1. New arts award brings Irish and Northern Irish artists together

The Arts Council Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland last week launched a significant new initiative that aims to promote the visibility of artists from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, encourage greater cross-border mobility and provide an opportunity to work closely with an invited curator.

The Curated Visual Arts Award is valued at €56k and designed to enable the selected artists to produce pivotal work that will advance their own practice. Artist Mike Nelson has been invited by the two Arts Councils to work with the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin and Void in Derry, to shortlist artists and select two who will show their new work at the two galleries.

The Void Gallery was established in 2004 as an artist-run space that includes two exhibition spaces as well as studios. The Douglas Hyde Gallery was established in 1978 at Trinity College’s campus in Dublin. Both galleries try and stimulate debate about what art is and run education and contemporary art programmes. Artists are advised to “consider the qualities of each of the galleries and respond accordingly considering everything from the obvious to the obscure”.

Mike Nelson is known internationally known for his installations, which are made up of sequences of meticulously crafted, interconnecting rooms, drawing on cinema and literature. The artists will also receive support from Mike Nelson, who believes the award will enable the winning artists to produce work and enhance their own practice, as well as making a public contribution to contemporary art practise. For more information, please click HERE.

2. Sculptor named for Tate Modern piece

LONDON, April 6 (UPI) -- Colombian-born sculptor Doris Salcedo has been commissioned by the Tate Modern to create a new work for the London gallery's Turbine Hall.

The work will be on display for six months beginning Oct. 9, the BBC said Friday. While Salcedo's plans are being kept under wraps, her previous works centered on themes of violence and loss. "We look forward to seeing how Salcedo's commission will engage as much with the iconic architecture of the Turbine Hall as with the symbolic significance of Tate Modern within the international contemporary art world," gallery director Vicente Todoli said.

Salcedo's work at Tate Modern will be her first public commission in Britain.

3. GLASGOW ARTS COMPLEX TO REVITALISE ‘FORGOTTEN QUARTER’

A 19th century former fish market in the heart of Glasgow, Scotland is to be transformed into a new resource for visual artists. The Briggait, in the historic and central Merchant City quarter is a much-loved building which, along with the nearby Trongate 103 redevelopment, will house 11 arts organisations and create a dynamic focal point for the arts. The Trongate was the administrative and cultural heart of the city – Glasgow’s ‘Royal Mile’ -- before 1800 and the whole area is being rejuvenated over the next five years.

Consisting of three large halls of the old fish market, The Briggait will support some 250 artists in 71 studios and a sculpture workshop and specialist library. It will open daily and include a café and spaces showcasing the work of the artists. The renovation, supported by the Scottish Arts Council, is expected to be complete in 2009.  Website: www.glasgowmerchantcity.net

Press contact: Scottish Arts Council, media office (E-mail: media.office@scottisharts.org.uk).

4. Here are the best exhibitions highlights:

Marcus Coates: Dawn Chorus
Marcus Coates once played animist shaman to the residents of a Liverpool high rise; now, in his new multi-screen video installation, 19 singers mimic the birdsong of the spring dawn chorus. They warble, they tweet, they cry. We titter. Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (0191-478 1810), February 14 to March 18.

Gilbert & George
This long overdue retrospective will take us from their early incarnation as "living sculptors" singing Underneath the Arches, to their latest pictures made in response to 2005's London bombings. Tate Modern, London SE (020-7887 8888), February 15 to May 7.

William Hogarth
The most comprehensive Hogarth show for more than 30 years, with over 200 works. Hogarth (1697-1764) depicted corrupt, raddled, gin-soaked, wormy old England at its worst. Would that he were with us now. Tate Britain, London SW1 (020-7887 8888), February 7 to 29 April.

mima
Much delayed and long awaited, the new Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art opens with Draw: Conversations Around the Legacy of Drawing, including work by Beuys, Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Matisse, Beuys, Bacon, Duchamp and Damien Hirst. Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (01642 726 720), January 27 to April 22.