11 June 2007

People, Places, Performance: The Richard Demarco Archives

** Photo opportunity with Richard Demarco at 4pm, Tue 12 June, Lamb Gallery, University Tower building **

Over a lifetime’s involvement in the arts, Richard Demarco has amassed an extensive collection of photographs, documents and films, which the School of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College is now digitising a selection of.

`People, Places, Performance: The Richard Demarco Archives' is a new exhibition - running at the Lamb Gallery, University of Dundee from June 13th to July 27th - which presents images from the Archive showing encounters between the people and places that Demarco brought together.

This exhibition is part of the 'Reunite in Dundee 2007' programme, which welcomes back University of Dundee alumni to celebrate the University’s 40th anniversary.

Richard Demarco has been one of Scotland’s most colourful and influential advocates for contemporary art since he helped found Traverse Theatre in 1963. An accomplished artist in his own right, he is know for his enthusiasm for bringing artists together, not just with other artists but with specialists in other fields. His influence is especially prominent in the Edinburgh International Festival and for bringing a number of highly significant Eastern European artists to Britain, most notably Romanian artist Paul Neagu. In addition to this he was the first person to bring Joseph Beuys to these shores.

The archives have been compiled by Richard Demarco as artistic director of the Traverse Gallery, Edinburgh (1963 -1966), director of the Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh (1966 -1998) and the Demarco European Art Foundation, Edinburgh (1992 - present). The camera has been his constant companion, enabling him to build a comprehensive visual record of his activities. His great skill has been to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners from many disciplines and to give them a platform on which they can interact: the gallery, the theatre, the conference and the extended journey. Among them are Seamus Heaney, George Steiner, Marina Abramovic, Tadeusz Kantor, Joseph Beuys, Buckminster Fuller, James Turrell, Magdalena Abakanovic, Roland Penrose, Blinky Palermo and Harald Szeeman.

The School of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, thanks to funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is engaged in a three-year project to develop a digital database, accessible through a dedicated website, comprising a selection of 10000 key images from the archives.

Euan MacArthur, from Duncan of Jordanstone College, said: "Richard Demarco's work is of great historical importance for Scottish and international contemporary art. There are so few public archives in this field that it is all the more important that we digitise these images to make them publicly available. Making the images available in digital format will give the public and many researchers in contemporary art history access to this unique historical record. Dundee is well placed to do this work with our knowledge of the archive and digital facilities. We are delighted to work with such an important archive."

Demarco holds an Honorary Doctorate from University of Dundee.

LAMB GALLERY
Lamb Gallery, (1st Floor, Tower Building, University of Dundee, Nethergate, Dundee): Mon-Fri 9.30am-8pm, closed weekends)

For further information:
Laura Simpson, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions Dept, DJCAD, 13 Perth Rd, Dundee DD1 4HT
01382 385330
l.z.simpson@dundee.ac.uk

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk