Trinity Visual Arts Society (Vis Arts) has recovered the decades-old artwork taken from Temple Bar Gallery and Studios during its end-of-year showcase, bringing to an end the threat of Garda involvement and an episode that the society says was handled “extremely unprofessionally” by the gallery.
The artwork, a poster belonging to a collection created in the 1970s and 1980s, was taken last night during Vis Arts’s end-of-year exhibition. The exhibition was held in the gallery.
In an email statement to The University Times, Aisling Clark, the Chair of Vis Arts, said the poster had been recovered after online efforts made by the society.
Clark said she had received a call from a staff member of the gallery at 1.30am on Saturday, demanding that Clark personally return the poster “and that the Gardaí would be involved if not”. The staff member then hung up, she said.
The venue had no CCTV or security, Clark added, and the posters were “stuck at such a level that they could easily be taken down”.
She said Vis Arts “paid a large sum of money for the hire”.
“It’s hugely disappointing that a poster was stolen during the exhibition, but Temple Bar Gallery dealt with the situation extremely unprofessionally”, she said.
Temple Bar Gallery and Studios did not reply to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Earlier, in a statement on Facebook, Vis Arts said that “losing a poster from this collection, which forms a part of Ireland’s cultural and artistic history, is genuinely a tragedy”.
“If you have the poster or know who does, please tell us”, the statement said.
The original artists, Robert Armstrong and Joe Hanly used a method called screenprint to create the poster. This art is not replicable, the statement said, because “the screens used to create the poster are no longer in existence”.
The poster was on display in the studio’s entrance gallery.
Vis Arts’s end-of-year exhibition began at 7.30pm yesterday. Admission was free and the showcase included live music from Ellie O’Neill and Maija Sofia, as well as a DJ set from Sweet Philly.
Artwork from the exhibition was displayed over the three floors of the gallery’s atrium.
Trinity Visual Arts Society has used Temple Bar Gallery and Studios for its end-of-year showcase for the last three years.
