The view: Gordon Dalton

Jan 11 2008 by Gordon Dalton, Western Mail

A BELATED Happy New Year to you all for 2008, a year in which Cardiff, oh sorry, Liverpool celebrates being European Capital of Culture.

Will be interesting to see how the capital of Wales operates in relation to our northerly neighbours and how Wales, as a whole, promotes itself this year.

With a number of galleries closing or already closed for refurbishment, there should be a lot of interesting offsite projects. The public realm should be buzzing this year as Safle, the newly formed public arts agency for Wales, look to make an immediate high profile impact.

With the Eisteddfod in the capital I would expect artists there to organise alternative independent events, perhaps galvanised by a new online resource and forum Artists Resource Cardiff (ARC) which launches next month.

Artes Mundi will be in its third incarnation at the National Museum Cardiff.

There should be a number of changes at an organisational level as people move jobs. It would be good to see new blood coming into Wales as well as a promotion of some of the many young interesting curators already here. Expect more rural activity as well with groups of artists popping up across the country with one-off and more sustainable events. Hopefully 2008 will be more varied and unexpected than what was quite a predictable 2007. Obviously a lot of that will depend on continued funding, which will be in short supply as the Olympics continues to tighten purse strings.

BAY Art in Cardiff Bay is hosting the nationally renowned Jerwood Sculpture Prize, which is now in its fourth year.

The judges have selected Adam Burge, William Clifford, Dallas Collins, Graham Guy Robinson, Jonathan Parsons, Nathaniel Rackowe and Graham Seaton to make maquettes of their proposals with Juliet Haysom given the top prize of £25,000 for her work Spring.

ALEC Soth came to prominence in 2004 with his documentary Sleeping by the Mississippi, a poetic and deeply enigmatic account of the river and its people.

His new series of work, Niagra is on show at Ffotogallery in Penarth from tomorrow. It is an intimate photographic study of the motels, their visitors and workers; of lovers and romantic tragedy that Soth finds so symbolic of the sublime waterfalls that separate Canada and the USA.