Declan McGonagle

Early life

McGonagle was born in Derry in 1953 and attended St Columb's College in Derry. He studied Fine Art at the College of Art and Design in Belfast (1971-1975), where he also completed a Postgraduate Higher Diploma in Painting in 1976. In the mid seventies and early eighties he worked as a painter and a lecturer of Art and Design at the Regional Technical College, Letterkenny, County Donegal before he took up the post of director at the newly established Orchard Gallery in County Londonderry.

1978-1990 (Orchard and ICA London)

Derry City Council was responsible for setting up the Orchard Gallery on Orchard Street in the city of Derry and advertised for a curator in the late seventies. McGonagle was appointed to the post in 1978 and remained there until 1984. He gave up painting a year after he joined the Orchard. "Though not purpose-built, the gallery was the first physical space in the city to be professionally devoted to the arts. The Orchard established itself on a minimal budget, and McGonagle found that international artists were attracted by the concept of addressing the issues of communities in conflict. In his first prominent role as a curator, McGonagle saw the gallery as “a facilitator for things to happen”. Here, he advocated community involvement and brought in challenging international exhibitions. People came to the Orchard for seminars, book fairs, punk rock sessions, performing arts, audio art, and photographic exhibitions. In the early days of the gallery, Feargal Sharkey and The Undertones played there regularly. Notable exhibitions during McGonagle’s tenure include Richard Long, Les Levine, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Derry Guildhall, Colin Harrison, Derek Hill, Felim Egan, and Robert Ballagh. The director said of the gallery: “[i]t is okay to have a small audience for some things, as long as I feel I have done everything I can do to get the audience... When I am presenting an exhibition I am not celebrating it, I am saying to people- ‘here it is’.”

In 1983, he was approached by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He accepted the role of exhibitions director there while keeping close contact and transferring exhibitions to the Orchard (before finally returning to Derry in 1986 to continue running the gallery for another four years). In 1987 he became the first ever arts administrator to be shortlisted for the Turner prize for his work at the Derry gallery.

1990-2001 (IMMA)

In 1990, McGonagle was appointed director of the newly established Irish Museum of Modern Art.

There was considerable controversy over the decision to house the modern art museum in the historical Royal Hospital Kilmainham building. Many members of the public were unconvinced that the 1684 building would not have to be radically altered in order to be suitable for the display of large-scale contemporary art works. The structure had been refurbished by the state a decade previously at a cost of over £20 million. The restoration for the gallery would cost a subsequent £600,000 (funded by the Taoiseach's Department). McGonagle encouraged the use of this site as opposed to a new purpose-built premises in the then redeveloping Dublin Docklands area. He asserted that “[a]ll we've done is simplify the layout of the individual spaces, making very definite changes while trying to retain the integrity of the building [...] there is no better place in Dublin for a museum of modern art because it is a place charged with historical significance. It leaves the standard art museum, the custom-built clean white box, far behind and exists in a world artists are beginning to address. It's a museum of the future, a place rather than a space, and will be good for 100 years.”

The gallery was founded on an acquisition budget of £250,000 (Irish pounds), with £100,000 per annum for the following years. While living and working at the gallery, McGonagle developed a strategy for working with contemporary artists in order to collect “for the future”. At IMMA, he proposed to give educational and community-related programmes equal importance in his curatorial work. “Our first task will be to develop a relationship with the neighbourhood, then with the city of Dublin, with the whole country and with the world community.” For its opening exhibition, McGonagle amassed a collection from all quarters through acquiring, loans, and bequests that included works of Picasso, Mondrian, Gris, Braque, Giacometti and Miró.

The Museum’s founding coincided with Dublin’s tenure as European City of Culture in 1991. McGonagle was openly skeptical of the cultural capital concept, offering that “The Dublin 1991 money shouldn't be spent just on one-offs. It should nurture new groups [...] and if possible develop new systems of support [...] its effect should percolate through the decade” in an interview with The Irish Times that year. However, during the event the gallery welcomed its highest number of visitors to the “Gold of the Kremlin” exhibition which was organised as part of the City of Culture Programme.

In November 1991 ‘The Standing Conference on Managing the Arts’ was formed after a three-day conference organised by the Arts Council of Ireland at the cost of £90,000. The committee consisted of McGonagle; Colm O'Briain, former Arts Council director; Martin Drury, former education officer at the Arts Council; Anne O'Sullivan, director of the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork; Randall Shannon, managing director of Opera Northern Ireland, and John Stephenson, an independent producer. After only being allocated funding of £1,000 the following year, the committee voted itself out of existence. Some believed that the amount of criticism leveled at the Arts Council by the organisation might have influenced its subsequent attitude. Mr. O'Briain said that the resignation was in protest of the inadequate policies of the Arts Council towards the improvement of the practices and conditions of arts management. He stated that the organisation was “outraged” by the “pointedly inadequate grant offer of £1,000... The Arts Council stands condemned of spending money on grandiose one-off gestures without any commitment to the consequences.”

In 1993 McGonagle sat on a subcommittee of the Cultural Relations Committee (CRC) at the Department of Foreign Affairs (together with Adrian Munnelly, director of the Arts Council, and Sean O'Laoire) to reinstate the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The exhibition in 1993 saw Dorothy Cross and Willie Doherty represent Ireland. It was the first time Ireland had participated in the event since 1962. Also that year, McGonagle was a member of the Turner Prize jury. A decade after its conception, there was still controversy surrounding the principles of the Turner Prize. Addressing this at the time, McGonagle agreed that “the Turner Prize may not be wonderful- it's contradictory, it's complicated- but it's an attempt and that's why I accepted the invitation [...] I believe there's a generational shift here. Previously, artists seemed quite content to operate within the Irish environment, emotionally and intellectually, but now people like Dorothy [Cross] and Willie [Doherty] are very comfortable out in the world, but what'll be really crucial is the generation behind them. I really believe they could clear the decks in Europe.”

In relation to IMMA’s collection, McGonagle is quoted as saying “[m]ost of what we buy is Irish,” in 1993, “but I'm not operating a quota system. Part of that has to do with the practical dimension of how often you see international work. £100,000 is actually quite a modest sum, although it's a lot in Irish terms, so it's only right that we redistribute that wealth back into the system [...] Our primary concern is to close the gap between the artist and the non-artist. All plans feed into that- the artists on site, the educational and community projects. The museum shouldn't be a terminus for ideas. It should only be a moment in the process, a crystallisation of ideas in a certain form.” In 1994 the gallery acquired a semi-permanent Lawrence Weiner work for £20,000. During his ten-year appointment as director at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, McGonagle saw the conversion of the property’s stables into accommodation and studio spaces, the (then) part-derelict Deputy Master's House restored as a specialist exhibition space, and the 48 acres of the grounds dotted with contemporary sculptures. There was an enormous response by artists applying to use the studio spaces at IMMA, and the director encouraged applicants to be considerate of the place, stating: “It's not a mechanism to produce exhibitions, but I am trawling for ideas. Think of the difference the presence of the artist can make [...] I think we've suffered in the past from the idea of artist as hero. Nowadays, the curator is hero, especially in the European context. The danger is that the artist may become the means for a curator to realise ambitions. There's always an element of that but you have to fight against it."

In 1994 the Museum founded the Glen Dimplez Artist's Award of £15,000. Alanna O’Kelly received the first award, which was sponsored by the Irish-based company Glen Dimplex, and was designed to mark a significant level of achievement or development in the work and practice of exhibiting artists. The most popular exhibition in 1994 was Antony Gormley’s. That year the gallery developed projects involving primary schools, trainees with learning disabilities from St. Michael's House on Prussia Street, and “Return to Learning” students from Ballyfermot Senior College.

In 1996, Irish abstract artist Gerald Davis wrote an article in The Irish Times, criticising McGonagle’s vision for IMMA and calling for more historical and contemporary Irish artists to be represented at the gallery. He noted that “the Irish Museum of Modern [sic] largely ignores the contribution made by our own artists of the last 50 years and does not regularly make a cross-section of their work accessible to the public. The current policy of promoting that which is internationally fashionable is, in essence, provincial.” The gallery’s highest footfall to date was recorded in 1997 at 350,000, as a result of the popular Andy Warhol exhibition. In 1999, IMMA administered the first Nissan Millenium Art Project award of £40,000 for a temporary artwork. The award was granted to Dorothy Cross for her ‘Ghost Ship’ project.

On the first of December 2000, it was announced that McGonagle was to take legal proceedings against the board of IMMA to prevent his removal from the post of director. Board members were informed that lawyers for McGonagle were applying to the high court for an injunction restraining the museum from publicly advertising the director's position. The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gealtacht and the Islands (at the time), Síle de Valera, appointed Marie Donnelly and a new board to the gallery in February 2000. Only two members of the previous board had been reappointed. Marie Donnelly allegedly informed McGonagle that the post was being “redefined” a week previously and would therefore have to be publicly advertised. McGonagle's second five year term had ended several months previously. The board was split for and against McGonagle’s, and at least one member threatened resignation if he was not reappointed. According to another member, McGonagle did not have “an absolute right” to the position of director. After his first five years in the position, his contract had been rolled over without the post being publicly advertised. IMMA sources at the time described the dispute as a clash of “opposing cultures”. Marie Donnelly was said to favour a “block-buster” approach to the arts and pushed for a greater international flavour to the museum's activities. She was anxious for the next director to have the necessary financial and fund-raising skills to achieve this. Supporters of McGonagle said he was a proponent of a “people's museum,” accessible to all. Marie Donnelly was described as a leading socialite and charity fundraiser. During this time there was an outcry of public support for McGonagle and a number of high profile threats were made to withdraw collections and funding from the gallery should the director lose his position. The businessman and art collector Gordon Lambert claimed he intended to reassess his relationship with IMMA. Lambert had donated the largest collection at time in to the museum in 1992 and also established a trust that supplemented the museum. Others who expressed disquiet were Gerard O'Toole, Nissan Ireland (Nissan Art Award) and Lochlann Quinn of Glen Dimplex and chairman of AIB (then sponsors of the annual award). The High Court deferred judgement on the case until February 5, 2000.

In his final years at IMMA, attendance dropped to 260,000 (in 1999/2000) from 330,000 in 1997/8. This amounted to less than half the National Gallery's intake at the time. The Irish Times cited public disillusionment from a highly personalised campaign waged by McGonagle’s supporters as a possible reason for the disinterest. IMMA’s ten-year anniversary was noticeably overshadowed by the controversy. After a five month dispute, McGonagle stepped down as the director of IMMA despite being offered a new contract. He was able to negotiate a severance package with government mediator Paddy Teehan and was allegedly awarded €250,000 in the settlement

2001-2008 (City Arts Centre and University of Ulster)

Dublin’s City Arts Centre was set to close after a complete withdrawal of Arts Council funding in 2001. In October, McGonagle was drafted in by the Dublin City Arts Centre to lead a review of the organisation. It was announced that the centre would close for up to two years, and staff would be made redundant while a future plan was being worked out under McGonagle's leadership. He was given a salary of £40,000 to lead the review. In 2003, it was decided that the Arts Centre building on Moss Street would be sold for €4.25m. In light of this development, “The Civil Arts Inquiry” review was dismissed as purely profit-driven by other Dublin arts organisations at the time. McGonagle stressed the review process had created a healthy discourse. He insisted that all resources from the sale would be used to develop a new model for the centre with a future emphasis on programming and community involvement, rather than physical location.

From 2004-2008, McGonagle was the first director of a new research centre in the School of Art and Design at the Ulster University, Belfast. By 2007, he was set to succeed Colm O’Briain as director of NCAD.

2008-2015 (NCAD)

In 2008 McGonagle took up the post as Director of the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Under his governance, NCAD began an academic alliance in 2010, meaning the colleges have worked together on teaching and research in areas such as art history and cultural policy at UCD and visual culture at NCAD.

In 2012, McGonagle announced that the college was in talks regarding a possible merger with University College Dublin. McGonagle assured staff and students that a campus move to Belfield was not on the agenda at this time and that they would be kept informed on the progress of the debate.

In 2015, the management of NCAD had come under intense criticism from both staff and students over its accounting practices and provision of student services. A poll of staff found that 94% of NCAD SIPTU members supported a vote of no confidence in the senior management. In March protesters occupied the college’s boardroom on McGonagle failed to meet with students who had raised concerns about student numbers and charges. This was echoed with a 99.3% vote of no confidence by the students in McGonagle and senior management. This group then formalised into NCAD Student Action who continued to protest. NCAD management published a statement in response to the protest saying that the college was “going through a period of necessary changes in recent years in response to the Government’s reform agenda.” The Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee also raised concerns over the situation with the college’s accounts, with member Robert Dowds TD stating that the situation was “probably one of the most scandalous situations with which the committee has been presented”. In a statement NCAD Students’ Union said: ““As a well capable advocate of the art & design sector within our society and economy, McGonagle has not articulated the impact of such massive cuts on the education and arts sectors, which yield such essential and tangible benefits for Ireland. The recent protests in NCAD were in direct reaction to mismanagement, unaccountability and miscommunication within the college, which Declan McGonagle has overseen. In his remaining tenure we hope, the Director will live up to his assurances for a more cooperative and genuine relationship with staff and students.” with many international academics and artists announcing their solidarity with the students of NCAD. On 11 September 2015 McGonagle announced his intention to step down from his post as director of the National College of Art and Design at the end of the year.