[spectre] NOEL SHERIDAN 1936-2006

[EAF Director]

It is with sadness that the Experimental Art Foundation announces the 
death of its inaugural Director, Professor Noel Sheridan.

Born in Dublin in 1936, Noel studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and 
Columbia University in New York. He was a painter, and a conceptual 
artist, often working in video and performance. He was deeply 
committed to the development and promotion of contemporary arts.

In 1974 Noel was invited to Adelaide to be the Experimental Art 
Foundation's first Director. He was already a leading exponent of the 
conceptual and post-object art beginning to flourish, in Sydney 
particularly, in the late nineteen sixties. In this area he will be 
remembered, particularly in Adelaide, for the work 'Everyone Should 
Get Stones', a work of great intellectual energy and humour, touring 
and testing many styles of philosophical approach to 'reality' with a 
relativist's panache indebted to the avant-garde Irish literary 
tradition of Becket, Joyce & Flann O'Brien. The work was published in 
book form by the EAF and shown as a gallery installation at the Art 
Gallery of South Australia.

Noel took up the position of EAF Director with unbridled enthusiasm 
and energy, wit, charm and humour. He quickly gave the Foundation an 
international profile and exposed the local community to 
extraordinary art and performance.

Much of Noel's career was in education where, as Director of the 
National College of Art & Design in Dublin from 1980 to 2003, with a 
four-year hiatus to direct the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts 
in Australia 1989-1993, he influenced generations of artists and arts 
educators.

In 1994 Noel was awarded an Emeritus Medal for his cultural 
contribution by the Australia Council for the Arts. In 2001 the Royal 
Hibernian Academy, Dublin, held a retrospective exhibition of his 
work and, in conjunction with, this Four Courts Press published a 
book, 'On Reflection', which includes an autobiographical account and 
contributions from many others, including Donald Brook and George 
Alexander.

Noel Sheridan died in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 12th July, aged 70.

A two-minute silence was held by the Irish Parliament to note his passing.

-- 
EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION curates its exhibition program to 
represent new work that expands current debates and ideas in 
contemporary visual art. The EAF incorporates a gallery space, 
bookshop and artists studios.

Lion Arts Centre North Terrace at Morphett Street Adelaide * PO Box 
8091 Station Arcade South Australia 5000 * Tel: +618 8211 7505  * Fax 
+618 8211 7323 * eaf at eaf.asn.au  * Bookshop: eafbooks at eaf.asn.au * 
http://www.eaf.asn.au * Director: Melentie Pandilovski

The Experimental Art Foundation is assisted by the Commonwealth 
Government through the Australia Council, it arts funding and 
advisory body and by the South Australian Government through Arts SA. 
The EAF is also supported through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, 
an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.