Adam's The Oliver Dowling Collection 11th September 2024

12 Art gallerists tend to put the stamp of their personalities - and their sensibilities - on their gal- leries, to a greater or lesser extent. Greater, certainly, in the case of Oliver Dowling. In the twen- ty years or so of his gallery’s existence, his individual identity unfailingly came through, even though the work he exhibited throughout that time was actually quite diverse. A sense of con- sistency and continuity emerged with his meticulous curatorial style and distinctive aesthetic sense, in a way that recalls, in another arena, Manfred Eicher’s overseeing of the ECM (Editions of Contemporary Music) record label. With ECM, the musicians do what they want to do, but you’re always aware that it’s a topnotch, Manfred Eicher production. Similarly, Oliver generated a particular, almost hallowed atmosphere in his Kildare Street gal- lery. Visit and you were in no doubt that you were there to engage with art in a serious, atten- tive way, and frivolity would be misplaced. That had to do partly with the domestic scale of the building. The exhibition space was relatively modest, something that could and did enhance the experience. When he showed Michael Craig-Martin’s celebrated conceptual piece An Oak Tree in 1977, it was not the work’s debut outing, but it was so effective you could be forgiven for thinking it had been conceived and created exclusively with the gallery in mind. Oliver Dowling by Aidan Dunne Image: Cecil King, Joseph Beuys and Oliver Dowling