gallery Learning Programme is an important part of our programme. It gives people opportunities to view and experience art in different ways. Some examples of this include workshops, demonstrations, talks and screenings.

If you are selected for this opportunity, you must be happy to have your work mediated to the public. You may be asked to be involved in the Learning Programme up to a maximum of 10 hours. As an example, this could include taking part in a talk, giving one tour of your exhibition and/or a workshop. Payment for your time to take part in these events is included in the overall commission fee of €12,000.

Please be aware that your work will be viewed by members of the public who may not regularly go to Galleries. Our Gallery is in a public library, and we aim to make the work accessible to all that visit.

Artworks will be labelled; the description about your exhibition will be in Plain English on a large board and hung on the wall just inside the Gallery. This is to help make visitors’ experience of the Gallery as accessible as possible. Museum quality labels are used to label artworks in the Gallery. Artists will have the choice of 2 label sizes: 100 x 50mm / 100 x 150mm; text for the labels will be minimum 11-point sans serif font (simple modern font). 

 

We will hold two information meetings to give interested artists a chance to hear about the Gallery and what is needed for this application:

There will be an in-person gallery visit with staff on Tuesday 5 September at 6pm. Please contact us by email: arts@dlrcoco.ie or (01) 236 27 59 to book a place.

 

There will be an online information meeting on Monday 11 September at 11.30am

Please contact us by email: arts@dlrcoco.ie or (01) 236 27 59 to book a place

 

If you are unable to come to these meetings, you are welcome to visit the Gallery yourself at another time. The opening hours are:

 

·     Monday-Thursday:            10am - 8pm

·     Friday and Saturday:          10am - 5pm

·     Sunday:                               12 noon - 4pm

Applications may be shortlisted by DLR Arts Office. This will include an assessment of suitability and fit within the gallery programme. Shortlisted applications will be assessed by a panel which will include members of our team and individuals who have visual arts expertise. The decision of the selection panel will be final.

 

 

·     Suitability of your application to a gallery in a public library: (40/100)

Please think about who the visitors are to the Gallery in dlr LexIcon in your proposal. The audience for your exhibition will be a mixture of library visitors, local people, local arts community, tourists, and day visitors. The work submitted must be suitable for viewing by both adults and children. Part of this assessment of proposals will include looking at how your exhibition fits into the overall gallery programme. This may include looking at both the medium and themes of your work. Arts Office team members with specialist experience will assess the suitability and fit within the gallery programme.

 

·     Quality of your previous work (40/100)

 

·     Previous experience of delivering comparable exhibitions/ projects/commissions (20/100)

 

 

Gallery visit with DLR Arts Office:            Tuesday 5 September at 6pm

Online information meeting:                     Tuesday 11 September at 11.30am

Deadline for applications:                        Monday 25 September at 2pm

Successful applicants informed:             by mid-November 2023

Exhibitions:                                                  2024,2025 and 2026

 

 

The Freedom of Information Act 2014 applies to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. This Act gives people the right to request information held by public authorities and the right to have personal information held about them corrected or updated where the information is incomplete, incorrect, or misleading.

 

If you feel that any of the information you submit as part of your application is confidential or sensitive, you should let DLR Arts Office know. You must clearly state why you think the information is confidential or commercially sensitive, and why it should not be released as part of a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

 

 

Data protection laws mean that your personal data should generally only be stored where there is a lawful basis, such as your consent, or where there is a legal obligation. Any information you provide for this application will be held for one year from the date you submit it and will only remain in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office. We will only use the information you give in your application to administer and manage the Visual Art Commission, and selection process (this will include several external panel members who will read your application). You may withdraw your consent to the retention of the information relating to your application at any point by sending an email to arts@dlrcoco.ie

 

The pass mark required for the Visual Art Commission is 80%. If none of the proposals submitted reach the minimum marks required, we may decide to look at a different way to programme these exhibitions.

 

·     Artists who are living in, working in or originally from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County.

·     Artists who have studied visual art in the County. 

If you meet the above criteria, you may apply as:

·    An Individual artist

·    Two artists who work together or two artists that would like to exhibit together.

·     Artists who were awarded the DLR Visual Art Commission before.

·     Artists who were awarded a DLR Open Call exhibition must wait for five years before applying for a Visual Art Commission (for example: 2019-2024, 2020-2025, 2021-2026)

·     Group shows

 

If you have had an artwork included in the DLR Open Submission Exhibitions before you are able to apply for this opportunity. (For example, Arrival 2017, Utopia/Dystopia 2019, Order/Chaos 2023)

 

We welcome applicants who represent the diversity of Irish society. We encourage applications from all areas of the community regardless of your gender, sexual orientation, civil or family status, religion, age, disability, race or membership of the Traveller Community, or socio-economic background.